Already what little sunlight there has been

each day of the new year dies a little

later in the west. Today the layers

of pale orange and gold seem to stretch

like a canopy far into the Welsh hills,

over the mountains, and the sea beyond,

as if hope were only a journey away.

Meanwhile the numbers of the sick rise

everywhere like a temperature gauge –

and those of us spared thus far, through luck

or circumspection, must make the prosaic

precious: a flurry of snow, a child’s mitten

placed on a wall, a wood pigeon calling

on a chimney stack. And with every breath

a minding of the dead.