That old cliché: it seemed that time
had stopped;
and people we thought we knew
came quietly out of the cold
to meet us.
Some people said
it had something to do with the sun,
and some, with how the planets were aligned,
but when the river froze
we walked into an air
we’d never breathed till then, our strange companions
smiling, as we pitched our tents and stalls,
happy to see the flags
and bunting, as if yellow was a thing
they’d never seen before – and red, and green –
as if, for them,
the world was always white:
snow on their lips and hands and a shine in their eyes
that made us think of children like ourselves
watching a magic lantern in the dark
and falling, through slide after slide,
into understanding.