Not entirely reliable omens

Work in progress

Always the last to get it,
our warmer city waits on sightings,
news from Mendips and Quantocks,
the snow's disruptions
closing in from coast and moor,
first gusts reported
from ring road embankments.

 And you might detect it coming
in behaviour of seabirds
or office workers hurrying home,
a thicker kind of rain
and the children going to bed
in high hopes of a holiday snuck in
just after Christmas.

 But then, showing our age,
we're more concerned 
with finding shovels, gumboots, grit,
seasonal implements long left beneath the stairs.

Because of these rumours, these rumours
that solidify into the night,
we're going to be ready,
ready for what they throw at us.

 Tom Phillips