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Avalanche training

by  DJC

Posted: Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Word Count: 183
Summary: In the UK, teachers' INSET at the beginning of term usually consists of looking at league tables and value added, or maybe moaning about Ruth Kelly. In the Alps, we roll around in snow and find bits of plastic which emit a beep. This poem is about a talk we had on avalanches, in case we ever end up with a buried child on our hands (or under our feet).




Avalanche training, 2nd draft

In the drab safety of a hall
we met, knowing what
it was we came for – that
too much of a good thing
can be bad for your health.

Avalanche. Even the word falls
over itself, races from sliding v
to a hiss of snow-slabs, piano-
sized, as big as a car, capable of
rearranging parts.

We listened. Some took notes. You’d
think that snow on snow was no more
than a child’s winter dream,
the thing that turns clocks back
and is hard to stay mad with for long.

Not so, our instructor warned:
snow is no easy customer, prone to
sudden bouts of indecision, easily
tricked by the vagueries of wind-toss,
liable to end up in all the wrong places.

And then there is the cold, or
lack of it. Or the excess of it.
Snow seems never to be happy
being the sort of thing
that at home

lasts a breath. Here it’s different.
Here it can kill.
So we listened, took notes,
hoped we wouldn’t be the ones
not found till spring.

January 2006