Winter and Snowfall (Motif)
Winter and snowfall appear regularly in Clarke's poems, contributing to their atmospheres. At times representing risk and death, and at others signaling quiet moments of peaceful reflection, these motifs take on a dynamic role in Clarke's work. When the speaker's daughter in "Catrin" asks to go "skate / In the dark, for one more hour," she indirectly evokes the cold temperatures of a Welsh winter. The speaker's conflict in letting her daughter go out juxtaposes the cold external world with the warm proximity to one's mother. However, the speaker also insinuates that allowing her daughter to go out despite the risks will help her develop as an individual person.
Snow opens the first line in "Heron at Port Talbot." Although winter and snowfall often symbolize death, here they are construed as a more temporary and less dominating force than death. Snow also buries some of the evidence of the steel mill's pollution and provides the environment for the speaker to encounter the heron.
Unlike the previous two poems, "Musician" depicts snow in a way that conveys the speaker's awe. Sensory inputs intertwine to become a holy experience when the speaker hears music in conjunction with feeling and seeing the bitterly cold snow.
Birds (Motif)
Clarke's speakers often encounter other beings in the natural world, including birds. The birds both exist as their own selves (which Clarke depicts through naming them or providing details about their appearance) and as symbols for freedom, nature, and movement. The speaker imagines the heron in "Heron at Port Talbot" to fly as a divine messenger opening roads in the sky for other herons. In "Neighbours," different migrating species fly through contaminated skies after the blast at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Despite the natural affinity that many people have for birds, people are warned not to approach the ones that died as a result of radiation. Here, nature and industry collide with unintended horrific consequences.
Dark Water (Symbol in "Lunchtime Lecture")
In "Lunchtime Lecture" the speaker describes a dark sea that fills the skull of a long-dead woman, symbolizing the vast expanse of time. Death is akin to drowning in the water of time. When the speaker creates a feeling of connection to this long-dead woman, she imagines them staring at each other "dark into sightless / Dark, seeing only [themselves] in the black pools, / Gulping the risen sea that booms in the shell" (26-28). In other words, humans can only access a few drops of the dark waters of time.
Colors (Symbols in "Neighbours")
In the final lines of the poem "Neighbours," the speaker mentions green and blue. The speaker (communicating in a plural "we") describes waiting for the birds to return on their annual spring migration. They watch for "one bird returning with green in its voice," symbolizing rebirth and possibility after the disaster at Chernobyl (21). The color blue makes an appearance in the final line: "golau glas, a first break of blue" (22). Here, blue refers to clear blue skies uncontaminated by nuclear fallout. This symbolizes hope.
Grandmother's Fur (Symbol in "Musician")
The bitterly cold winter in "Musician" leads the speaker to sleep beneath two duvets and her grandmother's fur. The fur symbolizes comfort and connection to both family and the natural world. Because the fur belonged to the speaker's grandmother, it comes from an earlier time when it was even more common for people to process animals and use their pelts for clothing, carpets, and blankets. This detail that the fur belonged to the speaker's grandmother contributes to a sense of weighted warmth.
