Helen Burke
The Hillside
This Greek hillside has its eye on me.
It is a gentle bird by day
But a hawk by night.
It swallows the sounds of the sea.
It lays up a store of the sea’s voices,
Plays them over and over,
Until it is called under the quiet spell of the earth.
I would ask
On what far hillside do you now walk, father? mother?
Is it green there? is it good? and are there
Songs there?
I hope there are songs.
I say to you,
Even from this hillside I still watch out for you
Just as you still watch out for me.
Even now, as the bells of the goats
Ring the slow and golden evening in
And call us softly down to the sea’s edge
Where I believe,
If there is a song, a tune, left from you —
I will hear it
Within the waves’ sad murmur —
Aye, and the sound of my own low singing
May reach you yet.
Page(s) 89
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The