Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Robert Etty

print this page

Port Meadow in Sunshine

So hot as noon’s chiming that windows of cars
parked on Walton Well Road are wound down,
with meter change on dashboards for the taking.
Windows of houses are open as well
and rooms share their mornings with gardens
and pavements. Crossing the bridge takes us
out of the city, to Port Meadow
overlaid with buttercups, yolk-yellow mists
that horses float above and yellow slopes
where women in bikinis lie on blankets
reading paperbacks. Barges moored in water
we can’t see accompany poplars
planted sometime after Hopkins strolled
this sweet especial rural scene
around a curve and behind each other, green
against the greens of a wood and fields.
A silver kite, fixed like a lunchtime star
above the spire-serrated distance,
marks the gate we’ll make our way to
when we’ve said what we’re still saying
as sun dazzles on ragwort and buttercups,
to feel the suddenness of shade
and see how long my brown and your black
shoes will hold this golden bloom.

 

Page(s) 12

Back to top