Tina Negus
Wensleydale evening
Sea-pies, piping, circle,
land in tussocks beyond the river.
Swallows swoop, twittering,
mopping up the midges.
And above, the swifts scream
high in the soft evening blue.
The fluting of red shanks mingles
with the shrill calls
of displaying sandpipers,
winging between the sand spit
and the stony banks.
From the marsh,
golden with king-cups, plovers rise,
calling "pee-ee-wit, pee-ee-wit",
whilst the warblers in the sedge
scrape and scratch their tune.
From the distant trees, a blackbird sings
to his sitting hen,
and willow-wrens give out
their repeated, falling trill.
The shepherd drives a new parcel of sheep
into the field by the bridge,
his eager collie at his feet.
They stand huddled together,
bewildered,
while the previous occupants of the lush green grass
look on with benign interest.
Across the lane, the village boys are playing cricket,
calling,
jeering,
as the solitary girl is clean-bowled.
Their bikes lay in a tangled heap beside the gate.
In the current, a lone fisherman
makes his last cast for the night,
and wades, splashing to the bank,
bright with campions, bluebells
and ramsons glowing in the dusk.
Night descends from the fells
as the cuckoo calls for the last time
this day.
Page(s) 33
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