Mick Delap
February
In gathering winter dusk
this green lane slants
off the shoulder of the Downs,
from airy hill fort, kestrel, high
swirling dots of caucussing rooks,
towards the village down below,
stream, water meadows, church,
and the buzzing torrent
of the A32.
The trackway’s trudged
into the unscarred chalk,
not sliced by flint or spade or digger.
And as the hills slouch towards night,
light drains off them past me down the lane,
so that I strain to see
what spring’s steel has uncoiled already
low down in the bare hedge,
foxgloves in squat clusters, feathery shoots
of cow parsley, acrylic new leaf
of the woodbine. Nor what I’m hoping for,
though it’s rare this time of year,
three days before my birthday, three days
before the day my mother died
in the house at the end of the lane -
no small yellow nose of a primrose
poking out from its tight sheath
to candle spring. It’s too early -
and too late, as darkness
spreads, settles.
Before me, dimly seen, the lane
bends sharply, and all the little light remaining
has pooled itself just round the corner
into one glassy puddle, jet black,
still. But as I peer towards it,
the surface suddenly winks silver,
tilts back to black; winks
silver once again, again. The dark mirror,
held up to darkness,
is reflecting light - from the bright ripples
of a blackbird bathing late, almost unseen,
who scutters noisily up from the puddle
as I stop, look, walk on -
part of this.
Page(s) 58-59
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