On the rim of night

Here's the second of the new poetry volumes I picked up whilst on holiday - it's the late 2017 edition of Helen Dunmore's last collection, which was published posthumously ...

... I particularly like this poem from within:


Winter Balcony with Dunnocks

Close to the earth, creeping lowly
Mouse-coloured, unglamorous
Dunnocks, your dusty wings flirt
In the dry roots of ivy, you are unnoted
Untweeted creatures, you turn
Dry leaves and peck for grubs.

You came to my balcony, a cloud of you
Eight floors up and slender-dark
Tilting your wings to skirt the railing
And flicker among the geraniums
As the winter cold comes on --
Quick, quick against the dusk.

You don't care that someone was here
Before you: those two fat pigeons
Dumpily purring, the noisy ones
Who think I can't see where they slump
Between flower-pot and plastic bucket
Breast to breast, at roost --

No, you are too quick-dark
On the rim of night, flickering
Through the chill buds of the camellia,
Unnoted, untweeted creatures,
Dunnocks, foraging
December and the year's husk.

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Helen Dunmore (1952 - 2017)

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