all the sweetness from the sun

Surprise, surprise - I did acquire one poetry volume when down in Norwich ...

... so here is 'Friday Afternoon', as taken from Alison Brackenbury's pictured, 2016 collection:


Friday Afternoon

It was the autumn's last day, when the roof
was skimmed by wings - Red Admiral butterfly? -
a glance of black against the sky, like truth.

It was the day on which the goldfinch flung
its yellow wing against the glass, as though
it had drunk all the sweetness from the sun,

by which, in the wild garden, hips were seen
swelled by the last night's rain, crowns under leaves,
as though they could stay glossy, ever green,

a day when children played and did not fall
when traffic slowed to world's edge, a gold crawl,
which I heard, sun-lapped, sleeping through it all.

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Alison Brackenbury (1953 - )

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