slipping on sunlight

Here's another poem by David Bleiman; this one is the title-verse, as taken from his pictured 2022 collection:


Gathering Light

This was the day we went out
to collect the light,
took poles, fitted grippers,
stepped onto the ice.

Our first catch was a shiver,
glinting off the river ripples,
tickling the neck of eider,
flicking the edge of the shore.

A mozzarella moon
made a cream face in the pines
and as the sun peered in
shimmered down to a see-through sliver.

Soon we were slipping on sunlight
that slid off the ice on the foreshore,
bleaching the cotton Ochils
over the snowfields of Fife.

When it came blinding over the estuary,
sun skimming an unruffled sea,
we gloved our eyes, blinked up
and the moon was away.

This is the day we catch the dusk,
lipstick kissing the cloudy collars,
twilight dapples in the gloaming,
gilds this glass that warms the night.

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David Bleiman (1953 - )

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