neighbourly windows, someone’s flickering screen,
a lamp-lit page, drawn curtains.
Let us praise intimacy, talk and books,
music and silence, wind and rain,
the beautiful bones of trees, taste of cold air,
darkening fields, the glittering city,
that winter longing, hiraeth, something like prayer.
Under the stilled heartbeat of trees,
wind-snapped branches, mulch and root,
a million bluebell bulbs lie low
ready to flare in lengthening light,
after the dark, the frozen earth, the snow.
Out there, fox and buzzard, kite and crow
are clearing the ground for the myth.
On the darkest day bring in the tree,
cool and pungent as forest. Turn up the music.
Pour us a glass. Dress the house in pagan finery.
The Year’s Midnight
The flown, the fallen,
the golden ones,
the deciduous dead, all gone
to ground, to dust, to sand,
borne on the shoulders of the wind.
Listen! They are whispering
now while the world talks,
and the ice melts,
and the seas rise.
Look at the trees!
Every leaf-scar is a bud
expecting a future.
The earth speaks in parables.
Promises. Promises.
About the Author
G
ILLIAN
C
LARKE
was born in Cardiff in 1937, and now lives in Ceredigion. A poet, writer and playwright, she is president of Tŷ Newydd, the writers’ centre in North Wales which she co-founded in 1990. In 2008 she was appointed the National Poet of Wales and in 2010 was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry. Carcanet publish her Collected Poems and Selected Poems.
Also by Gillian Clarke from Carcanet Press
Collected Poems
The King of Britain’s Daughter
Five Fields
Selected Poems
Making the Beds for the Dead
At the Source
A Recipe for Water
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2012
by Carcanet Press Ltd, Alliance House, 30 Cross Street, Manchester M2 7AQ
This ebook edition first published in 2012
All rights reserved
© Gillian Clarke, 2012
The right of Gillian Clarke to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
Epub ISBN 978–1–84777–688–4
Mobi ISBN 978–1-84777–689–1
The publisher acknowledges financial assistance from Arts Council England