Two Poems

 

 
Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance
Carl Sandberg

 

Dear Diary,

I have discovered a poet, a writer I hadn't heard of even though she is from round these parts.  I borrowed one of  her books from the library and unusually for me with poetry books, I loved every one of the poems within this one.  Have you heard of her I wonder?  Chris Kinsey. She was BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year in 2008 and lives in Wales.  She is also a rescuer of greyhounds though Greyhound Rescue Wales and a commissioned sequence of poems Houndlove was included in Poems of Love and Longing (Pont Books, Gomer Press, 2008). Chris Kinsey has been dubbed ‘Greyhounds’ Poet Laureate’

These two just right-for-this-season poems are from her book I borrowed,

 Cure for a Crooked Smile 

One February Night

To appease a hunger

brought on by reading about snow

I start making porridge.

Sensing the wolf in the blizzard

I watch my dogs asleep at the hearth,

muzzles twitching, honing dream scents.

I stir till the pelt thickens,

scatter almonds and pumpkin seeds,

twirl in honey and lick the swell.

Wind snuffles at the door

snowflakes scratch softly

icicles drool.

 

Chris Kinsey

 

Moonlighting

When the New Year rolls over on dark mornings

I wonder how much is coaxed

by moon’s second-handlight?

Snowdrops appear after the first full circle

as if the force which tugs tides, sucks white

up their stalks, draws them on to swell and drip.

This play of pearling

sets the birds rehearsing

long before dawn.

The moon wanes; snowdrops open wing-nuts

on a bit more day.  By the big, mirror-moon,

of Candlemas, they’ll still be hanging parachutes.

Courting birds will chorus light.

Last February flood, bubbling curlews

waded through quicksilver midnight.

 

Chris Kinsey.