Seeding the Solstice

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Here, once, there was a storytelling throne 
but now the way over the bridge is barred 
by ranks of tall, tufted grasses, ash and beech  
have retreated behind a thumb-smudged sky. 
This wee glen clings fast to their tap roots, 
it’s warm in these woods for this time of year, 
no snow, nor hoar-laced twigs, not one puddle 
wearing a plate of ice, but so spaciously still 
between the damp trunks, each gap a stage 
in waiting, at the heart of the dell is a pond 
that floats the low sun's sinking face within 
a frame of moss, fallen leaves, snail shells, 
moorhen feather, around which we've come 
to scatter our swollen parts like the decaying 
galaxies of crab apples to let both sourness 
and sweetness season the soil from which 
we hope to grow with each lengthening day.

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Bob Beagrie lives in Middlesbrough and has published numerous collections of poetry and several pamphlets, most recently: When We Wake We Think We’re Whalers from Eden (Stairwell Books 2021), And Then We Saw The Daughter of the Minotaur (The Black Light Engine Press 2020) and Civil Insolencies (Smokestack 2019).

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