Numinous

You see, there is this fold,
and this ridge,
and this sweet hood,
and this little shiny popping button,
and this smooth silver-glistening,
and this depth,
and deep, deep within,
there is something that touches you back.

Math Jones is a former bookseller & actor, out of London, now in Herefordshire. Writing primarily from myth & Pagan worthship, including praise-song & ritual. Two books: Sabrina Bridge (Black Pear Press, 2017) & The Knotsman (Arachne Press, 2019) with spoken-word albums on bandcamp & a poetry channel on YouTube. Has performed poetry throughout the UK.

The Folklore of Bridges

Carry no metal as you walk onto the wooden bridge
built without nails. Observe how cunningly it’s
pegged, half-lapped.  See it span the grey river
as if it grew here in rocks and rain.
Tell yourself it’s still a tree, pollarded
to the purpose, in all its burled and knotty grain.

You stride the weathered planking, head full of schemes.
But for even a paperclip or the last penny in your pocket
this bridge will warp and shed you in midstream.

Only if you are blind are you safe on the bridge
that blinks an eye.  All other walkers who
step out boldly under that great lid
are prone, halfway across, to find their own eye
caught in a gaze so steely, all movement
stops. But you will tap carefully around them

where they stand, their feet fast in a dream.
You’ll hear only their breath, or the bridge’s hush
of lowered lashes as you pass midstream.

They say, by the river, that to cross the bridge
that was never completed, it is wisest
to walk alone below its three stone towers.
Keep your lips sealed.  Keep your thoughts on all
you find distracting.  For just as the topmost stone is
never set in place, your ideas must not

reach conclusion.  Fix your eyes on the sky, that gleam
of hope in the future.  This bridge rests on your faith
in the unfinished, as you hesitate midstream.

Jean Atkin’s third full collection High Nowhere is published by IDP. Previous publications include How Time is in Fields (IDP); The Bicycles of Ice and Salt (IDP) and Fan-peckled  (Fair Acre Press). She is a poet in education and community.

The forager’s spell

We’ll find the beach, but first through
the flowering wood, there’s celandine,
little suns of spring, casting.

Then, anemones, all in white against
the green, and the bluebells
are on their way.

That waft is garlic in swathes,
stinking our fingers as we fill a bag.
Later we’ll flavour risotto

and freeze the rest for soup.
The blackthorn and wild cherry
are starry. Leaves begin everywhere.

Ferns uncoil, moss brightens
and on a rotting stack of birch,
scarlet elf cups shine our mood

as we reach a wide sweep of sand
and the sea, roaring still from
yesterday’s storm.

Water in the cleaved cliff boils
and on the seventh wave crashes high.
Make your wish as the hours

of day and night equate,
now, on my count.

Dr. Kate Noakes lives in Bristol. Her latest books are Sublime Lungs (Two Rivers Press, 2026) and Bog Queens (Green Bottle Press, 2026). She is one third of poetry performance group, Braid, and curates the poetry events for the Clifton Literature Festival