Buzzard
In the third month of drought
we swerved round a buzzard that stood in the road.
A hedgerow deep breath for the moment to register,
to name the thing. We turned, drove back. In the hazards
she was shaded with the forest. Was she stunned?
We held hands. She was something late mediaeval
and heraldic in a Renaissance bestiary,
already anachronistic, the hooked-sword beak
out of proportion with our expectations,
her talons too, handspans ready to grasp
the printed word. We thought this called for
my leather coat from the back seat to hood her
but easier than the turn of a page or a wheel,
easy as a water droplet falls from a leaf tip,
she was in flight and measured her wingspan
over the bonnet and in the trees and she had left us
with the problem of how to pull out, faced the wrong way,
cars here and a stream of cars there,
in the tenth week of drought, the fourth month of war,
the third year of sickness, as all the wheels turned.
Matt Kirkham has three collections of poetry, most recently Thirty-Seven Theorems of Incompleteness (Templar, 2019), which tells the story of the marriage of Kurt and Adele Gödel. Born in Luton, living in Co. Down, Matt works as a teacher.
Cambois, Northumberland
North of Blyth is another name
just as delicate
redolent of French lace
a light breeze
couples reading Proust
on a terrace
overlooking woodland
and there is a certain delicacy
in lines on the map
the black capillaries of railway sidings
where coal mingled with the village
and The Miners Institute
that’s still there
a fine building
fronting a landscape
stripped of history
flayed to a point
where veins remain
kept alive by walkers
and dogs scampering
on a decent beach
which is all a little bit obvious
a word scribbled in a notebook
and even that’s spoiled
when the bus driver said
they call it Cammuss
they might do
but here’s a cutting
from the evening paper
residents reject
a clean coal plant
and certain jobs
calling for a green future
for them and their children
that’s Cammuss
that’s a village
a community that only
someone passing through
calls Cambois.
Terry Quinn was an NHS Medical Engineer. He has four collections of poetry. The latest being Notes on the Causes of The Third World War ( IDP 2021). He organises Damson Poets events in Preston.