from Wintering

1

Things are hunkering down. Roots
burrow deep, nosing among the winter
nests, the curled fur and trembling
antennae. The seed lie snug in the
earth’s closed fist. Complete darkness.
And a heat that’s miserly, generating
just enough to keep the heart ticking,
to keep the blood chugging through
thickening veins, sluggish as sap
shrinking back to the centre, where
a sullen fire has buried its embers,
a treasure stored against the hard times.
Such as now, when day is drawing
to its end, when evening descends
like a grey bird roosting, and the
creaturely minds have all shut down.
Nothing’s getting through, no word
of comfort. Except perhaps for the fall
of that last leaf, its dying touch an old
heartbreak, thunder on a distant planet,
the slow, funereal booming of the wind.

 

 

 

 

David Calcutt is a playwright, poet and fiction writer from the West Midlands. His most recent publication is the poetry collection, The last of the light is not the last of the light from Fair Acre Press. He is currently working on two theatre projects with Midland Actors Theatre. Website: http://davidcalcutt.com/about/