Harvest at Morwenstowe
All must be safely gathered in. As the villagers
Push shut their buffeted doors, their vicar,
Flapping, motley in primrose and purple, zig-zags
Down the cliff path, lurid in the leering,
False light that jags between the roiling
Slate-clouds and the slant-edged rocks.
At this outpost of the eternal, no-one
Is given up for lost. The sky clears; the bell
Is rung on the hill top; and the gleanings
Of the storm, the mortal flotsam, cradled
And folded, is sown in the fresh furrow
Beside the church. ‘For the earth,’
He reads, ‘bringeth forth fruit of herself.’
At dusk, he is seen through the vicarage
Window, writing letters of condolence,
By the blackbird, who cocks her tail
In the hedge, splashing the undergrowth
A warm maroon; and tears through the brambles.
Elaine Ewart was the inaugural Fenland Poet Laureate in 2012. She has been published in Friction magazine and recently edited and self-published a nature poetry anthology, Words for Wide Skies, available from WWT Welney and blogs at flightfeather.wordpress.com