<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You<\/strong><\/p>\n if you were a holy person if you were only you then if you held out your hand <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Helen Evans<\/strong>\u2019s pamphlet, Only by Flying<\/em>\u00a0 was published by HappenStance Press <\/a>in 2015. She has a Master\u2019s degree in Creative Writing from the University of St Andrews. Her website is www.helenevans.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You if you were a holy person birds would fly to your hand the way they flew to that elderly man on the path by the Serpentine to feed on the pellets and seeds piled up on his welcoming palm if you were only you you\u2019d stroke the shadowy contours of your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11831,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11829\/revisions\/11831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nbirds would fly to your hand
\nthe way they flew to that elderly man
\non the path by the Serpentine
\nto feed on the pellets and seeds
\npiled up on his welcoming palm<\/p>\n
\nyou\u2019d stroke the shadowy contours
\nof your fear\u2019s averted face
\nthen settle down in its presence
\nlike lovers on a sofa
\nin front of an open fire<\/p>\n
\na female blackcap would fly
\nout from the fireplace
\nunharmed
\nyou\u2019ll feel her grip as she lands
\non your outstretched fingertip<\/p>\n