{"id":15356,"date":"2017-12-25T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-25T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=15356"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:21:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:21:38","slug":"on-the-fourth-day-of-christmas-we-bring-you-alwyn-marriage-megan-pattie-and-jenny-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/on-the-fourth-day-of-christmas-we-bring-you-alwyn-marriage-megan-pattie-and-jenny-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Fourth Day of Christmas we bring you Alwyn Marriage, Megan Pattie and Jenny Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sensing the stable<\/strong><\/p>\n

New-born eyes don\u2019t focus for a while,
\nbut warmed by the breath of animals
\nand the love of a young girl,
\nthe baby gradually became aware
\nof a cow that woke him when she lowed,
\na donkey nibbling straw, the breeze
\nwhispering through the door to ruffle his hair,
\nclouds of sparkling dust that made him cough,
\nthe fragile peace pierced as anobium punctatum
\npunctured the wooden feeding trough
\nthat was serving as a cradle.<\/p>\n

He smelled the stable\u2019s bitter pungency,
\nlaced with the sweet scent of hay;
\nheard scratchy rustles as a mouse
\ndragged a husk of corn across the rough
\nstone floor, warm mumbles of a dove
\nshifting her feathers in the rafters.
\nHe felt straw prickle on his skin, tasted
\nthe sweet milk of a mother’s love, cried
\nfor the lost Eden of her womb; then chuckled
\nat the donkey’s bray and cockerel’s fanfare,
\nthe chuntering of chickens, two butterflies
\nthat fluttered by and the ant that tickled his toes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alwyn Marriage\u2019s <\/strong>latest two books were published in 2017: a novel, Rapeseed<\/em>, and a poetry collection about mediaeval women, In the Image<\/em>. She\u2019s widely published in print and on-line, gives readings all over the world and is Managing Editor of Oversteps Books<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Innkeeper<\/strong><\/p>\n

I watched them into the barn
\nthinking, at least I had not turned them away
\nwholly. I heard nothing as he was born.
\nI was blind to the star\u2019s rays
\nthat brought the kings gift-laden.
\nNo angel came to bid me prepare
\nfor the babe born to a mother-maiden,
\nso I had no room to spare.
\nBut as I watched from my window
\nthe perfect scene arranged as if by rule,
\nI knew that this is just how these things go,
\nand every story must have a fool.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Megan Pattie<\/strong> lives on the North East coast of England. She was a Foyle Young Poet in 2009, and her work has appeared in several online and print publications, including Snakeskin<\/em> and The Emma Press Anthology of the Sea.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shepherd<\/strong>
\nafter Rembrandt\u2019s \u2018Adoration of the Shepherds\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Time has its own pulse in the pastures,
\nwhere he can dovetail into the hush,
\nallow the night to swallow him
\ninto her expanding rooms.<\/p>\n

He has lost count of the births he has seen
\nunder the passionless stare of the moon;
\nhe has no fear of the smell of blood,
\nthe slime, the seething afterbirth.<\/p>\n

But here in this stable, he finds himself shy
\nas the light of this child\u2019s nakedness
\ndraws the darknesses out of him like stillbirths,
\nand re-animates them as light.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jenny Hil<\/strong>l was first published in the Netherlands in 2003.\u00a0 2016 saw her first full collection Voices of the First World War<\/em>, (Available at Amazon) which raises funds for Help for Heroes.\u00a0 Jenny has appeared in Orbis<\/em> & Strix<\/em> journals, and is a recent winner of The Poetry Society\u2019s members\u2019 competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sensing the stable New-born eyes don\u2019t focus for a while, but warmed by the breath of animals and the love of a young girl, the baby gradually became aware of a cow that woke him when she lowed, a donkey nibbling straw, the breeze whispering through the door to ruffle his hair, clouds of sparkling […]<\/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":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2017"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15356","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=15356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15391,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15356\/revisions\/15391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}