Jenny Edkins

      Starlings Dusk, on a winter’s evening, overcast, cold, a stiff offshore wind blowing in from the Irish sea as people emerge from town streets, in twos or threes or solitary, to see this miracle. Small figures muffled to the ears all eyes as the...

Alan Cohen

      Of Change and Collaboration Here in the Valley The sun each day Rises over the mountains At a different time in a different place In the East, some say But others see each day is unique And, flexible, cobble a self to suit And so they grow and...

Miles Salter

      Crisps with Robin Hood I almost missed him, with those camouflage trousers on. He was, naturally, in the woods. I had shorts. ‘Are you Robin Hood?’ I asked. He stared for a spell, then nodded. ‘Where’s Merlin?’ I said. ‘And Little Elton?’ He...

Lucy Atkinson

      Sunspot I watched her. Persephone. Sunflowers on her dungarees. Breathing in the blackened syrup. London air. She’s trying not to talk about it but she remembers. Winter. There’s Parsley on the windowsill. Planted in a little mug. The only spot in...

Stanley Wilkin

      Appearance and Apparition He pirouetted into the room, the lonely dancer With moon-blown hair. Along the way he brushed the sea Gathering it up like dust. Each morning seated on my porch I welcomed his unseen arrival A coffee in one hand a smile...

Rachel Coventry

      Clematis My mother loved wild things like clematis, she had respect for anything that disregarded perimeters, to hell with the neighbours and their territorial claims. Maybe that’s more me than her. Oh, you’re a brat she’d say like clematis; an...