Great Depression
If they ask where I am, tell them: I am
wintering. I have secreted small acorns
of sadness in crevices of gnarled limbs
and shall be savouring their bitternesses
on the back of my tongue until the days
lengthen.
But mainly, I’ll be sleeping:
while they beaver away under skies
painted Prussian Blue and Payne’s Grey,
I shall snore under layers of fat and fur
I worked for all year, until the days
wax warmer.
Only then shall I venture
from my lair to take the spring air; sore
eyed, they’ll stare, wonder who is that
creature—so slender, so eager? And
I’ll declare it is I, the grizzled bear—
tendered make-over by my nature.
Nathan’s poetry has been published by Muswell Press, Royal Society of Literature, Manchester Metropolitan University, Fourteen Poems and Broken Sleep. His debut collection, Threads, was long-listed for Polari First Book Prize, his second, CNUT, is published by Inkandescent.
nathanevans.co.uk