Sometime near Christmas, it might even have been Christmas day, a black pheasant appeared in the woods and tree-lined lanes round the village. I say it was black, but in actual fact it was the most lustrous dark green/black, an oily, moss black. I was out walking the dog when it appeared from the grounds of the manor house: elegant, watchful, picking and placing its feet among the beech leaves, moving forward in that slightly hunched-shouldered way. It had with it a brown, bog standard pheasant and they were moving through the murky, rainy dusk of winter without knowing how beautiful they were.

I kept seeing it around the village when I was out and about, sometimes with its friend, sometimes on its own. I saw it after a flurry of snow had set once…

In the space between
the dark leaf-fall of night
and frosted dawn,

an ancient bird flies
a path between flower-clouds
and thick-breathed river,

whose milk-chocolate beach listens
to the fiddle-wind whispers
of the coming storm.

Here, we wait
for honeyed shots of light
and perfumed peace,

and if we can recall
how seasons cycle
blood red sinking into cool blue

diamond prisms and shadows play–
then we know the language of dreams —
where an ancient bird flies

beneath twinkling glow
skimming the surface
between yesterday and tomorrow.

The Oracle made me work for this one. Perhaps she senses how everything seems unsettled.

Today’s drop in is by another poet from the Dreich stable, Kate Boston-Williams, reflecting on a poem from her debut collection, Snake Skins. Welcome Kate.

Thank you Nigel for showing an interest in my first collection of poems “Snake Skins” and for inviting me to share my processes and inspirations for one particular poem. It’s been strange looking at it again after some time and trying to fathom exactly why I did choose to write it like that. Not as easy as I first thought. Perhaps that’s why I’ve chosen “Under Snow” it seems a quiet unassuming little poem and I suspect that’s why it’s where it is in the collection – but don’t be fooled.

These poems decided to group themselves together and shuffle about into an order. I couldn’t see the thread at first but then with careful peering a shape and a meaning emerged. They speak of…

History, I think, is light trapped in a black hole. It is a moon wrapped in brown paper. Perhaps our love was also like that; something I did not see clearly then. Though how could I, or anyone, see beyond the occupation? Peace was a mirage, as was feeling comfortable. Still, we chased it. We were hiking an unmarked trail with hidden turns, pursued by beasts more horrible than any found in a fairy tale because they were human. And were you one of them? You were a shapeshifter with many names. Oh, I was a shapeshifter, too–perhaps we all were. I tell myself at night that I was working for good.

What do you tell yourself, Paul?

They said you’re dead, but I sense you out there. In my haunted dreams, I feel your presence—somewhere. Watch for me. I’m coming.

A continuation of my…

For C.

Painting by Monet.

Salt waves and red rowans

There are times and days
when rain falls straight to the quick,
fills hollow bones and bilges
of the boat with white sails,
but the sails are still full, course set.

Sea, wave-chopped, wrinkled,
a silk garment from the days
when riches were a childhood,
a full belly, and dreams
of sailing to the honey land.

On this windswept hill,
beneath rain and bare-leafed trees,
I smell salt waves, hear the north
sing its songs of rowans
red, thrushes and the coming spring.

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Jude Nutter was born in Yorkshire, England, and grew up near Hannover, in northern Germany.  She studied printmaking at Winchester School of Art (UK) and received her MFA in poetry from The University of Oregon.  Her poems have appeared in numerous national and international journals and have received over forty awards and grants. She currently lives in Minneapolis, and divides her time between Minnesota and Dingle, Ireland, where she has a family home. Jude will be The High Window’s Featured Poet in the second instalment of the spring issue. However, to give you a further insight into her work, you will find below a review of her latest collection, Dead Reckoning, by the Canadian poet and critic P.W.  Bridgman and her long poem, “Disco Jesus and the Wavering Virgins in Berlin, 2011”, which he discusses in it.

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 P.W. Bridgman’s third and fourth books—Idiolect (poetry)…