Tuesday 30 July 2019

Tuesday Poem: "Rain— Birdoswald" by Frances Horovitz


    I stand under a leafless tree
more still, in this mouse-pattering

    thrum of rain,

than cattle shifting in the field.

    It is more dark than light.

A Chinese painter's brush of deepening grey 

    moves in a subtle tide.


    The beasts are darker islands now. 

Wet-stained and silvered by the rain 

    they suffer night,

marooned as still as stone or tree.

    We sense each other's quiet.


    Almost, death could come 

inevitable, unstrange

    as is this dusk and rain, 

and I should be no more 

    myself, than raindrops

glimmering in last light

    on black ash buds


or night beasts in a winter field.

by Frances Horovitz


For more information about the poet, Frances Horovitz, see:




1 comment:

  1. The sadness is that Frances was diagnosed with incurable cancer while part of this Hadrian's wall project. Hence the last stanza. She was a single parent with a young child

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