PoetryAloud

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Rowan Taw Reads

The Wrong Winter

I wish for a winter walk.

Not the cool, clear, sun-burning walk of the blue skied South,
but the bladder tightening winter of the North, where...

Blood brambles through hedgerowed fingers pricked with frost,
leaves crack, twigs snap, echoing the rise and fall of brittle bone,
as each breath smokes numb, chill-toed warnings.

Branches, sparse stage, for a frugal Robin’s
solitary song of seasonal poverty,
bow humble, unlike..

Proud Ponga, warrior Nikau – always fully robed,
leaving me.. ever-green for a British winter.

(Ponga: New Zealand tree fern; Nikau: New Zealand’s only endemic palm tree.)

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