2 poems for May Day/Beltane

1
Somerset Levels near Glastonbury, Beltane or May Day (reprise)

i 
Not a leaf moves; not a bird calls. 
            I don’t know how long 
we stare at each other.
            We don’t know how long we have.
            
There is a drumbeat passes
from cell to cell
             a hot wind hopscotching
                        over the synapses.

ii

Listen – somewhere there is a question
                        knocking      and knocking.

Silence your heart
            and listen
            with all of yourself.

iii

Winds and moons that drive you to madness
            and love
                        which is always a form of madness.

iv

            I stand in the stream’s conversation
bruised wild carrot and water mint
                        wild watercress peppery on my tongue
                                    the astringency of wood sorrel
buzzard lifting off from the broadcast drift of windflower and bluebell
            something squeaking in vain
                                                Bel is back in the watered sky

– and look, on the path, a glow-worm 
            drab in the haze of daylight
                                    recharging its cells
            for its small terrestrial shining
                        its pinprick contribution
            to the sum of light in the world.

v

            This will go on
                                    wherever you are
            wherever or whatever I am
                        or am not.



2
From Entering the Wood 

and so it begins again with 
	a thickening of the light
strong spikes of bluebells
			pushing towards air

wild garlic
	the smell of it beneath our boots brimming
wood sorrel, violets, custard splash of late primrose
	beech leaves
			& here the windflower 
my daughter's face

		the scrabbling woodmouse
	whiskers twitching
eyes meeting yours for a flash and then gone

		yaffle of woodpecker

now the swallows’ return

	time of fly orchids and campion

		planted

all our fertile yearnings
	bare in the greening of the year

light spills
	the year begins
        in the open mouth
			of this fierce spring

1 From All The Missing Names of Love, (IDP 2012)
2 Edited excerpt from Entering the Wood, in Bardo (Shearsman Books 2011)

© Roselle Angwin 2011/2012/2025


With love and Beltane blessings to you all

PS I’ve just experienced these poems being read in an American accent, and, I felt, rather badly. If you have that option, I just want to say it’s not me!