I’m sure a lot of us, finding ourselves immured indoors for long stretches of time, are beginning to pay more and more attention to the birds on our streets, in our yards and gardens. Since this crisis kicked off it seems like the dawn chorus and avian evensong are getting ever louder. Maxine Rose Munro has also found herself studying the habits of birds much more closely and these two new poems come out of that fascination. In her own words, Maxine Rose Munro describes herself as ‘a Shetlander floating about on the outskirts of Glasgow writing poetry in both English and Shetlandic Scots, some of which gets published sometimes’. Well, I’m glad to be giving these two poems a home online.
Quickening
The magpie’s ratchet
tightens our world
momentarily
sunlight seems
too bright to breathe
somehow lungs expand
into spring and
growth is everywhere
winning the race
for our attention
focuses
Potential takes its hold
Godlike
The day I was God
I held your life; my hands,
cupped around your fragile body,
thrummed to that heartbeat,
fast, sacred, to you essential.
I caressed you, broken thing.
My desire was to fix, only
as my hands uncupped,
you sped off, godless.
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