Letter to the Earth

Dear Earth

about this summer

thank you for the hope I took

from the charms and exultations

of goldfinches and skylarks

I hoped for swifts and listened for their needle screams

but summer evenings didn’t sound like summer

and no swifts flew, high or low, to predict our weather

like winter, spring, and other summers, our weather was unseasonal

storms woke me, rapping on my window

filling my room with the smell of the sea

bringing wide-eyed dreams of underwater castles

(Camber, maybe Pevensey)

of lost promenades and pavilions

and Seven Sisters falling

accepted as a warning, so I borrow hope

from an electric murmuration

a cormorant turning its wings to the sun

with love from Jenny

Note:

needle screams is borrowed from Ted Hughes's poem Swifts