It's Still Life

Walking In The Shoes of Blackberrying

It’s the 3rd stanza of Blackberrying.
That last hedgerow is behind her,
a milk bottle filled with blackberries,

and the bite of sea air funnels
a phantom laundry wind that
slaps her face.

Terns and gulls hook at the air,
and salt marsh sheep scatter
like chalky clouds on green hills.

She walks along a dirt track,
fence posts prone by wind,

soil summer-hard underfoot.

The track’s as straight as arms
reaching out for the crisp sea.

The horizon melts and thins,
a shaft of deep blue, the sky
feathered and silver as sand.

What god anchored that isle
headland to the sea. What
arrow’s feathers still remain.

She remembers this day as eternity.

Written for dVerse Poets, an ekphrastic poem based on Fay Collins’s painting “Eroded Coast, Ireland”. Fay Collins’s collection is at this link. When I saw this painting, I immediately thought of one of my favourite poems, Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath. For a moment, I was walking in her shoes. Shared with #APoemADay on Twitter   ©Misky 2021