Jan Harris

Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire

 

Jan Harris’s poems have appeared in various journals including Poetry Wales, Acumen, Envoi, Snakeskin, and The French Literary Review, and in several anthologies, including For the Silent, (Indigo Dreams Publishing).  She received third prize in the Wales Poetry Award, 2019. Her first collection, Mute Swans on the Cam, is due for publication in 2020. Jan lives in Nottinghamshire.

 

 

Date of poem: 21^st April 2020

 

Shielded, 21^st April 2020

after Cornish Headlands, Abbott Handerson Thayer, 1898

 

Today, no human eyes spot the pebbled wings

of sandpipers against sea-polished stones, 

or see the purple sheen of plumage

blend into sky and clovered heath.

 

There are no boots or flip-flops on the path

to make adders zig-zag away and slip

zippered backs into crevices where thrift

and sea breeze hide their tangled roots.

 

And artists no longer pause to watch

a Brimstone butterfly settle on a leaf

then close its cryptic wings and disappear.

 

Today, we stay at home, or briefly venture

into streets or gardens, where birds sing to a sky

that has never seemed so empty, or so blue.