Diana Bell

Oxford. UK

 

Short biography: Diana is an artist working with installation, sculpture, public art, painting & poetry. She often collaborates with poets & has performed & exhibited poems as part of her installations in Oxford, Bonn, Grenoble & Sydney. She has only just started entering competitions & was published with her first entry in Poems for the NHS edited by Matt Barnard. Also commended in the Settle Poetry prize.  www.dianabell.co.uk

Two poems    Bird Wisdom  -   Full Moon Night

 

Written 9^th April 2020

 

Bird Wisdom

 

The birds are talking to me.

The robin sings about working together –

‘You dig the earth and I will eat your slugs.

This is how the world works’.

 

The great tits are chattering in a crowd.

They sing about families –

‘We must all look after our own.

This is how the world works’.

 

The blackbird is more cautious

and keeps her distance high in a tree –

‘Take care who you are involved with.

This is how the world works’.

 

The pigeons talk quietly

waiting for their opportunity

to swoop, to take, to steal -

This is how the world works.

 

And the kite soars high above,

silently watching, seeing all

and saying nothing.

This is how the world works.

 

 

 

Poem written 7th May 2020

 

Full Moon Night

 

There is a tightness in the air

Clouds are moving fast across the sky

The moon has a halo

and no birds sing.

A deer steps lightly through the trees.

The fox knows this is a good night

to take the unwary.

And what do I know?

That the earth is a sphere in space,

that there are seven billion humans on the planet,

that the moon is three hundred thousand miles away,

that there are eight planets in the solar system,

that we are part of a galaxy,

that there are a hundred billion galaxies.

I breathe deeply

and go back inside

where music is playing