Roberta Dewa

Nottingham, Notts, UK.

 

 

Roberta Dewa has always written fiction, and in her twenties published three historical novels with Robert Hale. While studying for various degrees she published poetry and short fiction, including a first short story collection, Holding Stones (Pewter Rose Press, 2009). In 2013 she published a memoir, The Memory of Bridges, and a contemporary novel followed: The Esplanade (Weathervane Press, 2014). Since retiring from university teaching, she has been writing poetry and short stories again, and in November 2017 won the Willesden Herald prize with her story Dark Song. Most recently Nightjar Press published her short story, Hide. She is currently coming to the end of the first draft of a new novel.

 

Poem written June 9^th, 2020.

 

Twenty

 

It was the year of fear, it was the year of re-formation. In the evenings the sunsets stretched reproachfully across the sky, and the people applauded from their balconies, striking their dreams between their hands. But in the morning it was still there, the dread in the creases of the pillows, so the people leapt from bed and stared out at the empty pavements and the gutters where the seedheads of a dozen strange grasses waved gently. And some went to their screens and drew their curtains, but others masked themselves and went outside, and when they met another soul they would skip away from one another, like the parting movement of a dance, and nod foolishly to the morning, and the next day it was all to do again.

And in the beginning they played in this new world like children, but as time drained away the children grew bored and fretful, and fear found the cracks in their smiles, and the weather broke into a fall of tears.

But the parched land drank the water gladly. The sky breathed in the freshness. And the birds sang.