The Moon’s Call
Hush now,
The sound of the moon
Budding on the float of her own white voice,
Her call, like
Spider silk strung from the darkest
Branches, swaying woozily.
Moon turns her ripe eye
To the ground, making
Music that melts,
The whole wood
Lit with alarm,
Dawn like a black knife.
Midwinter
Trees appear as brides,
Their snow dance wounding
The cosmos.
I am numb to you.
No one sees the snowdrops budding,
A bright field of knives.
If I turn away, they grow
In lines of white flame and,
As darkness falls,
A kingdom of black blossoms
Deep as a moaning mouth.
Things of Grace
Blue night is
An absent shade now,
A broken memory of sky,
Shadows moss-damp and
Pearled with honey.
There are corpses floating in the trees;
Things of grace,
Swimming over us in flight,
Fluent beings on bone-white wing.
They call to me
When the sky goes dark,
When the clouds are a wish
But no rain pours,
When the moon rolls past and
My eyes catch fire.
They curl over pools
To drink,
Pale-eyed, beautiful,
Something half-remembered.
Natalie Crick, from the UK, has poetry published or forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including Interpreters House, Rust and Moth, Ink in Thirds, The Chiron Review and The Penwood Review. This year her poem, 'Sunday School' was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her first chapbook will be released by Bitterzoet Press this year.