Extracts:             

     mary

     yesterday 
     she walked between trees 
     from chapel to ruin

     followed a path of sorrel 
     where the ground dips
     into a muddy trap

     raced past garden walls 
     neat bricks, secret delights 
     peaches,
     stolen on a whim

     remembered, too late
     that sorrel poisons
     the unwary

     ~~~

     over the sea to annan 

     sixty cows grazing on skinburness marsh
     tired of cumbrian grasses
     looked over the water, wondering
     at the land across the sea
     scotland the brave
     scotland the bonny
     scotland the only five miles away
     what do you reckon, girls?
     give it a go?
     and then as one
     they took to the waters
     they swam and they swam and they swam and they swam
     across the solway firth to the land of annan
     ah, the bravery
     the sense of adventure
     the foolhardiness of cows
     five died during the crossing
     and several embarrassed themselves
     by becoming stranded on sinking mudflats
     where kindly firefighters and coastguards
     came to their rescue
     farmer bowe
     has farmed at silloth 
     for more than forty years
     and is
     surprised
     cattle have grazed on skinburness marsh 
     for hundreds of years
     but this has never happened before
     to the best of his knowledge

     he will make the trip over the border 
     and bring his girls back home
     he thinks they were spooked by military aircraft
     but I wonder
     I wonder
     maybe they tired of the marshes of silloth
     maybe they thought
     the grass looks greener and we will away
     (singing) speed bonny cow
     like a pig on the wing
     over the sea to annan
     will their milk now have a richness, a wildness
     a knowledge of all that might be?
     a memory of endeavour, of courage, of strength
     of bovine possibility?

85 poems

26 new, original illustrations

ePub ebook available now

from all good stores. 

Click here for Kindle edition. 

     Tom doesn't see

 
     fording the river was always a problem
     the horses don't mind
     cool water flows by

     one horse snorts 
     shakes his head
     there are flies exploring his eyelashes

     Peter is puzzled
     why this stillness?
     he wags his tail
     waits
     wags it again
     but Tom doesn't see the puppy 
     jump this way and that

     a cloud passes over while Tom thinks of Ruthie
     sweet Ruthie
     and Ruthie's dad Joe
     and last May on the green

     when Simeon Tanner asked her to dance
     and took her away and wed her and beat her 
     but it could have been...

     Ruthie's dad knew best

     Tom sits on the haywain stuck in the river
     while Willie Lott's dog
     jumps
     and wags his tail

     but Tom doesn't see

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

wormwood, earth and honey:

new illustrated edition

85 poems

26 new, original illustrations

by Catherine Edmunds

ePub ebook available now

from all good stores.

Click here for Kindle edition.

 Poems on this page © Catherine Edmunds 2007. First published in 'wormwood, earth and honey, selected poems by Catherine Edmunds', Pub Circaidy Gregory Press 2007, ISBN 9781906451042 paperback £6.50.

 Illustrations on this page © Catherine Edmunds 2011. First published in 'Wormwood, earth and honey: new illustrated edition' Pub Circaidy Gregory Press 2011, ISBN 9781906451271.