Deer
First, they were ducks
nestling into the long grass.
Then they were branches
stuck upright in a circle.
A shake of the head
and they were a conclave
of deer, conversing privately
in the way deer do.
In that instant between
blindness and seeing
a dragonfly flew up
dazzling my eye with
colour. Could this be how
death arrives too, an intimate self
half-recognized, before she
changes into something else?
nestling into the long grass.
Then they were branches
stuck upright in a circle.
A shake of the head
and they were a conclave
of deer, conversing privately
in the way deer do.
In that instant between
blindness and seeing
a dragonfly flew up
dazzling my eye with
colour. Could this be how
death arrives too, an intimate self
half-recognized, before she
changes into something else?
Bark
I woke from a dream with the word bark in my head,
a memory without narrative or context. I sensed it
as I might have sensed the presence of someone I love.
Fissures and crevices were deeply scored into dead cells,
and lichen’s brittle curls hovered like grace notes over it.
A texture of entrances; skin covering sap and heartwood,
all growing and dying in the same moment.
It was with me all day, an after-image I
could not shake, nor wanted to. Just three days before,
we’d left you in a treeless place. Our pilgrimage
then into grey morning, the dead end of words. And
this is the dream. That you should come back as wood,
as tree. That there are words. A conversation continuing
a memory without narrative or context. I sensed it
as I might have sensed the presence of someone I love.
Fissures and crevices were deeply scored into dead cells,
and lichen’s brittle curls hovered like grace notes over it.
A texture of entrances; skin covering sap and heartwood,
all growing and dying in the same moment.
It was with me all day, an after-image I
could not shake, nor wanted to. Just three days before,
we’d left you in a treeless place. Our pilgrimage
then into grey morning, the dead end of words. And
this is the dream. That you should come back as wood,
as tree. That there are words. A conversation continuing
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Linda Anderson’s first collection, The Station Before, was published by Pavilion Poetry in 2020 and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney first collection prize in 2021. She has published academic books and articles on autobiography and on Elizabeth Bishop. She is Chair of Bloodaxe Books and founded the Newcastle Poetry festival which she still helps to organize.
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