Flight of the Enchanter by Sue Davies

 


 

Sue Davies, a prize winning poet, lives in Catisfield, Fareham. Her first collection of poetry Blue Water Cafe published by Oversteps Books is available by contacting  smhdavies@hotmail.co.uk.  She has now completed her second collection of poems to be published in 2021.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flight of the Enchanter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was there we returned breath to air,

snagged by gorse, pricked with yellow welts.

In the beguiling mouth of the wind, a spangle

of grasshoppers, the button-eyes of birds,

a bronzed brook silking through columns

of lace and white linen flowers braced along

the sea-green flanks. She held my hand

tight which stopped my blood, and I was drugged

by her power, the perfume of pine and grass

just able to lift my feet, knees freshly scabbed,

rickety-thin from city streets. We pounded

a path dead, grey baked clay where nothing grew –

even hissy dandelions stopped short without

a chance to root. But the light cut our eyes

like diamonds – ferns and nettles glowed

white gold, birch leaves darted like fish

where the path narrowed and slothed off

into the murk.

                       Deeper still, thin saplings

leaned over the fading path, their crowns

puffs of insipid clouds among oaks cracking

their dry roots below the earth. I felt my

dappled skin graft to hers, like the underwing

of the silver-washed fritillary. We took

the hardest path she said, to teach me

the ways of the forest.

 

 

Sue Davies

 

Blue Water Cafe is available to purchase directly from Sue by emailing  smhdavies@hotmail.co.uk 

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