Deborah Harvey’s poems have been widely published in magazines and anthologies, and broadcast on Radio 4’s Poetry Please. She has three poetry collections, Communion (2011), Map Reading for Beginners (2014), and Breadcrumbs (2016), all published by Indigo Dreams, while her historical novel, Dart, appeared under their Tamar Books imprint in 2013. Her fourth collection, The Shadow Factory, will be published in 2019. Deborah is co-director of The Leaping Word poetry consultancy.
Brown Dwarf Star
for CB
Marooned in your cupped hands
a juvenile starling
washed into our garden
on a tidal wave of fledglings
trying out their wings,
who mistook our patio door for air, crash-
landed on concrete
Stunned, eyes shut, she huddles
her feathers cut
from layers of grey-brown slate,
a globulet of blood
crimson in the ebbing sun
What’s the diminutive of little star?
starlingculus – starlingette–
or brown dwarf star
too small, too weak, too dazed to shine?
I stroke her back
with the back of my finger,
she opens her eyes, closes her beak
sits in the cup of your lifted hands
your gentle, capable lifted hands
feeling the dusk beneath her pinions, her feet
gripping your palm till she’s steady
ready to fly
Deborah Harvey
