Kerry Darbishire, songwriter and poet, grew up in the Lake District where she continues to live, find inspiration and write in a wild area of Cumbria. Her poems have appeared widely in anthologies and magazines and have won or been listed in several competitions, including the Bridport shortlist 2017, and the 2018 PBS Mslexia Poetry Competition. Her first poetry collection, A Lift of Wings, was published in 2014 by Indigo Dreams. A biography, Kay’s Ark, the story of her mother, was published in 2016 by Handstand Press. www.handstandpress.net.
Her second poetry collection, Sweet on my Tongue, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2018 and is a finalist in the Cumbria Culture Awards 2019. She co-edited the new Handstand Press Cumbrian Poetry Anthology, This Place I know. Kerry is currently working on a pamphlet and a new full collection.
Beck Moss
Saunter the path wool-soft
haunch-wide
ferns thistle water mint
pressed aside
by heron fox deer
footprints mired fresh
to mud like fossils bedded in rock
Follow the rill
down to a whisper
the lightest cloth
thrown
over the day
the way
sedge warblers and damsels dance
wings-a-blur
through scots pines
lime-smirred larch
bowing to the lapis blue
of devil’s-bit scabious
sleet grass seeds
and butterflies
buried in thickets
of bog myrtle
and reeds
waist-deep fidgeting
for release
from the anchor
of winter
Kerry Darbishire
Cloudburst by Kerry Darbishire