Rebecca Gethin lives on Dartmoor in Devon. In 2017 two pamphlets were published: A Sprig of Rowan by Three Drops Press and All the Time in the World by Cinnamon Press who published an earlier collection and two novels. She has been a Hawthornden Fellow. In 2018 she jointly won the Coast to Coast Pamphlet competition and has been awarded a writing residency at Brisons Veor.
www.rebeccagethin.wordpress.com
In the Siberian taiga
She won’t eat bear’s flesh,
It’s too dangerous to take a creature
like that into your body.
You don’t know how it might
change you.
The hunter must bury the meat under stones,
permafrost being too hard to dig.
He could use the fur
for warmth
the paws for medicine.
He mustn’t forget
to perform a ritual
for the bear’s re-incarnation:
he won’t recognise its new body
but it will remember its killer.
Rebecca Gethin