Devil Day by Kathryn Bevis

 


 

Kathryn Bevis is an emerging poet and educator. She read English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and is founder of The Writing School in Winchester. Kathryn hosts a Poetry for Wellbeing project for service users of the charity Mind, funded by Arts Council England. Recent awards include being shortlisted for the Nine Arches Press Primers Scheme, winning first prize in the Poets and Players competition, third prize in the Welshpool Poetry Festival competition, and runner up in the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our ending happened as a gift. That day

the change blew through us.  A shudder-flood

of starlings flung away like iron filings

while we gripped the path, jackets billowing,

 

hair full sail. Even the features of your face,

grim-set against the wind, threatened

to unmoor. We flattened our feet onto

the track as thorns thrashed into new shapes

 

against a damaged sky and the coconut scent

of warm gorse faded on the air. At the peak,

great lumps of basalt, torn from the hills

some other devil day, lay hurled about. 

 

The wind whirled in the coves of our ears

to make them into echo chambers,

casting our voices off elsewhere,

sending thought to unspoken places.

 

All at once, each flailing thing was stilled.

We faced each other. Not a word. We knew.

As you scrambled, separate, down the scree,

the heather foamed, on fire beneath my feet.

 

 

Kathryn Bevis

 

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