Poems and short prose by Rosemary Nissen-Wade
There’s a crow calling
outside my front door
this clear, sunny day
in mid-winter. I look out.
Oh, he’s a big one, fat
as a lump of coal
but rounder.
He bursts from the tree
at speed, to follow the harsh
cry I can only just hear
of another, further away.
His bright yellow beak
shines against that mass
of solid black.
Then they are gone, both.
Down the hill to other
houses? Or into the near
patch of forest? Different
birds, more melodious, return
to my yard; warble.
(But I like crows.)
Let the poems come to you,
not you chase them.
Not how I’ve played it
all these years
following prompts.
If, would they be
fewer but better?
(But he didn’t say how
the poems might come.)
I looked so hard
to find my name
in the annals of Poetry,
in vain. ‘Let this be
a value judgment upon you,’
said an echoing voice
which I privately labelled
Doom.
And it would have been
so easy to turn away.
But I remembered
that when I began
I wanted only
writing instruments
and a beating heart.
I feel to find if it still beats.