Barmbrack

It was supposed to taste
of your childhood –
a childhood that I didn’t know –
I never knew you grazed-kneed,
talking excitedly, packed onto
that back bench, trapped
between a brother and a sister –

but instead, made something
different. You liked it. It was not
your childhood, rain on the windows,
warmth in the kitchen –
it was something different,
tastier, maybe, comforting
as the day fades, as the wind
rattles roudn the house –

warm cinnamon, half-melted butter
oozing off the fruited slice –
a new coziness. Isn’t that
how marriage works? We bring
our memories, make something new,
cherish the old. Relish this now.

Barmbrack is an Irish tea loaf, traditionally eaten at Halloween, with charms inside it that have various symbolic meanings. My Irish husband mentions it every Halloween, and one year I decided to bake a loaf for him. If you want the recipe, it’s here: https://www.irishexaminer.com/recipes/?c-recipeid=4079

I’m not a great baker, but this is delicious. It tastes nothing like my husband’s childhood memories, but it’s become part of our repertoire.

This is for dVerse. I’m hosting tonight, and we’re writing poems about food.

Day 10: Cruel Mistress

Winter is a cruel mistress,
alluring in ice diamonds and snowy dress,
she curls her lip at shivering and distress.

And yet winter never lies,
her eyes are the colour of open skies,
her heartbeat steady beneath the earth on which she lies.

She sometimes shares secrets
and sometimes splashes field and forest
with bright berries or a robin’s breast.

And when winter glowers,
punishes us with gales and hail showers,
we hunker by the fire for hours

waiting for her forgiving smile
twinkling in icicles, cold and beautiful.

Thank you to Kim Russell for this glittering, icy poem.

Kim M. Russell started writing when she was a schoolgirl and, since she retired from teaching in 2014, she has become a morning writer of at least a poem a day. She posts mainly poetry on her WordPress blog, writinginnorthnofolk.com. Her poems have been published on-line on Visual Verse, Spillwords, The Ekphrastic Review, Pure Haiku and the Poetry Pea Podcast, as well as in the following printed anthologies: Poetry Rivals and Love’s Labyrinth (Forward Press), Afflatus Magazine, River Writes (Bure Navigation Conservation Trust), Anthology of Aunts and Second Place Rosette (The Emma Press), Peeking Cat Anthologies 2017 and 2018, Fieldwork (New Nature Writing from East Anglia) and the Poetry Pea Journals, as well as a piece of flash fiction in Flash, I love you!, published by Paper Swans Press. Kim has self-published Between Heartbeats, an anthology of short stories and flash fiction, and a novel for children, Joe and Nelly. She lives in Norfolk with her husband and two cats.

Day 6: For Auld Lang Syne

Montmartre, after midnight,
in the very depth of winter,
under the host of her Cœur
in candlelight as black boa
feathers teased keys on pianos
and bowls of French onion soup.

In a gypsy skirt, she twirled
her midlife around the 25^th,
familiar threads of childhood,
like the first snows falling,
decorate steps of the Élysée.

Moments are thus sealed;
making mangers into magic.

On a market morning, pre-
feasting, stuffing red noses
into picks of ripe pineapples,
in gloved hands December’s
icicles thought to be trees.

In Le Train of many more
colours than just Bleu, chefs
at side tables flambé Suzette
till sugar runs liquid across
the stationed tongue of Lyon
that we’d mistaken to be l’Est.

Snowflakes, catching flight
on the staircases of interior
courtyards, with its Romeos
on balconies and holly berries
trailing, in a former factory.

Aotearoa on périphérique
of Paris, gifting out parcels
to Lusk girl, no longer local.

Montmartre, after midnight,
child born to be King and we,
under the giggle of cocktail,
whisper au revoir to the new
friends found as snow melts.

Never the same flake. Flame.
Moment. We cannot go back
and equally, can never let go.

Damien B Donnelly needs no introduction from me. Poet, podcaster, consummate host and supporter of poets and poetry, you can find him here:

Websitehttps://eatthestorms.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/eatthestorms/?hl=en
Podcasthttps://open.spotify.com/show/0mOECCAcx0kMXg25S0aywi?si=ttUYKsf9TX-WaeitLg6hpA
Email eatthestorms@yahoo.com

Eat the Storms is available from the Hedgehog Press, or Damien’s own website – and new publications are on the way.

Day 1: The Warmth of Snow

Cobwebs of crystal thread and
crisp flattened leaves held the path
we dared that morning.
Coats crammed full spurning the
whip of air; boots sketching the way.
Sun’s glare was too harsh to warm,
but the thrill of snow could scrape
winter’s stinging grasp.
We were catching snowflakes as giddy children.

Julie Stevens @JumpingJules kicks us off! Day 1 of the poetry advent calendar 2021.

The generosity of birds

By which I mean

The way the robin throws his song
out to the world

The way the herring gull
carves the sky

The way the starlings
create dreams

The way the wren
calls from the hedge

The way the pigeons
swagger across the city square

The way the goldfinch
embroiders a line
between tree and sky

The way the blackbird
melts the world into music

The way the cormorant
opens its wings its arms its heart
to the wind

The way the lark
sings only of summer

The way the buzzard
reminds us to trust the sky

A poem for Brendan at earthweal, celebrating biodiversity.

Writing through winter

I don’t really get writer’s block. But sometimes I don’t write much, and sometimes I don’t write at all. I’m learning to trust those fallow times. The fields look very bare in winter, but there’s a lot going on deep in that cold earth.

in the dark earth
daffodil bulb planted
waiting out winter

Oh, this is very short. A haibun for Frank at dVerse.

Ash Die-back

Yggdrasil is dying.
I’ve seen it – 
branches bare as arms
reaching towards the sky. 

Trees scream silently,
carrying the heavens
in their branches, 
weaving the world
with their roots –

what happens now?
Yggdrasil fumbles, falls -
worlds drift away -
the gods slip into darkness -
frost and fire and flood -

and where will we find wisdom
now Yggdrasil is dying?
Whose arms will we hang in?
Only emptiness. 

Brendan at earthweal invites us to write about trees. Here in Devon, our ash trees are dying. They are such a massive, ancient part of our landscape – the countryside round here is going to look very different in 5, 10 years’ time. I’ve been part of a project called the Ode to the Ash Tree Project. As an extra bonus, here’s a video of Katy Lee performing my poem Devon Ash. You CAN watch the video – just click where it says Watch on Vimeo.

Lingering – quadrille for dVerse

Oh, but the last wasps

are lingering at the bar

already drunk –

gentler than they were,

slower –

hoping for one more glass

one more song

one more stumbling/fumbling dance –

still chic, still slick,

still mumbling foolishly;

looking round, wondering

how summer left

so silently

A quadrille for Linda at dVerse

Wine

I’m yearning to sit
in a golden square
in the late afternoon light,
in that warm silence
that comes out of love
and needs no words.
I’m longing for a sip
of yellow wine, cold,
with condensation forming
on the curving glass.

It’s Monday, it’s quadrille night at dVerse, and Linda has given us the word “wine” to play with.

Easter Sonnet Sunday #2: Easter Eggs by Sarah Connor

How could you think of Easter without eggs?Shiny, foil-wrapped, hidden around the garden,small girls in nighties with their sturdy legsand boys in jammies, seeking, ardent?And boiled eggs, with their brightly painted shellswaiting for you to crack them. Inside, white and gold,like spring itself – blossom and daffodils.Winter is suddenly something we can holdand crack wide open.…

Easter Sonnet Sunday #2: Easter Eggs by Sarah Connor