photo Rose Cook
I’m really pleased to introduce my new book When the Birds Came.
It shares new poems and takes you through my year. A year when the birds came.
When the Birds Came is available now from Rose at: rosecook108@gmail.com at £5 plus p&p
warmest wishes to you,
Rose
June – time of blossom:
Now summer is in flower and nature’s hum
is never silent round her sultry bloom
insects as small as dust are never done
wi’ glittering dance and reeling in the sun…
(from John Clare’s The Shepherd’s Calendar 1-4)
JUNE
Month of the Summer with longer nights.
Moon of horses Dyad moon Strawberry moon Summer Solstice
Buzzards learn to fly. Dragonflies flash.
Sunflowers open. Wheat ripens. Soft fruit time.
To roll a strawberry in the palm of your hand is to hold the weight
of so many weeks of sunshine, earth and water.
Iris, butterflies, rose.
Time of garlands, floral dancing, midsummer weddings.
In the fields, sheep seek shade, tuck together along hedges and shadow.
( An extract from June in my new book ‘Fresh Start: A Shepherd’s Calendar’ costs £4 and is available from me at rosecook108@gmail.com or info@greyhenpress.com )
From ‘Fresh Start: A Shepherd’s Calendar’ – Rose Cook
FEBRUARY
Month of clear light Imbolc
Storm moon Snow moon hens begin to lay
Moon of the humpback whale, pelagic traveller in search of krill.
Midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox.
Brigid time of thresholds, her light foretells spring.
Lambs suckle themselves warm.
Rain soaks soil, beats at window panes.
Sleet patterns fields where furrows lie.
The birds begin to sing, trees swell their buds.
Catkins, daffodils, primroses in clumps.
Each day rises rinsed and clear, snowdrops glow whitely.
No sleep in the fretting hours, the birds hunch together in roosts.
Do they dream with eyes closed, drawing on some memory place?
‘Fresh Start: A Shepherd’s Calendar’ (pub Hen Run, Grey Hen Press 2021)
available £4 plus p&p from Rose at rosecook108@gmail.com
photo Rose Cook
JANUARY
Month of Snows Isolation
Cold moon Quiet moon Old moon Death moon
leaves ice land begins to freeze Ice moon
This bell will ring when you see your North Star.
Some days everything is illuminated, on the hillside the paths
sheep have made down the steep slope look like the veins of a leaf.
In the frozen garden, first snowdrops shake pale joy.
Frost descends hard, then we once again become strangers.
The close ways learnt are lost – kissing, hugging, intensity, thrown
back now to the chilly ways of childhood.
Available from rosecook108@gmail.com at £4 plus p&p
published by Hen Run, Grey Hen Press 2021
(photo Rose Cook)
Rose Cook 