Damselflies

(commended by Gillian Clarke at Poetry on the Lake in 2012).

He leads her in the dance above

flat lily-pads and mirrored sky.

He clasps her thorax with his tail

lifts her up, lets her down

to dip and dip and dip her eggs

through the meniscus.

This is their glorious time

laid down in their DNA

was what they both were dreaming of

when as brown nymphs with mandibles

and ugly masks they crept and lurked

among minnows and frondy weeds.

All through that watery year

they dreamt of a day in June

when they’d escape, crawl up a reed,

slough the brittle carapace

push out four glittering wings

and fly! Fly! Fly!

They’ve done their time below

no longer need to grow

but hover shimmy  whir

beneath the sky and show

their sapphires to the world

and make love in the air.

Aird Mor

At the back of a cave discreetly screened

by a curtain of watery lace

a hind lies on her side, legs stiff

with blackened tongue and vacant eye.

Beneath her tail in vain protrude

two perfect, pointed, cloven hooves.

She should have torn his caul away,

licked clean his nostrils, eyes and mouth

and nudged at him to stand  then felt

the triumph of first milk, his greed

as gums clamped onto brimming teats.

She should have led him through wet drapes

into the sun, the glittering. The shush and pull

of heaving sea, the piping cry

of Bridget’s birds; and shown him how

to tread his way on shingle shore and shale

between the cliff and twisting waves.

Whose heart stopped first? Her unborn fawn?

Or did the hind give up the fight,

while he still struggled to reach the light?

The pain - rolling in waves - subsides.

Blinds drawn down over her eyes.

The plashing of water fades and dies.

Poems spoken aloud by Anne Boileau

Pete's Forge

Blue on Blue

Study to be quiet

White Sand Grey Sand

An autobiography from the perspective of a child.

(I am also known as Polly Clarke)

Martin Luther had a wife

A novel about Katherina von Bora, the wife of Martin Luther, the German priest who started the Reformation.