Jim Lloyd: a poem

Intake

Daily, drearily, I pace this path. And now a precise

easterly interrogates the star-white aspens

richtering the ocean's tempest – the ash's

broken stumps resisting. No winds now

can stir the bones of this dead farm

and the ridge-back, grey-blacked means on which I tread,

step by slow step, into the ghostly dawning.

Shiny beads abacus the gates and the rose hips

shriek their silent scarlet into the dark.

Beasts grumble in the barns

and the low drizzle-mists come lower;

my ankle twists in the bleached grass.

I prop against the cold of a deserted monument

and feel a drop of rain – the way I take it in

and then breathe out;

how easily everything finishes, then starts.

Jim Lloyd was a winner in the Rialto "Nature and Place" poetry competition. His poetry has also appeared in The Rialto, bind and Green Ink Poetry. He is studying for an arts practice-based PhD at Newcastle University, considering the question "what is it like to be a bird?". He utilises a range of methods including writing, video and sound recording. He lives in Hexham, Northumberland.