In the feeding time

The day ended with dragonflies -

turquoise blue lights in straight lines,

flown through by fork-tailed swallows 

skimming the pond.

For hours I had used stillness, silence, 

a room, to lure words to me, 

when they were just outside -

translucent and swooping over the water

in the feeding time.

When the sun lowers a little, tinting clouds pink,

then poetry follows the birds picking insects, 

then I fill my paper in the liminal givings -

the moorhen's view of differing wings.

There is a never-sleeping world under ours, 

fringed with reeds and liquid-lined possibilities -

where mud ripples with webbed feet,

damsels dance infinity circles

and the dry grass with wet roots 

rustles constant, 

whispering. 

LJ Ireton, 2024