A Poem For National Poetry Day 2015

It's National Poetry Day today and the theme is light, so naturally I've chosen to post a poem about death and foxes, which has just been published in Hailing Foxes, the beguiling new anthology of illustrated poems newly published by Dru Marland of Gert Macky press.  Except that it's about light also.

 A few months after he died, a literary wake was held for Seamus Heaney in Festival Hall, London. Late that night, on the final leg of the journey home, I had an extraordinary encounter. 

Heaney’s Wake

All year 

from winter to autumn I see them 

most evenings  

on high streets, down side-roads

slipping through hedges

under the bunting of parked cars,

charcoal running stitches 

hemming the edge of dark.  In April 

vixens trail their kits 

                                       like knots 

                                                           in hankies

Come September 

   flashes of amber – intermittent –  

a youngster, trapped by headlights 

           panics on Southmead Road

                                     spins in indecision, 

     his current short-circuiting, every nerve and instinct                

                                                   scrambled

After the wake

and the long drive back,

two miles from home and my bed

the stupor in my head gives way to quick 

       anticipation  

a dog-fox on Horfield Common 

in Belisha beacon glare 

waits for me to brake, trots over the crossing 

with a twitch of his white-tipped tail. If I could

touch his fur, sparks would 

       jump and crackle  

    

my spirits kindled by this sight, 

this flaring matchstick 

       to hold against the night

©Deborah Harvey 2015

My next poetry collection, Breadcrumbs, is due to be published by Indigo Dreams in 2016. This poem isn't in it.