And now for something completely different – a poem in which emotions change utterly over the course of a day, the hours and the shifting weather creating vast differences to the poet’s internal climate.
Sun
Morning sunlight swells like
a pipe organ, throws frisbee
halos though our hair; the
sun’s generous caresses
pour warmth into skull
cups; I lap them up, thirsty as
a cotton puff. But by early
afternoon its jealousy
oppresses me. It sizzles liquid
tenderness to watermarks
on the streets; silks. It rains
hammers on my head; glares
cruel, imperious, white; but –
the hour hand coolly inches
into splendid solitary night.
Bethan says “I rediscovered poetry when I started living and working overseas – first Asia and then four other continents. I began reading poets in translation, and I wanted to find and trap words that could transport all the bustling sensual impressions back to the dark rainy nights of the UK; word photographs for my homebound self, and anyone else who would like to read them. Encounter was written when I had just moved to Hanoi. Sun, in Belgrade. Amphibian, Drunk on Barstool on returning from Peru/the Amazon.”
Celebrating Change 