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  1. Culture
15 August 2013

“Bowland Beth”: a poem by David Harsent

By David Harsent

That she made shapes in air

That she saw the world as pattern and light
moorland to bare mountain drawn by instinct

That she’d arrive at the corner of your eye
like the ghost of herself going silent into the wind

That the music of her slipstream was a dark flow
whisper-drone tagged to wingtips

That weather was a kind of rapture

That her only dream was of flight forgotten
moment by moment as she dreamed it

That her low drift over heather quartering home ground
might bring anyone to tears

That she would open her prey in all innocence
there being nothing of anger or sorrow in it

That her beauty was prefigured

That her skydance went for nothing
hanging fire on empty air

That her name is meaningless
your mouth empty of it mind empty of it

That the gunshot was another sound amid birdcall
a judder if you had seen it her line of flight broken

That she went miles before she bled out

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