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Likestarlings is a place for talking in poems. We pair poets with poets and they write a sequence of six new works by responding in turn to one another. Our palaver blog goes beyond poetry to discuss collaboration in theory and in practice. Please take a look, and feel free to add comments, opinions and suggestions here. Read poems here
 

Dry rain

 

We were abroad when you died—

feasting our eyes on caves painted

 

and scoured by water in a gorge,

climbing hot ancient steps, gazing

 

down at dry limestone, grids of vines,

and at dark, sharp gasps of cypress. 

 

Back home, I’m sure we saw you—

in a dense circle of trees on the hill,

 

in wild boughs of yellow-pink plums,

in red-winged beetle-moths like petals

 

on the thistle grass. We saw you,

didn’t we - in the marshy lime green

 

pools of the estuary; in the blue gorse.

It was you, surely—the red fox cub

 

who stopped and turned his eyes

towards us - and in a moment,

 

sauntered away, his bushy tail fluffed

and filleted by the rapping wind.