Cloud
Where once there were twites and meadow pipits,
Peeping in passing, today in damp silence
Cumulus cloud presses down like a pillow
On the upturned face of the heathery hill.
Sometimes the air is lucid and one sees
The town spread on either side of the river
Like the barbs on the rachis of a feather,
Ripe for preening by some almighty bill.
Its belfries and steeples, tailored to advertise
The presence of a living God, lift up
Their long bony fingers into a void
Abandoned by despairing seraphim.
But now the mist enfolds me like a duvet –
As comforter, incubator of fantasy,
Also protector from the Evil Eye.
My vision's gathered in a veil of scrim.
If this is a preview of the afterlife,
It passes quickly and the spiky city
Reasserts itself'; below is the river
Over which herring gulls shamelessly yell
While circling slowly in figures of eight.
Mute swans drift with all the time in the world
And the citizens stare at the hills, crying
Look, look, the cloud has lifted, all will be well!
- Andrea Porter & Heather Taylor
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- Claire Crowther & Chris McCabe
- David Hart & David Hawkins
- David Tait & Kay Syrad
- Geoff Sawers & Peter Blegvad
- Helen Mort & Charles Johnson
- Jared Stanley & Siddhartha Bose*
- Jennifer Wainwright & Loveday Why
- Katrina Naomi & Sue Wood
- Kirsty Logan & George Ttoouli
- Luke Kennard & Richard Price
- Milorad Krystanovich & Suzanne Batty
- Nicky Arscott & A F Harrold
- Rebecca Farmer & Jane Griffiths
- Sarah Hymas & Jo Brandon
- Simon Smith & Ryan Murphy
- Tess Biddington & Adam Burbage
- Tim Atkins & Jeremy Over*
- Tom Chivers & Emily Berry
- Zoƫ Brigley & Meredith Andrea




