It’s tea-time on the solstice when
the shelving winter sun alights exactly
on the pitch to catch my eye—
I, havering at my dining-writing table,
the sun, reflecting on a row of memoir
and picking out Wild Swans.
I’ve learned to trick the darkest mornings,
waking to the gentle pulsing wind
Adagio from Mozart’s Gran Partita—
bassoon, horn, oboe, clarinet, each
emerging in its turn to lead
the line, interleaving beat by
syncopated beat the skeins of melody
that stretch to warm and loose
my spine. They bear me up. I dawn.
Uplift by Clare Bryden | Rose Noir Poetry Reed Diffuser
Clare Bryden is a writer, artist and web developer based in Exeter, UK. Her interests are wide-ranging, but primarily the place of humanity within the natural world of which we are part, and the related theology and psychology of connectedness. Her poetry has recently been published in The Christian Century and Time of Singing. clarebryden.co.uk @clarebryden.bsky.social @ClareBryden
