woodpecker speaks to me

by Beth Brooke

This 

is the utter winter of a field

starve-acre of chalk and flint in 

equal measure.

There are brown and yellow tattered shoots,

straggled lines that came too late, 

sprouted after the harvest cut

full of misplaced hope,

an irrational faith in September’s 

continuing warmth.

The footpath across is bare,

compacted by the trudge of feet 

determined 

to walk into Spring and  

its green stems of wheat.

From the stand of trees

on the southern edge

  a woodpecker

taps out a fanfare for 

the approaching equinox.

Beth Brooke is a retired teacher. She lives in Dorset. Her debut collection, A Landscape With Birds will be published by Hedgehog Press later this year.