James Wilkes

4 variations on the same midwinter


#1.

The gold cover and
the world breathing birth to zero.
The weather bleached of haunt.
It’s now love, to decline.









#2.

Breath witness
of hare’s haunt, and sheep’s.
Fire now. Light me.
Don’t dim beside day.









#3.

Light’s lower rip to curtain
    so I stood breathing the weather of hare and sheep.
If ever it’s still, inquisitive and bright.









#4.

Through eve, so
birth the barrow the fields.
Un-flowered on blether
need roused fingers and rise
brimming.