Rachael Boast

 

Leaves of Maria the Shepherdess

 

What an effort at life, this tree
under which the poem lives,
under which I have placed
a blue chair. Her leaves
press down the notes
of the water. The silence
is silver. I can’t stop looking
to belong to the nation
of small things. Falling leaves.
Broken surface. Salvia in excelsis.
Maria, Maria – the door
of your wings is disintegrating.

 

 

 


Rachael Boast was born in Bury St Edmunds in 1975 and is the author of three collections: Sidereal, Pilgrim’s Flower, and most recently, Void Studies, which are all available from Picador. She is co-editor of The Echoing Gallery: Bristol Poets and Art in the City (Redcliffe Press, 2013), and The Caught Habits of Language: An Entertainment for W.S. Graham for Him Having Reached One Hundred (Donut Press, 2018). Her next collection, Hotel Raphael, will be published in May 2021.


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