In Our Orchard

By Kieron Winn

Kieron Winn is a good poet, but don’t take our word for it. He’s been praised by Melvyn Bragg, Bernard O’donoghue and Christopher Ricks. The late Clive James said of Winn, “The level of craft in these poems is a delight.” He lives in Oxford, where he teaches creative writing and literature. His sole publication to date is his pamphlet The Mortal Man ( Howtown Press, £ 10), although his poem “In Our Orchard” is as yet uncollected and is published here for the first time.

The view back to our house would alter through The geometry of twenty specimen trees, Whose apples went from green and tender knuckles To reddened hardy weights with some moon scars And wisps of wizened blossom at the end.

One side was scribbled thickety hedge and past it Monitory hinterland I never knew.

The vegetable garden at the orchard’s foot

Had various staked- out plots; my mother made A teatime ‘ T’ with two hands from a window. Later, the mower’s petrol cap untwirled,

Thin, stinky, powerful fuel went glugging in

And a few sharp elbow- making tugs on the cord Brought the whole thing to shaking life, like a smoker Getting his body going in the morning.

The cut grass flopped in long, dark, wadded tongues. No photo shows the depth, the space, the scale, Only some trees; it is all houses now,

With only some old roots a scan might trace.

It seems a builder holds a flaming sword.

But in my mind I pace the orchard still

In three dimensions, as a blind man might.

You can reserve volumes of poetry at the Scottish Poetry Library, 5 Crichton’s Close, Edinburgh EH8 8DT, which is operating a click and collect service as well as extended postal loans, www. scottishpoetrylibrary. org. uk