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Poem

Bella Li

WINTER

WINTER

WINTER

It was not for this that we awoke. Stark trees, yes, and the hour of your coming it was. Like lightning through the grove. It was but a slaughter of bees travelling fast. Travelling still. And beyond the hill Mother England—fighting on her ship at sea. Our homeward vessel moored and bound. Harder and greener and further away the land. Slower the tides. The brackish water. The too-long winter. Nested into itself the coming spring. Travelling slow. Swallows and dying and a flight into stillness we go. We go. Into the pilgrim light. With a frame of bones to mark. The edge of the sky from time.
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WINTER

It was not for this that we awoke. Stark trees, yes, and the hour of your coming it was. Like lightning through the grove. It was but a slaughter of bees travelling fast. Travelling still. And beyond the hill Mother England—fighting on her ship at sea. Our homeward vessel moored and bound. Harder and greener and further away the land. Slower the tides. The brackish water. The too-long winter. Nested into itself the coming spring. Travelling slow. Swallows and dying and a flight into stillness we go. We go. Into the pilgrim light. With a frame of bones to mark. The edge of the sky from time.

WINTER

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Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Ludo Pieters Gastschrijver Fonds
Lira fonds
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