Jacqui Thewless Poems

Every year in winter I forget what spring is like. Here in Pembroke, and throughout the county, the first harbinger is a white froth of Blackthorn blossom – before the first greening of trees. Yet white is cool; a chaste colour. Later, when the first young green leaves in the hedgerows peep, a sense of warmth to come is quickened and our spirits lift.
At home, I feed the garden birds until the end of March. It is a rare treat to catch a glimpse of the wren.

buoyant winter bird
...

The whole year’s answered

prayers in these quiet leaf-falls’
...

She wants to know
what is so special
about this beach –
been here a hundred times before
...

Not now, in August nights - as when
I walked wide sands alone,
where sea pulls shore,
and wished for him who’d paused with me
...

when night is darkest
the first snowflakes of winter
arrive un-noticed
...

Kindness and mercy
outlast the lesser virtues.

Something in the sap's
...

I never saw your dad -
hard, dark
at yon hot
Stirling foundry -
...

Exquisite vortices peel open like
the fists of multiple newborn babes.

But this bud-breakage
...

Too much spoils the fruit:
theft, the inclement weather,
a season of loss -
...