Smoo elant sliver berant blé
Accent u poth streak smote
Muley mantal muse sleigh
Smutter smole smoo stir shé
Ixle fox fox fingle wingld stoat
Smoo elant sliver berant blé
Ich full anail milch flay
Sing zir song song licht mote
Muley mantal muse sleigh
Hole-light were cry earth clé
Archer slip orion sliver troat
Smoo elant sliver berant blé
Echo lunar bayble bauble
Tonnage setted dost en phote
Muley mantal muse sleigh
Plutain epistalaire rada schtay
Flute en pipair crust cloat
Smoo elant – Sliver berant blé
Muley mantal muse sleigh
*
(an English translation)
Mine is a soft-silvered light.
I do not speak in code.
I’m goddess, a tethered kite,
gentle being, an ammonite
curled above field and fode.
Mine is a soft-silvered light.
I am your milky satellite,
your song on a dark dark road,
your goddess, your tethered kite,
sun-struck soul of a dead night,
huntsman’s torch, and mother lode.
Mine is a soft-silvered light
in a bleak mid-winter’s bite.
Wreathed in cloud, wind-rode,
still goddess, a tethered kite
looking down from this sad height.
I wax. I wane. Am haloed.
I am soft – I’m silvered light.
I am goddess. Tethered kite.
Note: fode is a Black Country dialect word for a backyard
*
Emma Purshouse is an award-winning writer. She writes for both children and adults, and performs her work the length and breadth of the UK. Her children’s collection I Once Knew a Poem Who Wore a Hat is published by Fair Acre Press and won the Rubery Book Award in 2016.
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