Guest Poem by Maggie Wadey

Maggie Wadey is a novelist, screenwriter and poet. In 2016 she published ‘The English Daughter’ (Sandstone Press), a memoir of her mother and Ireland. She has been shortlisted, twice won first prize in the Wells Poetry Competition and been published in several journals, including Acumen, Pomegranate and (online) the High Window. In 2020 she enjoyed the surreal experience of having a poem read out in Parliament Square at an XR Demonstration. In 2025 her collection, ‘London Pastoral’, was published with Paekakariki Press. She lives in Hackney, East London. This poem is from Acumen 113.

On not Being the Last Bird to Sing

my child’s face, stretched
in pain like a Noh mask, relaxes
and she sleeps at last,
leaving the land around us
to lie awake under a crust of stars
that mists the sky with light like
the illuminated face of a watch.
On the hillside, a hare plays
at radar as the night’s deep silence
turns slowly until dawn runs a different story,
summoning left-over birds – so faint,
so few – to stitch a thin tapestry,
self-conscious in their loneliness,
cutting the threads too soon,
not wanting to be remembered only
as the last bird to sing.
My child wakes and, seeing me,
she smiles.