Guest Poem by Kathryn Daszkiewicz

Kathryn Daszkiewicz, based in Lincolnshire, has four collections with Shoestring Press: In the Dangerous Cloakroom (2006), Taking Flight (2012), A Book of Follies (2017) and Coldharbour. (2022.) Birds, beasts or flowers usually insinuate themselves into her work in one way or another.

Of Ducks and Dinosaurs

Here at the farthest lake, everything
has the precise brightness
of a Dali dreamscape.

Instead of swans
reflecting elephants
tall, grey, January birches
find themselves mirrored
by ancient, long-necked creatures –
plesiosaurs, perhaps.

The stillness of this underwater forest’s
invaded by two mallards who speed-land
on the primeval surface,
breasts gleaming from the spray.

His greens, catching the sun
are tropical as those exotic plants
reaching for heaven
in the Orangery.

He bows and bobs.
And when she doesn’t
flinch or fly
he rides
the moment.

She shivers
taut from bill to tail.