I’m very pleased to announce that Stella Wulf, who along with her skills as an artist is also a gifted poet,  will be The High Window‘s new resident artist for 2021. I am very much looking forward to see what Stella will come up with. Here is a preview of what you can expect  in the spring issue.

*****

A GASCON DAY

An upstart breeze puffs over Monsieur Dubois’ potager,
licks at trusses of tomatoes, ruffles heads of lettuce,
chicanes the rows to blow at raspberries.

Bored with the apathy of legumes it wafts off
to tug beards of barley, tickle whiskers of wheat,
until the heat takes its breath away.

Hay bales, round and robust as a bon Madiran,
settle their bulging girths on a grassy divan,
slump woozily on spreading bottoms.

Cows muse under an awning of oak to the croak
of basking frogs – whisk at flies that suck
from the brown pools of their eyes.

Even the birds are indolent – lolling in nests and hedges,
glutted with seed, plump grubs, fat bugs.
All of nature is snoozy.

Monsieur Dubois, seasoned to the wilt of his salad days,
sweats it out in his bleu de travaille,
pulls radish, plucks string beans, turns beetroot.

******

DESCRIBING MOUNTAINS TO A BLIND PERSON

Think of the stunned bird I placed in your hand,
the whisper of feathers against your cheek,
how you feared for its trembling beat.

Remember the scratch of its pin bone feet,
the whirr of coverts as it roused and flew?
You marvelled how something so frail could endure.

Remember the weight of your newborn child,
the perfect roundness of his place in your arms,
how it took your breath? Feel the perpetuity
of this marble egg.

Think of those dreams in which you fall,
feel the rush of wheels as you step off the kerb,
the shock of the slice from a knife blade.
This is what mountains are.

Edges hard as life, peaks that cleave
the sky, jagged as careless words,
or floes sheared from a glacial tongue.

They ride in chains thrown up from the sea,
stride across continents, divide countries,
folding and unfolding time.

*****

Stella Wulf was born in Lancashire, but grew up in North Wales. She moved to France in 2000 where she and her husband bought a large derelict property at the foot of the Pyrenees. Despite a lifelong love of poetry, Stella came to writing late in life. Fuelled by Jo Bell’s 52 group, she went on to achieve a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing, from Lancaster University. Stella is a qualified interior designer, but it is only with the luxury of time that she has been able to pursue her passion for painting, exhibiting in several galleries and selling her paintings worldwide. She also designs the cover art for 4Word Press which she co-edits with Lesley Quayle. Stella’s poems have found homes in many journals and anthologies. She has a pamphlet, After Eden, which is available from http://www.4word.org. and A Spell In The Woods recently published by Fair Acre Press  https://fairacrepress.co.uk/shop/a-spell-in-the-woods-stella-wulf/ You can see more of her art work on her website http://www.stellawulf.com