“Chance Find After Rain” by Ceinwen Haydon

I kick sodden clods
of claggy soil.
Unexpected winds
bewarm my neck
to skin-salt ripeness.
My eyes
squint downwards
to the earth.
Hiding in my shadow
a triangled
fragment of pottery. Phow!
A tiny piece: blue, black
and once white lines.
Angled stripes. It lies
in clover leaves
covered with raindrops
refracting pewter
light in the sun-slipped
afternoon time-gifting
twilit eternity.
               Your hand
taps my shoulder,
your ears listen well.
You see my unclenched
hand, my chipped find,
my amulet
                and do not laugh.
                My love, you line-dry
                my world to scented
                sweetness, and how it glistens.
                                              La! La! La!
                                              Felicitations.

Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon (MA, Creative Writing, Newcastle University, 2017) lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies. Her first chapbook was published in July 2019: Cerddi Bach [Little Poems], Hedgehog Press. She is a Pushcart Prize (2019 & 2020) and Forward Prize (2019) nominee. She is developing practice as a participatory arts facilitator and believes everyone’s voice counts, even when their stories are hard to hear.