A detail of the front cover of ‘The Bonniest Companie’. Art by Olivia Lomenech Gill

	Mind that swan? The whooper we found
	neck slack on the turf,  head pointing north like a way-sign,
	how you stooped and opened its wing?
			                 	  I paid scant heed
	     to your naming of parts: coverts, ulna, primaries
	being scunnert with the place,  its gales and sea-roar
	— but this wing — this was a proclamation!
	The wind-fit, quartz-bright power of the thing!  A radiant gate
	one could open and slip through…
	We dragged the swan to the lee of an old dyke
	tucked it in neat,  a white stone,
	then trudged up out of the glen.  At the ridge
	again, we got clouted properly,
			staggered on, half elated, half scared. 

Taken from the collection ‘The Bonniest Companie'(Picador). Available to purchase in the Caught by the River shop.

Kathleen will be joining us at Caught by the River Calder, 22-24 January. More information