Tiniest of turtles!
Your shining back
Is a shell of orange
With spots of black.
How trustingly you walk
Across this land
Of hairgrass and hollows
That is my hand.
Your small wire legs,
So frail, so thin,
Their touch is swansdown
Upon my skin.
There! break out
Your wings and fly:
No tenderer creature
Beneath the sky.
(Clive Sansom)
More Poetry from Clive Sansom:
- The Innkeeper's Wife (Clive Sansom Poems)
- The Centurion (Clive Sansom Poems)
- The Carol of Three (Clive Sansom Poems)
- Snowflakes (Clive Sansom Poems)
- Mary of Nazareth (Clive Sansom Poems)
- The Engine Driver (Clive Sansom Poems)