Poems of Hope Contest: Listen, Grant Shimmin

Grant Shimmin is a New Zealand new phase poet born in South Africa. An editor for Does it Have Pockets?, he has work in journals globally including Roi Faineant Press, Bull, The Hooghly Review,  Hemlock Review, Blue Bottle Journal and Cool Beans Lit.

Listen

Listen, that’s the bellbird

Has he switched up his chime

for this still, cloud-draped dawn?

I think he has. I think there’s a

half-note thrown into the

regular two-beat rhythm

Though plainly he understands

rhythm better than I

and the rooster

who seems to be his neighbour


It’s clear that those chimes

are the sound check for a Saturday

sneaking its light and colour

through gaps in the cloudy canopy

More voices by the minute

are joining the vocal tribute

to the arrival of a day cool

in its open-windowed anticipation

of blind-lowering heat

Filter out the random highway rumbles

of this dawning hour and listen

The best of the day is silence with birdsong

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