Blues in a Green Country by Robert Nisbet

He was her first love, a forester.

He planted spruce along the high Preseli hills.

She’d sometimes dream with him

of majesties of green on mountain ridges.

After their parting, she did well enough.

She married, raised young, played bridge,

consorted even, more latterly,

with ladies who lunch.

They’d not have thought

that once, teaching English to teenagers,

she would flinch from William Blake:

Tyger, tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night.

Sometimes now, driving over the Preselis,

she’ll wince with wonderment,

seeing those forests, their green

and their grandeur, matured now

and confident upon the sky-line.

Robert Nisbet is a Wesh poet who is published regularly in San Pedro River Review, Panoply, Third Wednesday and Poppy Road Review.