Aurora Borealis by Margaret Beston

Aurora Borealis
for Sue

On the day I hear the news, I’m sailing north
to where they say the firefox sparks his tail
too hard against the snow, good and evil
dragons fight with fire, and raven, torch
blazing, guides spirits to another world.

Frost freezes pools of water on the deck,
arctic winds numb fingers, cheekbones.
Genie-lamp spirals rise, swirl soft-green,
gauze-like swathes unfurl across the sky,
veil the Pleiades and Andromeda.

And I think of you, enfolded in this mystery,
as you follow your own spirit guide across
the Bifrost Bridge, the pulsating arch of light.

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Margaret Beston is a linguist-turned-poet. As well as poetry magazines and her own collection, her work has been published in several anthologies, most recently in Poems for Grenfell Tower (Onslaught Press) and Suffrage (Paper Swans Press). In 2018 her poem Pro-Nouns was commended in the Poetry Space competition and she was shortlisted for the Coast-to-Coast-to-Coast single poet pamphlet competition. She is the founder of Roundel, a Poetry Society Stanza based in Tonbridge where she lives.