Emily Berry is a new poet for me. Always very exciting… I discovered her in a Faber poetry diary and the poem is from her book Unexhausted Time published by Faber and Faber in 2022. I love the switch from the lyrical to the conversational in this poem about light…

(Light) Emily Berry

Light stretching my late summer shadow long

over parched grass, low sun, this alive, this

evening. Light of mid-morning picking out

all the trees’ capillaries, black against the light

of blue’s possibilities, would I rush outside

to see this, yes I would, this light? It’s so kind,

it remembers me. Light of first thing, spilled sky

mixing day up, all the colours that go into day,

you wouldn’t believe how many. Hard light

to be walked into like a mirror, day coming

down hard on its sharp edge; you can never

really see yourself the way others do, that’s

the hard thing; or is it a good thing? (God

doesn’t answer prayers, people do.) Light as

sunbeams that lie on the floor of your room

like ways through, they’re not real ways

though they’re just a reminder that there

may be a way through. See how a cat

anoints itself in the sunbeam, for she knows

she is not mortal and is waiting for the sign…