Robert Nisbet
Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet who lives some 30 miles down the coast from Dylan Thomas’s Boathouse. His work has been widely published in both Britain and the USA, where he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times in the last three years.
The Elements: November the Fifth
This year we’ve had a wonderful harvest
and tonight a high November tide is reaching
close to but safely below the pub and its garden,
so at five and six o’clock we simply hear
the quiet slap of the dark and intimate water.
The fireworks party on the village field
is starting now, the fire lit at seven.
The drinkers start to drift to the garden
as the sky grows lustrous, dark then jubilant.
Even the season’s lovers, back in the quiet bar,
their pleasantries, the playful wrist-slap,
it will last for just the wintertime maybe,
but for now they are embedded too
in the evening’s flame, the night’s dark pulse.
Tonight, embellished by the rockets’ rush,
we have them all: earth, water, fire and air.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 