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30th May, 2025

Friday Poem – ‘Hawthorn’ by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams

Photo of a Hawthorn Tree standing proud on the bank of a river.

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Hawthorn’ by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams from ‘The Tree Calendar’ published most recently in The Little Hours: New and Selected Poems.

Hawthorn
May 13th – June 9th
May’s out: white, plump and plush
way-marker, sweet female unlucky spray;
tucked starry flowers, a million eyes
road-watching, field-guarding, a hilltop
presence, yearly more curved
with each twist of the earth, deep musk,
queen of long dusk, sharp secrets, she’ll
turn to blood in the hedge, rich burning
drops. Jets leap and scream
through a damaged sky; my skin
darkens in so much light. The tightening
drum. The hum of silage cutters
from a far field, muffled by bushy May.
Smother those savage thorns
in green and white: she will be beautiful.
In a changed world, still she draws you,
enters you, as woman to woman;
and you are not hurt, but healed and washed
clean, even now, wise-eyed, reborn.