Red List Species
Dianthus deltoides
Small, a fallen star
Snipped out by pinking shears
Among the lemon trefoils,
Its candyfloss colour
Holding a crimson target
For bees, thrives
Here, by a sequence of accidents.
By the exact grace
Of cold quartz dolerite.
By permission of the absolute black
That tucks up
Its astonishing first-born.
By the needle’s eye, the Island.
By the miracle of the window
That tots up its pittance of light:
The thin pink five-petalled flower
Hoards its mite of pollen
Between the field of headstones
And the road to the lifeboat house,
One in a starry lonnen, here
Because it can be.
Katrina Porteous is a poet inspired by the lives, language and ecology of England’s wild Northumberland Coast. Read more.
“Red List Species” reprinted from Rhizodont by Katrina Porteous (Bloodaxe, 2024).