Monday 27 January 2014

"A Bright Nowhere"

Watching a recent programme on Seamus Heaney I realised that I had been shutting out reading and writing poetry whilst I studied and that this was what was making me feel unsettled. His lyrical poetry is so powerful and beautiful and as the Nobel Prize acknowledged, he took the local and made it global. I have no right to put my name on the same page as his, but listening to his words has inspired me, finally, to start writing again so I present my latest poem following  Heaney’s “Kite for Christopher and Michael”


somewhere between here and there
ebullient kites skirl lightly above us
strings aching with every wind blown
twist and turn
to pull us upwards 
into the blue mirrored horizons.

floating ribboned tails flick
the last stripped tree branches
caressing their nakedness
and in this high, privileged space
the coloured canvasses sketch our unknown sequels
in an aura of bright imagination.

and now, as late shadows start to cross the sand
it is our turn to stand with planted feet and take the strain,
where before us, elders hands wrapped around the cords
severed by our own births.

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