I was asked to write a poem for my sister-in-law's renewal of her wedding vows. This was to mark the twenty five year anniversary of her marriage to my wife's brother. Such briefs can be difficult, no words may flow, or the deadline leads you to settle for second best. Happily this was not the case, though I spent a good two months pondering, searching for the right image.
When it arrived it gave me the first stanza and the skeleton of the second.
Again I have to thank the Secret Poets for their support and insight.
On the roof of the garage,
opposite
my bedroom window,
from
out of an abandoned sandbag,
I
have watched two poppies
explode
into blood red beauty.
Love
can erupt anywhere,
and
if we are blessed it will stay.
It
may not be easy, the soil too thin,
the
sun and rain capricious,
but
love will find a way.
The renewal was a wonderful happy affair and the poem kindly received.
Recently I was Poet in Residence at the Warwick Folk Festival having been invited back from 2015. I ran a number of interesting workshops, the first on transforming a set of directions into a poem and the second attempting to capture something big by writing lots of little poems.
I decided on the ocean, and here the best of my endeavours.
across the inlet she could hear the
sounds of her wedding feast as the tide bore her away
molecules
of water slide over one another, a fluid dance we mistake for ocean
we
carry the ocean inside us, created as we were to allow water to walk
across the land
she
had sailed across the globe before she recognised the same difference
of the oceans
fallen
from space, this is not the first place the congregations of the
ocean have met
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