We write because we must. Poetry is born of sorrow and joy, love and loss, triumph and disaster. It is inspired by sunset and sunrise, by spring flowers and winter snow, and it comes to us, almost painfully, seeking a way out, a way forward, a way towards and we wrestle with words, with images, with rhyme and intense feelings until suddenly, there it is, on the page, the poem – our poem, eager to be read, anxious to be felt.
Poem of the Month
Timer
Gold survives the fire that’s hot enough
to make you ashes in a standard urn.
An envelope of course official buff
contains your wedding ring that wouldn’t burn.
Dad told me I’d to tell at St. James’s
the ring should go in the incinerator.
That “eternity” inscribed with both their names is
his surety that they’d be together, “later”.
I signed for the parcelled clothing as the son,
the cardy, apron, pants, bra, dress-
The clerk phoned down, 6- 8- 8- 3- 1?
Has she still her ring on? (Slight pause) Yes!
It’s on my warm palm now, your burnished ring!
I feel your ashes, head, arms, breasts, womb, legs,
sift through its circle slowly, like that thing
you used to let me watch to time the eggs.