a little light poetry

Last Thursday was National Poetry Day in the UK, so I am feeling very guilty that I haven’t got around to posting a poem to mark the occasion.

It wasn’t simply that my head has been too full of wispy clouds to focus. Even on Saturday, a day when I usually post, I was busy, not just with the usual domestic nonsenses, but also preparing to present the guest poets at an evening of readings at the local bookshop and community centre.

This year, the theme of National Poetry Day was “light” and I was trying to find a selection of short themed pieces I might be able to use to link the readings in some way. (The advantage of being presenter rather than featured reader on such occasions is that you get to read your own poems and no one is checking to make sure you stick to a time limit!)

I reckon at least half my poems could be tenuously associated with light – moonshine, starshine, sunshine, etc. – so I sorted out a sheaf of short pieces from which to choose at the last moment, depending on what was read by the guest poets.

I hadn’t thought of this piece for a long time, so was glad I found a chance to read it. The sky at the start of the post is an English sky, but the sea in the photo below is the sea off the Catalonian coast, albeit some 50 or 60 kilometres further south than Cap de Creus itself.
 

Cap de Creus

The road winds as it climbs
into a sky so blue
you think it’s sea. A turn,
and down below you glimpse
the thunder-coloured water.
Another twist, and up ahead
a shard of light vibrates
above bare rock. You gain the summit, then

plunge
towards a sea so blue
it could be sky.

 

(This poem is included in my collection Around the Corner from Hope Street, illustrated by Lance Tooks and available from the iBookstore.)