My poem for Paul Brookes’ challenge. You can see the photos here.

Bridge

And if there was a bridge across the sky,
across the water deep below,
beyond the time and tides that drag the sands
of night and day and years that flow,
through life and love until we die,

would we dare walk that high and unknown path,
to step into a world of blue,
of seagull white and grey? Just take my hands;
I’ll leap and dare the aftermath,
if only it can be with you.

Entrants to local, national and international poetry competitions may be familiar with the name, Kate Young. She has an impressive record of reaching the final stages. Most recently she was placed second in the Canterbury Poet of the Year Competition, and in 2021 she was placed third in the Vernal Equinox Competition and won the Tiny Things competition from Stirling Makar. A Spark in the Darkness (Hedgehog Poetry, 2022)is, however, the first time a collection of her work has been published, and what an impressive pamphlet it is!

As the title suggests these are poems of hope and optimism. At this bleak time of conflict and economic hardship, Young reminds us of the importance of hope and of its power to transform. Firefly in the Doorway ends with the following lines: ‘’your aura/ confident as a spark in the darkness// despair unwrapped from the jumbled hitch/ and fold of this…

For Paul Brookes’ Cloudshapes challenge. You can see the eerie photograph that inspired this poem here.

On this day

This day
remembering the unimaginable
the blood red mud
the acid-picked bones

the sky remembers Titans
the embrace that sparked the world
with touchwood and amadou
the rot that blazed then
and blazes still.