All Ireland Poetry Competition – Winner
Our final budding Wordsworth is Valerie, Belfast Cathedral MU, with her winning poem entitled ‘DISLOCATION‘. Many congratulations to all those who took part and especially to Valerie, Moira and Margaret.
DISLOCATION
I walk unyielding pavements by the roads
past nature clipped, pruned, mown, confined
by hedges, fences, walls and wire
past soaring trees with tarmac round their roots
their seeds adrift on stony ground.
I think about a dark brown path
soft underfoot
that leads me up the hill through lush wild woods
the brackish ponds
the smell of green all round
the sun that spotlights curling ferns
through leafy gaps in beech and thorn
and then legs aching
breathing short
the top is reached,
the fallen tree its roots exposed,
the bench nearby
and there
the open country stretched away
and Strangford gleaming in the mist-filled light.
A car goes roaring past too fast
exhaust fumes linger, air is stale
I turn for home on dusty paths.
Valerie, Belfast Cathedral MU
