Poetry winner - Mervyn Peake Awards 2010

Glynis Buckham won the poetry category of the 2010 Mervyn Peake Awards, with her poem 'A constant boarding'.

A CONSTANT BOARDING

The Beginning

This journey has come too early.
There has been too little preparation.
All the maps I have are outdated-
the certainty of familiar places
sunk into tired folds;
the reference points
are hard to see.

The First Voyage

The anchors are lifted but
nothing moves in the stillness.
Disbelief has stopped the music;
oceans are reluctant to breathe-
until, rocked by a tremor
the great sea dragon races
urging the waves to a rough embrace.
I am flung ashore.

The Shore

After the tide recedes
the sea lets go of longing,
words edge out,
stumbling over salt laced stones,
washed clean
as they have been forever.

The Desert

For a moment in the desert
the wind retreats,
revealing between the lift and fall
of a grain speckled landscape-
a solitary engraving
an imperceptible trace-
the sands shift again
I wonder who I have been.

The Freeze

This frozen landscape is relentless:
the usual darting and flash
of snow creatures ceases, snared
by a cold white grip.
In the silence a leaf blade
is resolute against the early morning sun,
constrained by ice, a miniature spear.
I am forced into stillness.

The Crossing

We arrive at the border
marked by ruthless and determined
barbaric wire.
Above, poised between land and sky
a kite watches,
and for that moment
stepping onto that high silver thread,
I am the trapeze queen-
balanced, soaring,
dancing above a vastness of bracken
in the dampness of a late afternoon.

The Next Voyage

I choose the steep route
down to the port.
My steps are extravagant and wild,
no subtle embarking here-
a constant boarding
between a safe harbour
and a swaying boat.

Leaving the Island

Now I learn to navigate a different course,
take my bearings from a different map:
and at dawn
when night and day are barely distinguishable,
moving swiftly through shimmering water
we weave a passage through fragrant islands,
carrying treasures.

Glynis Buckham

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