MANDY PANNETT
Your spirit slumps in the saddle.
Easier, you say, to look down not up
when your weary head like an over-blown poppy
droops on its stem.
But down is where all shadows meet,
where even the rays of a posthumous sun
fail in their glitter and reach.
What can I offer to make you look up?
A far-away island seeded with hope?
No, you reply, island is another word
for homesick, for small torn edges of sands
where wale pods beach.
A small farm then in the backhills?
Old Laertes lived there: cuttlebone flat
in his moods. You too could hoe around the vine
think back to the naming of trees.
You are starting to un-slump.
In those hills is an olive grove
and a plot of land to grow artichokes on
where we shall put that donkey out to graze
Second Prize winner, Build Africa Poetry Competition 2012
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