The honourable mention in our 2012 poetry contest, judged by Miranda Pearson.
There is the crosscutting of twigs, the bulge of red buds
carving sky into fragments of grey waiting, molecules
of paint melded by winter’s cold on a window frame
that won’t open to spring’s earth scent. There are
the sparrows lined on a single wire, the tinkle
of the knife-sharpener’s bell a block away, a broom
shushing leaves down the street you can’t
see. So many details, tea leaves steeping
in wire mesh behind the curve of glass, the purple throats
of grapes sliced in a bowl of orange-scented
yoghurt, words waiting in the blue screen’s space, words to fill
the requiems and glorias of sanctuaries, wood-panelled, bird
flown, hung with the silk of chanting voices, words set
between evenly spaced trees in a quiet
forest on a dim green day, words waiting in every tendon
of the body, behind the soft space
of the knee, slipping with blood cells through
veins’ long journeys, and still
you lie, watching the hands on your alarm
clock slide forward when you want to stay. Mind
hurting, you roll into the imprint of night’s
restless warmth, pulling the shadows up
so you can pretend to start the trumpets over. Hear their first
blast, not the echo long
after others have spoken.
