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Elizabeth and Margaret’s poems in full...
2 nd
PRIZE
This was not in the plan…
POETRY
Elizabeth Dunford
Sunday afternoon.
A walk along the towpath
to wear you out a little.
I point out bare black winter branches or
beech buds about to burst into leaf or
green foliage turning gold
as appropriate.
You don’t reply,
Your face impassive
or illuminated, smiling
at your own thoughts.
Look, I say, those purple flowers –
foxgloves, like in The Tale of Mr Tod.
And see those water-lily pads?
Just like the picture in
The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher.
And those hazelnuts – I think
Squirrel Nutkin gathered ones like that.
Time to go home.
You charge ahead
or lag behind
or suddenly halt for reasons of your own.
We make hot chocolate.
You scrutinise the mug for specks or smears.
Curled up at my feet
you rest your head on my knee,
the Beatrix Potter box set arranged in
symmetrical piles
alphabetically or in order of publication.
Shall we have The Tale of Samuel Whiskers
today? I offer,
observing the way your hair has begun to
recede at the temples
and that your beard could do with a trim.
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Patient
Margaret Wilmot
My husband pushes his bike
out of the gate leaning on it heavily
he has forgotten his cap
suffers from cold
I don’t shout out the window
who wants to feel watched
he looks older than my grandfather
it’s strange to see your husband
turn into the grandfather who
took his cap and stoop and a way
of moving with a wheelbarrow
out of your life so early
these are the thoughts
which balloon in the mind
how unsteady he seems
around the house too
is he going to fall
should I leap up
do it for him
remind him
what normal no longer is
the daily life
he took for granted
his accommodating body
energy
these are the poems
one can’t write but
write themselves as I check
the Rayburn before he wakes
toss the last coal into the firebox
refill the hod bring in logs kindling
it’s May but we’re still
making an evening fire
take away the ashes
take away.
7