1st Place
Florence Nicholson-Lailey – ‘Pebble Ascending’
A pebble ascending
Between sweeping breast strokes
Drops sideways, and spinning
It laughs at the birds with paradise plumes
And melodious happenings
The hollow lament of a falling tree
On the cusp of momentum that cannot be widened
Or made small by my crying for quiet.
Fishing for moon-stripes
With cold hands and un-fathoming fingers
But the sky’s full of starfish and my arms
Are so tired from cartwheels
That shouldn’t have worked.
Arpeggios and anecdotes soaked in
Stuffy dawn shades of stained glass and
Smoke rings, that hide in my rib cage like unrested
Butterflies, lining up for the race
That will loop the horizon twice over and
Over again.
So down comes the rainforest, pulled
By my tightropes, that cannot be knotted
For fear of unmoving and chased
By the somethings, beyond our conception
That cannot be quashed by a pebble.
Florence in her own words:
My name is Florence Nicholson-Lailey and since the age of about six I’ve been writing poetry on virtually every subject, from beaches to bluebirds. My favourite poem is ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling but I’ve recently discovered that French poetry is possibly the most beautiful thing ever!
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