More Poetry

This is an early poem, one of the first I published. It was way back in 2008 when it was accepted by an online magazine called ‘Magnificent Me’.  At that time I was recovering from a period of illness and just beginning to have the confidence to take my writing seriously.  It is my belief that finding my way back to writing – quite literally ‘finding my voice’  – was a fundamental and essential part of my eventual return to sound health.  For some time I had been very ill with ME, to the point where I was unable to work. It was a condition that appeared to have been triggered by a severe viral infection of the throat.  I realise now, of course, that, over a period of time, I had allowed my ‘self’ to be taken captive by others who, not surprisingly, did not have my best interests at heart. As a result I had not so much lost my voice as I had allowed myself to be silenced. Anyway, this is a poem about my creative process.  I last read it at The Poetry Feast, part of  The Penzance Litfest 2012.

Watering Hole

Memory is a deep well

where she seeks the idea of water

that may or may not

flow underground

of the seeming surface of things.

She can no longer smell it;

she has lost or mislaid

the wolfish trick of survival.

Though she snuffles, nose-down

in all the old ways,

ears pricked, urgent, excited,

her nose is blind

she can neither find

nor follow the ancient flow.

Still, she cannot forgo

the will to hunt.

She is driven, first by need

and then by habit.

At night, when she closes

her yellow dog eyes, she listens

and La Loba calls.

Then, she is stirred again

by the music of the wild

and for a moment

the old trails

open up to her.

Sleek and sure-footed

swishing her tail,

she goes softly

where she knows

she must be.

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