This poem won the 2025 Fosseway Writers Poetry Competition with the theme of 'absence'. I'm posting it on a sunny day although this one is contemplating a rainy one!
Thoughts of O’Hara in wet weather
So the rain falls – while I
wander among suburban shops,
press avocados
to check ripeness
inhale scents of baking –
ponder a notion that raindrops
rolling down everyone’s umbrellas
once soared with seabirds and –
some time in their cycle –
surfed Hawaii, sailed the Med
and witnessed black kite Isis
gathering up pieces of Osiris.
Then – homewards
across Iford bridge –
drips make rippled rings
in the river and a grey heron
peers into deep water
while its statue stillness
blends with the downpour.
I think of him – see this rain is Hudson
and Wailuku, Nile, Stour.