We’re featuring three poems by Pippa Hennessy, Project Director for the Nottingham City of Literature campaign and director of the Nottingham Writers’ Studio.
My Garden, Sixty Miles From the Sea
1.
this is the wrong island
2.
the MS Oldenburg bounds across the Bristol Channel
my stomach churns
an old man wearing blue dungarees
and a dishevelled demeanour
waves binoculars at a pair of guillemots
dolphins fold the waves like silk
the Rat Island oystercatchers shout
welcome, welcome, look at me, look at me
hammers on the hold door reply
we’re here
3.
red wine swells nine voices to climb
torch-beams to the glass-captured moon
a burnished beetle follows me
from the seals’ playground at the tip of Brazen Ward
to Long Roost, where ten thousand razorbills
and eight puffins nest
a dunlin trips over my feet
on its way to the next puddle
skylarks, invisible, fill the sky
five adults and seven children picnic
by the concrete engine block
of a WWII German bomber
I wish the gulls would hush
as a newborn lamb takes its first steps
two puffed-up pigeons huddle and grumble
by the one-roomed cottage where I shiver
and can’t sleep for laughing
4.
I am never more than half a mile from the sea
the sea which is always flat and grey
when I return to the wrong island
Author Bio:
Pippa Hennessy has published poetry, short fiction, graphic short stories and creative non-fiction in various magazines and anthologies. She is Development Director at Nottingham Writers’ Studio, Project Director for Nottingham’s UNESCO City of Literature bid, and works for Five Leaves Publications. In a past life she was a software developer, but she’s feeling much better now.
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