This week’s poem is inspired by the longest of the many Danish bridges that bind the country together, and which starts in the lovely town of Nyborg.

Storbæltsbro

Bridge

over still waters,

soft glowing sunrise in yellow stained mist.

Concrete, cables, tar; 

sturdy, solid, sleek.

Cars glinting past,

Rumble of rolling rubber.

Plump seagulls glide soundless alongside,

Likewise suspended

In space.

Storbæltsbroen, 2017

This week’s poem, written a few months ago, shortly after returning to Uganda. Inspired by the immediacy of life in a place where life is beautiful, raw but also hard. In a place where many people have lost and suffered much.

Now

Prickle of sun on my shoulders,

Moisture waking under warm skin,

Ache in a thigh muscle.

I am this thirst and tread

Along warm tarmac.

Past, a reinterpreted moonscape,

Future, a land too foreign to catch my interest

Love, an echo of instinct

Without logic,

An emptiness nature abhors.

Heat is real: sweet, warm and wet,

Now is this moment.

Here is who I am

Arua 2017

This week’s poem, thoughts on looking back at the year just passed, and allowing yourself the freedom to interpret events in the light of passing time.

New Year

It’s a new year,

Twenty-seventeen drifting off into the stratosphere,

Not quite gone, memories press on,

You’re allowed to edit if your aim is sincere

It’s a new year,

Some things best forgotten, others brought into the clear.

My past is my own, timbre and tone,

Processed from left or right hemisphere.

It’s a new year,

Time to wake up love and peace, ditch cynicism and fear,

Remember solutions, repeat resolutions,

Trust that hope runs eternal, if you just persevere.

Kampala, 2018