The judging poem

Having just finished judging a competition, and subsequently blogging about my judgely process over at the Sunny Dunny blog, I thought I'd post this whimsical poem from The floorshow at the Mad Yak Café, published by Red Squirrel Press in 2010.

Judging nature poetry

Typescript poems festoon the branches.

I walk through the grove,

letting blackbird’s alarm

alert me to today’s winner.

The whale’s verse boomed and chirruped

on the constancy of krill and swimming;

why life is a fluke

and so hard to fathom.

To the beaver, all was willow,

and how sweet the bark of birch

in the deep clay dam of winter.

Doves sprang to the defence of wars,

for the multiple freedoms

loosed each successive armistice

from the pious hopes of peace.

A neighbour’s cat praised

the stupidity of sparrows,

the playfulness of fieldmice,

and other victims.

The prize was reserved

for the eloquent silence of vegetables,

in which the wisdom of artichokes

brought forth a flowering

of edible metaphors.

Copyright  © Colin Will, 2010