SPRINGWATCH POETRY COMPETITION

First Place

Tree

by Dominic Cogan

Almost invisible in your thereness
I have sped past you days out of mind.
Now I stand before your standing silence
which you’ve kept over many years past
my remembering.

I walk around you, tentatively
sensing a radiating energy.
With fingers spread
I touch a smoothness on your bark
as a lover.

Your book name is unknown to me
but your leaf signature presses
between the palms of my hands
- a surprising intimacy.

And, your only answer to this heaving heart
I present before you is
uncompromising stillness.

Soon I must leave.
But when I am far from you
and winter has come, as it will
I want to imitate your letting go
your tall beauty scored against the sky
and just be.

Adult Winners
1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place

Junior Winners
1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place