Author: Marion Clarke

Runner-up in the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2023, Marion Clarke is from Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland. She has been studying and writing short form poetry since 2012 and her work features regularly in international journals and anthologies. Winner of three Sakura awards and long and shortlisted in the Touchstone Awards, Marion was invited to judge the San Francisco International Haiku Competition 2022, and to edit the September 2023 issue of the haibun journal Drifting Sands. Further info at http://seaviewwarrenpoint.wordpress.com/

lake shimmer a jetty stretches towards dawn

playground leaves the rattle of hometown ghosts

first daffodil forever the show-off

beachcombing the detritus of us

cold light another empty bottle promise

border attack . . . lupine seed heads pop in the heat

on the mend . . . this long afternoon stitched by swallows

final prognosis different clouds on the horizon

first encounter a glasswing enters our renku

after the ceremony gossiping jackdaws

shrieking gull falling from a cliff this fear of flying

chasing shadows we wait on news of her scan

familiar tune my children’s voices above the mountain stream

disused road roots resurfacing

midday heat still ticking abandoned bicycle

unable to help myself rip tide