The Writers' Group

We sit round a table
in the public library
and talk (a little)
of one who is absent,
three, four, six of us
rushing in out of the rain,
coats and brollies dripping,
cheeks red, files
clutched tightly under jackets,
damp at the edges.

We settle into our plastic chairs,
stretch numbed fingers
and spread our papers,
listening for the tempo
of each other's day,
sensing hopes, small apprehensions,
aware of nervous gestures,
joining in the laughter 
that diffuses awkwardness
and begins to weave bonds.

Shyly the poems come,
the reading diffident at first,
some used to public space,
others shocked, elated
at voicing their own words
at last and feeling them 
evoke response - like watching
a child take to water and swim -  
discovering new-found pleasure 
as images meet with quiet recognition.

One evokes a child's delight
in exploration, 
another, a loss so heavy
life struggles to go on,
a third, cherished memories
that make us laugh and breathe, 'ah yes!'
Then come portraits of a place
where antiquity shines through
and, simply, of a bird
eyeing us from his tree.

In two brief hours
we traverse joys and sorrows,
see through the gaze of a child,
join family celebrations
and meet inhabitants of streets
we've never walked but already know;
we look out from remote island shores
and sit at tables in sunlit cafes,
glimpsing the irresistible
kernel of each poetic urge.

©Janet Henderson 22nd November 2016