Two Poems by Gifford Savage

 

Turning

Instinct urged her on,
shovelling upward through the weight above.
Reaching to the stars,
seeking for the moon.
Breaking surface at last
dragging her tiring tiny limbs
towards the light and the waiting sea.

Tonight it is the bright city streetlights
that charm and bedazzle her,
luring her to certain doom.
Until a caring hand gently scoops her up,
carries her away from the seductive radiance,
sets her wriggling free
into the waves’ embrace.

This one,
this time,
has made the journey
that her ancestors for countless millennia
made without the help of human hands –
until we turned her world around.
If she could speak,
this fragile link to ages past,
she would urge us:

please, turn down the lights.

 

Brief Encounter

We caught one another unawares,
he emerging from behind a granite stone
in the old graveyard.
He stood, chest rising and falling,
eyes locked with mine.
The rest of the world stopped

in a moment seeming sacramental.
Evening light casting his shadow before him,
copper fur set aflame.
A dog fox in his prime –
one front paw raised,
me trying to be still

lest movement from either one
would snap the thread between.
Then he was gone
as suddenly as he had come,
darting back behind the monument
with a parting glance over his shoulder.

I waited, longing for him to reappear.
Slowly inched forward –
looked behind the gravestone.
But he wasn’t there.
He had vanished like a will-o'-the-wisp
into the setting sun.

Gifford Savage - colour:#333333;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">Gifford Savage escaped from the Civil Service and now spends his time shouting at the news on television and shaking his head in bewilderment at social media. He writes poetry because he has to and never fails to be surprised that his poems have appeared in a number of journals including ‘The Bangor Literary Journal,’ ‘The Storms,’ ‘Agape Review’ and ‘The New Verse News.’ He was included in the CAP anthology ‘Across the Threshold,’ has performed his poetry on local television station ‘Northern Visions TV’ and was winner of the Aspects Festival Poetry Slam 2022.