Locke’s Orchard – Ross Cogan

The George Crabbe Memorial Poetry Competition
2001 Crabbe Memorial Competition – First Prize
Adjudicator: Anne Beresford

A tower of light with a bright pin fixes
apple leaves, like a collage of moths
and I can see the tree stepping from its rich
greens as a swimmer slips out of his clothes

or rises from a pond, splitting its ripe
skin and trailing strings of joyful beads.
The world lies naked as a new born child
to those with tutored eyes to guide their heads.

But we are locked away from its cropped glare
and see the world’s flat ghost as through a glass;
our mind the hawk perched on a pin of air,
the waiting worm curled at the apple’s heart.

Copyright © Ross Cogan 2001