First Place Winner, December 2007 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

First Place Winner, December 2007

RUTH IN WARD 3A IMAGINES HERSELF AS A TREE *Brenda Levy Tate* (Pen Shells) Before first light, I slip into a spruce -- its roots (and mine) old ropes that tie the clay to bind me gently, while the stars infuse me with a balm of resin, salt and spray. My blood is balsam now, and moves as slow as sunrise. With a prickling in my chest, the alto sap upwells and spreads; its low ring-singing stirs the shorebirds from their rest. Below me wheel the herring gulls and hawks that drift toward my cliff. A willet cries above the pearling tide, and on the rocks a stranger’s cat holds morning in her eyes. I shed my bark as dawn releases me. Tomorrow, I shall dream myself the sea. Judge E. Ethelbert Miller’s comments: “I like the title of this poem and how it works with the sonnet structure. One is pulled into the world of mental illness and it’s the world of nature as well as imagination. This is a poem of transformation and a rejection of restrictions. Ruth is able to escape the hospital ward. The closing couplet makes this poem a winner. I want Ruth to believe she is the sea tomorrow.”


About the InterBoard Poetry Competition Archive of IBPC Winners 2nd Place Winner, December 2007