Sharon retired from her job as Principal of a sixth form college in 2015. Since then, she has been learning to write poetry again, after a break of 40 years. Many of her poems celebrate the beauty of the Isle of Portland, where she lives with her husband. Recent poems have been published in Three Drops from a Cauldron and Atrium and are forthcoming in The High Window.
West
Sea tarnishes as August dwindles:
horizon smudged by a nicotine finger
blurs to a ridge of hills or pod of cloud;
fishermen freckle the high water mark
pitter-pat a silver flicker summer’s final
mackerel shoal the avid squeal of gulls;
two yellow kayaks, four red buoys, black
shadow, a rock stack leans flexes dips;
young peregrines’ spiral play, their cry
a blare on grass taut between thumbs;
deep growl of pebble chafing pebble;
chatter of walkers where a tramway
hauled stone to the harbour and away.
Sharon Phillips
