Housman Verse Prize 2020

Posted: 21/05/2020

Congratulations to Miray K who has won the Housman Verse Prize 2020, with her poem entitled 'A Choice'. 



A Choice

Sunlight strikes your skin
Like a distant force of reckoning,
You unfurl the ache all over your body,
Relentlessly pulling the covers over your face

Letting your passion die out like
A dead winter tree,
Leaving the leaves to rot
And the roots to dry.

Seconds bleed into minutes and
Minutes into hours,
The days blend into each other.
You allow time to lose relevance.

…

Sunlight strokes your skin,
Like a comforting source of familiarity,
You force energy into your body from within,
Pushing the covers off in complete clarity.

You force your passion to reignite,
A great spring tree,
Blossoming even at twilight,
Its branches growing into infinity.

Seconds lasting longer,
A great wealth of minutes and hours,
So many days and so much to discover,
Time is a gift that overpowers.

A look outside: stars and plains and hills,
Water still running,
The May morning thrills,
The heart of nature forthcoming.

So now you rise from sleep,
The curtains undrawn,
Within you dreams still deep,
And get drunk off the fresh taste of dawn.

Because even in uncertainty,
And in a lack of rejoice,
There remains the option of positivity,
And that’s the beauty of choice.

- Miray K