Martyn Halsall

Santon Bridge, Cumbria, UK

Literary Biography: Martyn Halsall has published five poetry pamphlets and two full collections, most recently Invisible Music (Caldew Press: August 2020) about experiencing cancer. Following retirement from journalism, including 17 years as a staff correspondent on The Guardian, he became the first Poet in Residence at Carlisle Cathedral. His awards include being three times winner of the Jack Clemo Memorial Prize, and being short-listed in the Manchester Cathedral and Keats-Shelley competitions. He is currently writing about lament, with particular reference to climate change. He lives and writes in rural West Cumbria.

Completed: April 22, 2020

Coffee with Otters

First morning, eventual meeting; coffee with otters

sculptured as spiral, bronze dive near the ferry;

that coming ashore to your home from a borrowed island,

that generous showing-round; single-track weave

of the one road; house with garden lapping shoreline,

your sea’s reach, east, towards the hidden mainland.

Wasp’s rasp as that day’s flight wavered to shingle,

ebb granting landing: splayed pebble buckshot take-off,

Sea Otter banked towards Glasgow; quiet returning.

Cresting a hilltop we discovered the Atlantic

unfurling, languid, layer over layer

eclipsing crescent of sand, darkening sliced moon.

Scentings: clover on machair’s salted flowerscape

as we strolled west, rehearsed old joke about

America seen on clear days. Hand in hand

you turned for home. We sailed blue evening back

talking with a woman from the other end of the world,

her passion for wings; sightings; rumours of otters.