A Place Of Fine Ridges

A place of fine ridges
Where light was flung up from the valleys
Where flags flew in the blond wind
Little snowy pockets and high mountain monasteries
So you knew you could get a blessing before leaving for the summit
And you did
And you watched yellow-ribboned flags fly against red
And this was a new impossible adventure
From which you would learn, grow
Develop from the magic and mystery
But you knew one day too
You would trace a tablecloth pattern of red, yellow and blue
Like the blond wind and the coloured flags
And there would be an ashtray nearby and somebody talking
And it would be as if the ridges, never before seen
And the special light from the soft contours
Had never been

by Elizabeth Ashworth

‘A Place Of Fine Ridges’ is copyright © Elizabeth Ashworth, 2008. It is reprinted from Flashes and Specks by permission of Cinnamon Press.

Notes from Cinnamon Press:

In Flashes and Specks Elizabeth Ashworth displays a carefully honed skill, acute powers of observation and an enviable range. Birds and light, shadow and dark, the questing spirit of Walt Whitman, impermanence and a refusal to take anything for granted coalesce in mature language that is threaded with humour and made precise by the artist’s eye at work. You can read more about the book at Cinnamon’s website here, where you can also sample further poems from the collection.

Elizabeth Ashworth is a short story writer, poet, and journalist. Liz was born in Buxton and has lived in north Wales for most of her. She has taught creative writing for many years to children and adults. Her Outposts poetry collection A New Confusion won the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize, and she was second prizewinner in the HE Bates Short Story Competition.

Cinnamon Press is an independent publisher run by a family team and based in North Wales and the Midlands. We select books that we feel passionate about and concentrate on a list of poetry and fiction titles into which we put maximum effort at every stage of development. We also run regular writing courses and writing competitions, including major awards for poets, novelists and short story writers and a series of mini competitions. Find out more about the publisher and join their mailing list here. You can also find Cinnamon on Facebook and on Twitter.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.