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Poem of the Week: Saplings

A new poem by Kevin Graham

'Whether in time we grow a few inches thick or tower in a shock of whisking leaves no one knows.' Photograph: Peter Smyth
'Whether in time we grow a few inches thick or tower in a shock of whisking leaves no one knows.' Photograph: Peter Smyth

For Peter

When all’s said and done
we plant our feet in the earth
for as long as the earth
will have us. Nothing’s a given.

Whether in time we grow
a few inches thick or tower
in a shock of whisking leaves
no one knows. By degrees

we learn the ways to cope
with loss each year
and are the stronger for it.

Our crowning glory will be that
despite the agony and fear
we bore the fruit of hope.

Kevin Graham's first collection, The Lookout Post, was published by Gallery Press in 2023. It was shortlisted for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize and won the Southword Debut Poetry Collection Award