Walking on Water

On the subject of poems about Portsmouth, which we were, the theme of this poem from a few years ago came to mind with the tragic news of someone not surviving a walk across the frozen Baffins Pond just recently.

It was an ill-advised idea, obviously, and I have since reflected on the possible outcome of my little adventure, which was some years before I wrote the poem about it.

It is a miracle that the temperature can make water bind itself together to make it solid and, if I were to want to make a contrived metaphor for poetry, which I don't, I might say that poetry is when words bind themselves together to allow the poet to walk daringly across their surface. But since I'm not a creative writing tutor, I don't need to say anything quite so silly.