We all know pride and prejudice,
have worked the fields, cold comfort farm,
or stood as catcher in the rye,
grappled, wrestled, worked the plot,
mysterious, affair of styles,
where pylons, crows, mix jungle books,
meet hornblowers who hunt their prey,
where graves, bury me in my boots.
My treasure island first revealed,
the story San Michele, sold,
told adolescent wordsmith boy,
that journey to the lighthouse worth
dare and risk, on troubled seas.
Then Biko came, and shocked the world,
and teenage found new truths revealed,
rampant injustice justified,
the power of print to shout aloud,
and I joined crowds on protest road.
Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church, has had over 250 pieces published by on-line poetry sites, including Poetry Potion, printed journals and anthologies. https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/