Ian Parks: One Poem

Ian Parks

Ian Parks was one of the Poetry Society New Poets in 1996. He was made a Hawthornden Fellow in 1991 and has taught creative writing at the universities of Sheffield, Hull, Oxford and Leeds. His collections include Shell Island (Waywiser, 1996), Love Poems 1979-2009 (Flux Gallery Press, 2009) and The Landing Stage (Lapwing. Belfast, 2010). His pamphlet, A Paston Letter, is published by Rack Press.

The Arrow Slit

I clear the cobwebs from the slit.
The archer aims, draws back his bow
and lets the arrow fly.

It doesn’t matter that eight hundred years
divides us from the air
sliced open by the arrowhead,

the archer tensed and quivering,
his target fixed, already dead
in the sharp mind of his eye –

a mind defined in action as he sees
the new ghost he has made.
All that matters is the string pulled tight,

the narrow view, the upright sky,
our concentration as we trace
the flight and where it went.

Our movements are identical:
we wipe our foreheads, blink back sweat,
take in the birdsong

and the fleshed-out trees
which sudden death failed to displace
then duck back swiftly in the shade.