Long listed for the Write about Walking Together competition 2024

Sharing – written and read by Damaris West

This is your habit: always 
gazing up, while I look down. 
You notice clouds and distances, 
the health of trees.

I am distracted by
the smallest flowers: 
eyebright, self-heal, speedwell, 
or a bunching caterpillar.

Your eye is drawn by catkins, cones 
and ivy, singing birds.
I am attuned to striped
stones and iridescent beetles.

You have your domain and I have mine, but 
somewhere, at some wavering line,
our two horizons meet. We share
bluebells, pungency of few-flowered leek,

a fleeing roe deer’s rump,
a pigeon’s clattering ascent. 
We tell of findings, probe 
the mysteries of fungi, watch

the swinging spider, glimpse each other’s 
point of view. By means of
conversation we encompass
all things, even dew and constellations.

• Read other pieces in the Write about Walking Together competition long list
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