O’er

Zaffar Kunial

I die, but when the grave shall press…

Weep not, but think that I have passed

Before thee o’er a sea of gloom

emily brontë


I picture her o’er

above, as old antique oar. Unusable

now. But how it sweeps that widest room

the sea, with tangible love, makes the passing

less earthy, or the rowing seem airier

grief going over choppy dark waters

without stooping to dip

no v beginning to ripple

no ounce of division pressing

this current lip.

Zaffar Kunial is the author of England’s Green and Us. The winner of the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize (2014) and the Northern Writers’ Award (2013), he has been a poet in residence for the Brontë Parsonage and the Wordsworth Trust and now lives in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire.
Originally published:
December 6, 2022

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