Horizon
For the Silver Pen of Ynys Witrin, 2025
The sacred marriage happens every day
where earth meets sky, out at the horizon
and air-limbs twine with earth-limbs, cloud to clay...
their meeting is the match the world relies on.
Sky hungers after earth so long, so much
their kisses come as mighty forking bolts.
A roaring crack attends each tender touch -
in each caress, three hundred million volts.
There is no ‘us’ without their wild embrace.
Without the sky, the land is but bare rock,
without the earth, the air dissolves in space;
but in their zap-mire churn, life runs amok.
From blue-green algae to blue whale, we’re blood -
born of the boundless match of heaven
and mud.
This poem, submitted under the pseudonym ‘Pip’, was rewarded with the Silver Pen at last night's Bardic contest for the Chair of Ynys Witrin (Glastonbury).
The theme of this year's contest, set by our newest Elder Bard, Cat Lupton, was ‘The Sacred Marriage’, and the Silver Pen is awarded for the best piece on the theme submitted in writing (unlike the Chair, which is the main prize and goes to the best performer) (also unlike the Chair, the Pen is open to submissions from people living outside of the Glastonbury catchment area).
Congratulations to Elliot Munro who won the Chair to become the newest Bard of Glastonbury, and to Di Milstein who was awarded the Tim Sebastian Memorial Trophy for ‘elevation of the word’.
Thanks to last year's Silver Pen winner, Matt Witt, who judged this year's entries, and special thanks to Tony Atkinson for instigating this fine part of our tradition.