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Cheshire Poet Laureate
A Place for Planning Journeys
Stay here awhile; this is a place for planning journeys.
We have all the charts and maps you’ll need and more besides.
The tide swells and is high with opportunity.
Wet your finger, hold it to the air, sense the sting
of adventure. Set sail on the ocean of your
imagination, steer towards the span of your horizon.
Discover other worlds and magic halls with endless
treasure set to fill your eager mind. Find your way to
distant skylines, rosy tipped and flushed with promises.
Billow out your sails with stories from exotic lands
take a taste of unspoiled words, delicious on the tongue
sate your appetite, slake your thirst, then travel on.
But remember, if you flounder in a squall or storm
or fret for home bemoaning cosier corners there,
our point is fixed for your return, we have safe harbour here.
Make this your sanctuary, your base, your staging post.
We have all the charts and maps you’ll need and more besides;
compasses, a list of tides, a fervent guiding star.
Stay here awhile. This is a place for planning journeys.
Joy Winkler
February 2005
Commissioned by Ellesmere Port Library as part of redevelopment project. One line of the poem is displayed in the new courtyard etched in stone and a vinyl of the whole poem is displayed in the window of the library.
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