• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
The Friday Poem

The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

  • The Frip
  • About
    • Masthead
    • Contributors
  • FAQ
  • Archive
    • Search the archive
    • Friday Poems
    • Reviews
    • Features
  • Subscribe
  • Submit a poem

The Friday Poem on 28/01/22

‘Out of the blue’ by Richie McCaffery does so much in so few words. The story is a familiar one of separation and loss, but the way the story is told is what does it for us — it is precisely observed, evocative and relatable. The language is plain and simple, tightly crafted and laden with allusion. Birds, trees, fruit — the whole of nature seems to offer a counterpoint to the narrator’s inner world, until at last the framing of the blossom as plectrums allows some hope that there is way to deal with, even make use of, pain

Out of the blue

She left me at the height of nesting season, 
birds building as I was dismantling my home.

She left me as saplings we’d planted were fruiting,
their berries tart as the metal of front door keys. 

She left me and I walked down the garden path
for the last time, all confettied with blossom,

the petals like plectrums as if one day
I might learn to make music from all this.

Richie McCaffery lives in Warkworth, Northumberland. He’s the author of four poetry pamphlets – Spinning Plates (HappenStance Press, 2012), Ballast Flint (Cromarty Arts Trust, 2013), First Hare (Mariscat Press, 2020) and Coping Stones (Fras Publications, 2021). He has also published two full collections, both from Nine Arches Press – Cairn (2014) and Passport (2018). He’s also the editor of Finishing the Picture: Collected Poems of Ian Abbot (Kennedy and Boyd, 2015), The Tiny Talent: Selected Poems by Joan Ure (Brae Editions, 2018) and Sydney Goodsir Smith: Essays on his life and work (Brill, 2020).

Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Email

Read this next

The Song of Siskin

The Song of Siskin

by Mark Russell — one of our Poems for Ukraine

Site Footer

MENU

  • About us
  • FAQ
  • Submit a poem
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Mentions Légales
  • THE FRIP

    The Frip is The Friday Poem’s reviews and features magazine. We run book reviews, profiles, interviews, essays, lyric essays and other features of interest to poets and readers of poetry. Read the Frip here.

    NEWSLETTER

    Why not sign up for our weekly newsletter and never miss a Friday Poem again? Pop your email address in the box and click the button.

    Copyright © 2023 · The Friday Poem · All Rights Reserved · follow the Friday Poem on Twitter · follow the Friday Poem on Facebook