The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

The Friday Poem on 26/04/2024

Poetry can take a well-worn metaphor, or even a cliché, polish it up and send it out again sparkling. We know all about life as an uphill journey. We know about being over the hill. We know about downhill all the way. Here’s that hill. The poet walks up it and meets her “younger self” coming down. They don’t speak but each is thinking about the other. The word ‘top’ (the last word in three of the four stanzas) gleams at the end of the poem. You’ll get there steadily, pleasurably, “one foot / in front of the other”.

Walking The Hill

Here I am, walking up Pope’s Hill
on the tarmac track.
It’s a cold January day,
the track’s very steep.
Will I get to the top?

Look! Here’s my younger self
stepping lightly down
towards me with the dog,
wondering what happens
when she’s too old
to get to the top.

It’s a warm summer’s eve.
She’s passing me now
and going on down,
she and the dog.

I’m wrapped up warm in the January sun,
huffing and puffing on up 
one foot 
in front of the other
towards the top.

Pam Zinnemann-Hope’s first collection, On Cigarette Papers, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. She adapted it for the Afternoon Play, also acting in it alongside Eleanor Bron, Emma Fielding et al. Foothold, her second collection, travels through the seasons and ecology in Thomas Hardy territory, through deep time, music, love in old age. Some poems have been set to music by composer David Dubery. Pam is also a children’s author. She is an experienced poetry tutor and curates poetry and music evenings in West Bay and other venues in West Dorset.

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