When the Waters Rise is Mick's second pamphlet of new poems, published by Calder Valley Poetry in 2019
 
Purchase for £8.70
 
“Mick Jenkinson’s poems are full of love and regret, little elegies for people, places, and relationships; to use his phrase, ‘the slow unfolding of what we are’, an examination of the individual and his place in history and his environment.” – Stephanie Bowgett
 
Belonging
 
They say that exile clarifies things - who can tell?
To ask ‘county or country’ is to miss the point,
it’s not something that’s easy to articulate
and neither is it a matter of volition.
We stop for a sandwich in the leeward shelter
of a dry-stone wall on a high Pennine ridge.
A profound, wordless conversation is unfolding -
I could be with my father, or with my own daughter.
 
The sky is stoic; by turns threatening and comforting.
We look down on the cities while we yearn for the moors -
 
we carry this with us wherever; forever.