The Waters Ritual
They told me to
walk blind until you feel
water on your toes.
Then they said, plunge, infuse yourself,
trust the correct keel.
I found the long swim through four waters
so unfathomably deep
a conversion process,
an idea in motion, the ebb and flow
of a poem, held fast to steep.
So here I am, what can you tell me about
that which I wonder to be real, true?
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you
Richard Skinner is Director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy. He studied at Sarum Theological College, 2024-26. These two poems are from a forthcoming collection called ‘Amends’, which is the result of his study at Sarum College.
Amethyst Review 