This week participants explored "Choice" by Ruth Padel
Choice
Digging a bush up,
pitching in
to damp earth,
getting out
clutch-arms and
fingertip veins
as easily broken
as silk
I look into the
mica eye
of a robin. This
is what we say
we all want. The
choice –
to go, to stay. But
how does a robin decide?
How does anyone?
From The Mara Crossing: Poems and Prose on Migration and Home, Chatto & Windus, 2012.
Reproduced by kind permission of the author.
This poem particularly resonated with the women from Maryhill Integration Network, who left their home countries seeking sanctuary under circumstances they did not choose.
The theme of the robin also linked back to the second week's poem by Jackie Kay.
