Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 92, Volume 19 Number 6, July - August 1993.

Poems Simon Howard

THE SADNESSES OF AENEAS

It's morning, early. Dove under-winged by pink,
A fist of troubled cloud away high to the west.
And all of beauty lays along to touch the trees
And make them shiver apprehending it, divides the
   grass
So that the dew makes shining islands of the lawn.

You've spent the night in scanning through a scripted life
That much of you insists has been your own.
Each place you've paused at paused and then,
Both owned and disavowed you.
At instant, appearance fled from you at speed,

Sand sifting down heaped sand banks with the dry
And unexpected, the inexplicable summer winds.
And you would stare into a whitening, a process
   nameable,
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image