Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
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 Between Languages, Howard Cooper 'Ur-language' Oksana Maksymchuk 'Multifarious Beast' Zinovy Zinik 'My Mother Tongue, My Fatherland' Philip Terry 'Lost Languages' Victoria Moul 'Bad Latin, Barbarous Inglishe'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 6, Volume 5 Number 2, January - March 1979.

Three Poems C.H. Sisson

THE HERB GARDEN

When a stream ran across my path,
I stopped, dazzled, though the sparkle was at my feet;
The blind head moved forward, Gulliver
Walking toweringly over the little people.

Not that smaller in size meant, in any way, lesser;
It was merely that I could not see them, my eyes
Crunched on them as if they had been pebbles,
And I blundering without understanding.

Large is inept: how my loping arms fall,
The hands not prehensile, perpendicular
Before an inclined trunk. The legs do the damage,
Like the will of God without rhyme or reason.

Epithalamia are dreamed in this atmosphere
Which towers like a blue fastness over my head.
My head is full of rumours, but the perceptions
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image