This poem is taken from PN Review 197, Volume 37 Number 3, January - February 2011.
'I reach down one of your books I kept'
Some day it will have to go back –
och I will return it one day
to another shelf.
Between rust-coloured covers
the smell of 1950s paper
and an absented look
about this page – as if you’d
raised your head a minute
to think about what was written.
Descriptions of natural life –
how water climbs on its own back
to bamboozle rocks in the burn
or leaves and honeysuckle twist
extravagant knots a passer-by
might brush with his shoulder.
Some day I will turn as if
to tell you about this –
When did you ever not
have a view on such matters?
...
och I will return it one day
to another shelf.
Between rust-coloured covers
the smell of 1950s paper
and an absented look
about this page – as if you’d
raised your head a minute
to think about what was written.
Descriptions of natural life –
how water climbs on its own back
to bamboozle rocks in the burn
or leaves and honeysuckle twist
extravagant knots a passer-by
might brush with his shoulder.
Some day I will turn as if
to tell you about this –
When did you ever not
have a view on such matters?
...
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