Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Water-burn by Michael Longley
Water-burn
We should have been galloping on horses, their hoofprints
Splashes of light, divots kicked out of the darkness,
Or hauling up lobster pots in a wake of sparks. Where
Were the otters and seals? Were the dolphins on fire?
Yes, we should have been doing more with our lives.
Michael Longley
From “The Weather in Japan”, Cape Poetry, 2000
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Locals by James Lasdun
Locals
They peopled landscapes casually like trees,
being there richly, never having gone there,
and whether clanning in cities or village-thin stands
were reticent as trees with those not born there,
and their fate, like trees, was seldom in their hands.
Others to them were always one of two
evils: the colonist or refugee.
They stared back, half-disdaining us, half-fearing;
inferring from our looks their destiny
as preservation or as clearing.
I envied them. To be local was to know
which team to support: the local team;
where to drop in for a pint with mates: the local;
best of all to feel by birthright welcome
anywhere; be everywhere a local ...
Bedouin-Brython-Algonquins; always there
before you; the original prior claim
that made your being anywhere intrusive.
There, doubtless, in Eden before Adam
wiped them out and settled in with Eve.
Whether at home or away, whether kids
playing or saying what they wanted,
or adults chatting, waiting for a bus,
or, in their well-tended graves, the contented dead,
there were always locals, and they were never us.
James Lasdun
from Landscape with Chainsaw, 2001