Share poetry you've read that made you feel things. (You may or may not choose to say what those things were.)
Most everything by Robin Robertson is good, but this in particular wrenches something inside - but beautifully:
CRIMOND
i.m. Jessie Seymour Irvine
Daughter of the manse of Dunnottar, then Peterhead
and Crimond, all north-eastern edges over unstill waters,
what softness brought this tune from your young hands?
The tune my father called for every Sunday: the 23rd psalm.
When I hear it now, it's all wet cobbles and the haar
rolling in down the street outside, and him
shaking their hands, sharp in his black and white:
the dog-collar (I knew) cut clean from a bottle of Fairy Liquid.
How far we all are from where we thought we'd be:
those parishioners all vanished long ago; my father – ash
above the crematorium; me, swimming back-crawl
through the valley of the shadow of death, and you –
not even a photograph left of you – the girl who will never
touch again the foot of the cross at Crimond.
- Robin Robertson
posts
