Poem for the week – May 3

In 1997, on a trip to the UK, I chanced upon a poem by Carol Ann Duffy that has been, since I first read it, one of my favourite poems. I had planned to post it last week, but decided instead to do so this week.

It is haunting, it is beautiful, it is soft. It lingers quietly.

Carol Ann Duffy, by coincidence, was nominated this past week as Britain’s first female poet laureate in 341 years.

Words Wide Night

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

By Carol Ann Duffy (The Other Country)