19 May 2016

Poetry Thursday - New Gravity by Robin Robertson

"pieces of the tree's jigsaw" (via)

New Gravity by Robin Robertson



Treading through the half-light of ivy
and headstone, I see you in the distance
as I'm telling our daughter
about this place, this whole business:
a sister about to be born,
how a life's new gravity suspends in water.


Under the oak, the fallen leaves
are pieces of the tree's jigsaw;
by your father's grave you are pressing acorns
into the shadows to seed.

From A Painted Field (2004),Picador £6.99 (via)

Robin Robertson (b. 1955) is a poet of austere and meticulous diction, tempered by a sensuous music [says www.poetryarchive.org]. He was born in Scone, Perthshire, and brought up on the north-east coast of Scotland but has spent much of his professional life in London where he is currently Poetry Editor at Jonathan Cape. Robertson came late to publishing in terms of his own work, his debut collection A Painted Field appearing in 1997. However, the assuredness of his poetry made an immediate impression [the book won several awards].

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