courage traveller
(for Lee Harwood on learning of his death, today, 7th September 2015)
when I wrote of the five poets
I only did not write about you
because the book would have been too long
the priorities were literal only
and I have no words to describe what goes on in your poems
I loved them from the beginning
because nothing has ever taken me so much
to that place where the moment speaks at the same time both for itself
and for ourselves
the bed after love
a glimpse of Char or Heine
the American poets who rescued us
an O’Hara of the English countryside
always so alone in that moment
with just a touch of sadness
multum in parvo
yes of course, but in the poem which I now can’t find
you walk down a Sussex hill to your secret place of the orchids
disappointed to find only five emerging in early summer
and those too of the commoner sort
the flowers not yet out
Clive Bush
(for Lee Harwood on learning of his death, today, 7th September 2015)
when I wrote of the five poets
I only did not write about you
because the book would have been too long
the priorities were literal only
and I have no words to describe what goes on in your poems
I loved them from the beginning
because nothing has ever taken me so much
to that place where the moment speaks at the same time both for itself
and for ourselves
the bed after love
a glimpse of Char or Heine
the American poets who rescued us
an O’Hara of the English countryside
always so alone in that moment
with just a touch of sadness
multum in parvo
yes of course, but in the poem which I now can’t find
you walk down a Sussex hill to your secret place of the orchids
disappointed to find only five emerging in early summer
and those too of the commoner sort
the flowers not yet out
Clive Bush
