I've just realised that I haven't formally extended my congratulations to the hamster on "Pacts and Conjurations'. This is because it was something I would expect to be taken for granted. By way of compensating for that deficiency hereinunder I append a poem I wrote last year, for Rob. It's an unrhymed sonnet, some will have seen it before. (Best - Dave)
For Robin Hamilton
The squirrels in his beard were sleeping, he hoped.
The night was free of ghosts. Wild metrics roamed
Outside the fence, but surely a caesura, a tranquil
Resolution was here allowed. Red over white,
White over red, a delicate disturbance of syllables
Opened a rose in his hand, allegorical ladders
Climbed past his window, like late summer scents
Carrying sons of Plato. He thought of sharper
Forms, flints, granite, the clear waters of grain.
A dominie thought called him, a hard collar
Nabbing by the neb the dumbheid and stoshy.
Awa' ye bogles, spirits, mistwalkers, ghosts.
Nae archetypal squirrels, lost souls of quotes,
But a drey made still, and the dree told beware.
|