An excellent, thorough feel of confinement, Martin---most effective in its
build and close.
Many thanks; delighted you're 'back' again and with a poem!
Judy
2009/2/4 Martin Dolan <[log in to unmask]>
> Each day they are sent to us: instances
> of pain, worked examples of life pressing
> unbearably down, noted in due form
> submitted for judgement.
>
> By design every story is stripped back
> to a wall of facts, rough and unplastered;
> what cannot be diagnosed by doctors
> must not and will not count.
>
> This is what we ask of everyone
> who makes a claim on us: describe the instant
> when a life changed, describe without feeling
> and without adjectives
>
> that lyric moment, then send it to us.
> Each day these moments come and we must look
> must sift and scrutinise these shapes of fact
> and judge their consequence.
>
> But that is not enough. The law demands
> that we explain ourselves and what we've done.
> There is no form that this can take but prose:
> our essay in response.
>
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