This is not a typical Sally Purcell poem. She wrote brilliant snowflakes
of poems of exceptional words building up to a stained glass window
which didnt tell a story directly, but I chose this poem of hers
from her third book for 'Lynx' because it spoke directly of herself.
I wanted to put up a selection of her poetry on my Website after her
death but the project vanished in the post to Oxford.
I had forgotten I had the poem or I would have posted it earlier.
From Propertius
Let others write about you, or else you can stay unknown;
let a man praise you if he likes to sow the sand.
For believe me, all your gifts go with you,
carried out in one coffin one dark day,
and the passer-by will scorn your bones --
he will not say, 'This ash was once a learned girl.'
Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto: [log in to unmask]
Lynx: Poetry from Bath .......... http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
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