Poem
Andrew Greig
IN ENDCLIFFE PARK
IN ENDCLIFFE PARK
IN ENDCLIFFE PARK
A speck of dust no weightier than a thoughtmust have touched dead water.
I did not see what started it, but watch the ring
expand as though the pool is shaping O!
while I stand with the same exclamation
widening through me —
Could the Porter Brook, this autumn park,
the fallen and the falling leaves,
this calm pool and the weir beyond, the onrush
to Stinky Bob steaming on his bench in the sun,
all the snags and graces with which things go downhill,
be best regarded not as material
but one long, complex thought of Autumn
on this sector of the planet in its circuit round the sun,
a beat in that catchy theme
The Way Things Are?
And, more usefully, as I watch that circle spread
and these words begin enlarging on a momentary calm,
might we consider what arises in our minds
as nothing other than water, sky, trees, seasons,
and we who see ourselves as moving through the world
are better seen as receptacles, hosts
of the being that moves through us,
the pool in which its dust is registered and spread?
© 2006, Andrew Greig
From: This Life, This Life
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books, Northumberland
From: This Life, This Life
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books, Northumberland
Andrew Greig
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1951)
Andrew Greig was born in Bannockburn, Scotland, and grew up in Anstruther, Fife. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and is a former Glasgow University Writing Fellow and Scottish Arts Council Scottish/Canadian Exchange Fellow. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1972, and his first book of poetry, White Boats (with Catherine Lucy Czwerkawska), was published in 1973.
It was followed by Me...
It was followed by Me...
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Poems of Andrew Greig
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IN ENDCLIFFE PARK
A speck of dust no weightier than a thoughtmust have touched dead water.
I did not see what started it, but watch the ring
expand as though the pool is shaping O!
while I stand with the same exclamation
widening through me —
Could the Porter Brook, this autumn park,
the fallen and the falling leaves,
this calm pool and the weir beyond, the onrush
to Stinky Bob steaming on his bench in the sun,
all the snags and graces with which things go downhill,
be best regarded not as material
but one long, complex thought of Autumn
on this sector of the planet in its circuit round the sun,
a beat in that catchy theme
The Way Things Are?
And, more usefully, as I watch that circle spread
and these words begin enlarging on a momentary calm,
might we consider what arises in our minds
as nothing other than water, sky, trees, seasons,
and we who see ourselves as moving through the world
are better seen as receptacles, hosts
of the being that moves through us,
the pool in which its dust is registered and spread?
From: This Life, This Life
IN ENDCLIFFE PARK
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