Poem
Kathleen Jamie
Daisies
Daisies
Daisies
We are flowers of the commonsward, that much we understand.
Of everything else
we’re innocent. No Creator
laid down such terms
for our pleasant lives,
– it’s just our nature,
were we not so,
we wouldn’t be daisies, closing
our lashes at the first
suggestion of Venus. By then,
we’re near exhausted. Evening
means sleep, and surely it’s better
to renew ourselves than die
of all that openness?
But die we will, innocent
or no, of how night
spills above our garden,
twins glittering there
for each of us; die
never knowing what we miss.
© 2004, Kathleen Jamie
From: The Tree House
Publisher: Picador, London
Published with kind permission of the author and Picador (http://www.picador.com/).
From: The Tree House
Publisher: Picador, London
Kathleen Jamie
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1962)
Kathleen Jamie is a leading figure in a generation of distinguished Scottish poets that also includes Don Paterson, Robert Crawford, John Burnside, Roddy Lumsden and Jackie Kay. She was born in Renfrewshire, Scotland in 1962, and grew up in Edinburgh, where she studied philosophy at Edinburgh University. Her poetry career got off to an early start when she received an Eric Gregory Award (for po...
Poems
Poems of Kathleen Jamie
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Daisies
We are flowers of the commonsward, that much we understand.
Of everything else
we’re innocent. No Creator
laid down such terms
for our pleasant lives,
– it’s just our nature,
were we not so,
we wouldn’t be daisies, closing
our lashes at the first
suggestion of Venus. By then,
we’re near exhausted. Evening
means sleep, and surely it’s better
to renew ourselves than die
of all that openness?
But die we will, innocent
or no, of how night
spills above our garden,
twins glittering there
for each of us; die
never knowing what we miss.
From: The Tree House
Published with kind permission of the author and Picador (http://www.picador.com/).
Daisies
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