Gedicht
Gillian Clarke
In the Reading Room
In the Reading Room
In the Reading Room
You scan the stream, silver-eyed as a heronsearching the surface for what might betray
a halt in the flow, pentameter’s delay,
a master’s faded words, his lexicon.
Before you, found in an old book
marking a page, a longhand manuscript.
Look, where the knib unloaded ink and dipped
and rose again, leaving a blot on the downstroke,
writing by candlelight in another century,
wind in the chimney, maybe, the pen’s small sound.
You write: ‘Anonymous. Date a mystery.
Some words illegible. No signature found.’
Yet the poem sings in your mind from the silent archive
and all the dead words speak, aloud, alive.
© 2011, Gillian Clarke
Publisher: First published on PIW,
An uncollected poem, published here with the kind permission of the author.
Publisher: First published on PIW,
Gedichten
Gedichten van Gillian Clarke
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In the Reading Room
You scan the stream, silver-eyed as a heronsearching the surface for what might betray
a halt in the flow, pentameter’s delay,
a master’s faded words, his lexicon.
Before you, found in an old book
marking a page, a longhand manuscript.
Look, where the knib unloaded ink and dipped
and rose again, leaving a blot on the downstroke,
writing by candlelight in another century,
wind in the chimney, maybe, the pen’s small sound.
You write: ‘Anonymous. Date a mystery.
Some words illegible. No signature found.’
Yet the poem sings in your mind from the silent archive
and all the dead words speak, aloud, alive.
In the Reading Room
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