Poetry Day

Today is National Poetry Day. I have lots of favourites - Shakespeare's Sonnet 'Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds' is one, and Yeats 'He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven'. Anything by Evangeline Paterson, who so kindly took an interest in a new and struggling writer and became my friend and mentor. T S Eliot, including all the cat poems, and I used to share A A Milne poems with my children. But for Mistmantle readers, today I'll offer you this - it's by Kenneth Steven, from the West of Scotland, and is in his collection 'Iona'

The Small Giant

The otter is ninety per cent water
Ten Per cent God.

This is a mastery
We have not fathomed in a million years.

I saw one once, off the teeth of western Scotland,
Playing games with the Atlantic -

Three feet of gymnastics
Taking on an ocean.



And perhaps you'll like this one, too, from the same collection -

After The Rain

I woke at first light,
Listened to the quiet after long rainfall.

Like a strange resurrection
The clouds were torn, blown into pale shreds,
October above them blue and beautiful.
I went out, barefoot, found the meadows lying underwater,
The oaks still above their own reflections.

I waded out through white water,
Swayed back folds of still water,
As the swallows flickered in the morning air
And the Sabbath bells flowed over the valley.

I thought of Christ in the fields of Galilee,
His feet swathing though lilies and water,
Early in the birdsong of the morning.



Let's do more poems! Tell me your favourites!