Wednesday, 5 August 2009

A Difference


.


File:BrantaLeucopsisMigration.jpg



Something fallen out of the air, some

thing that was breathing there before

stopped: or say it is a difference


felt quickly on turning from one’s work

to the window, and seeing there the same

trees the same color, the sky still without clouds,


changed only in reference to the trees

which also seem to have turned away.

The world still external but less distinct


at its center. For a few

seconds. Fall. The centerfielder drifts under

the last fly ball of the summer, and puts it away.




Barnacle geese flock (Branta leucopsis) flying in formation during autumn migration, Finland: photo by Thermos, 2006


9 comments:

  1. Click on the image to feel the difference.

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  2. TC:
    hope you are doing all right.
    I liked the poem a lot, really creative, you are mixing 2 subjects only you with your creativity can.
    My favourite sentence is "The world still external but less distinct" I think this is excelent tom. I guess And you are right once again regardings that some emotions are almost imperceptible, but I guess wisdom in those cases consist if it is imperceptible because it is just how it is naturally expressed, or if it is imperceptible because it does not wan t to be shown by the one that is experiencing it.
    Thanks tom
    M

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  3. Mariana, t.p., Billy,


    Thanks very much, your kind words and an equally sweet side comment tonight from another esteemed fellow practitioner, Rachel Loden (“one of your finest religious poems, with an ending that always knocks the stuffing out of me") caused me to pop several buttons on my hair shirt.

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  4. some
    thing that was breathing there before
    .
    .
    .


    1-1= ∞

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  5. This is undoubtedly the first Tom Clark poem I ever read; I think I encountered it in some anthology (Hopwood?) when I was about 18. The ending startles me as much now as it did then. You potted that final image like a snooker wizard, Tom.

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