OxBlog

Saturday, October 01, 2005

# Posted 10:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

POEM OF THE DAY: We've just received this from OxBlog's new west of Ireland artsy fartsy correspondent, from whom we hope to hear a great deal more on this blog. This by Scottish poet Norman MacCaig (q.v.):
Incident

I look across the table and think
(fiery with love)
Ask me, go on, ask me
to do something impossible,
something freakishly useless,
something unimaginable and inimitable
like making a finger break into blossom
or walking for half an hour in twenty minutes
or remembering tomorrow.

I will you to ask it.
But all you say is
Will you give me a cigarette, please?
And I smile and,
Returning to the marvellous world
of possibility,
I give you one
With a hand that trembles
With a human trembling

(From The White Bird, 1973)
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