On Ageing
Now that the heart
is shapeless, dove-meat
seraphed by a history
of flame,
a shadow on the blood
begins to form,
inconstant
in the finest instruments
and inadmissible
as evidence, though
what there ought to be
sings daylong
on the cusp
of audible,
a stopped bell in the well
of morning, swallows
ceasing in the eaves,
the new snow
falling nightlong
on a lamp-lit
schoolyard, scarcely
burdened
by the music
of the spheres.
John Burnside's collections include The Hoop (1988); The Light Trap (2002); The Good Neighbour (2005); Gift Songs (2007); and Black Cat Bone (2011), which won both the Forward Prize for Poetry and the T.S. Eliot Prize. In 2008, Burnside received the Cholmondeley Award. His prose works include the collection of short stories Burning Elvis (2000), as well as several novels and memoirs. The Devil’s Footprints (2007) was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and A Summer of Drowning (2011) was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award. A former writer-in-residence at Dundee University, he currently teaches at the University of St. Andrews.
Comments