Poem of the month

In Praise of Being Peripheral

Without philosophy,
tragedy,
history,

a red squirrel
looks
very busy.

Light as a soul
released
from a painting by Bosch,
its greens
and vermilions stripped off it.

He climbs a tree
that is equally ahistoric.

His heart beats harder.

Jane Hirshfield (1953 – ) from The Beauty (Bloodaxe:2015)

To me this is a poem about living with uncertainty. It offers a glimpse of a world in which the centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

IM