Poem of the month

selected by David Underdown, who also supplies the footnote.

A Difficult Colour

by John Glenday

Think of it this way:
imagine a sea voyage. You have drawn

the boat up on the shingle for the night.

The water is barely luminous.

Someone points into the gloom. On the far hill
they are burning crofts.

The rain comes on again, but softly,
to preserve the sanctity of desecration

You stand watching the reflections
tremble upon the water.

It’s that sort of colour.

John Glenday is a Scottish poet whose third collection ‘Grain’ (Picador 2009) was a Poetry Book Society recommendation and shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award. This short poem leaves a lot of space to be filled in by the reader. The mood of gentle reasonableness in the opening lines is suddenly shattered by the line ‘they are burning the crofts’ that comes out of the blue and is profoundly shocking. Glenday lives in Drumnadrochit and works in the NHS as an addictions counsellor. His fourth collection is due be published in 2015.