Poem of the month

selected by David Underdown, who also supplies the footnote

The Meeting

by Jane Hirshfield

The rat was fat and healthy and equally surprised,
almost insulted. Leaving only because I was larger
but renouncing no claim.
As I, at times, have looked my fate in the face
and acknowledged nothing.
Continued as if I could, as if this life were mine to choose,
and I the unquestioned lord of my basement kingdom
with its single, high, and unwashed corner window.

Hirshfield was born in New York but lives in rural California. Many of her poems have a visionary quality, meditations on transience and the Buddhist virtue of ‘mindfulness’ , yet they often use arresting imagery and are rooted in the living world. Here in just eight lines she allows a chance encounter with a rat in her basement speak about human mortality and our illusion that we are in control of our lives. The poem is taken from Hirshfield’s 2005 collection ‘After’, published by Bloodaxe.