Poem Of The Month
Selected by David Underdown, who also writes the commentary.
Instrument
by Greta Stoddart
All this wind and rain could so easily go
without saying (and it does, we know it does
as could, as ever, birds – no, swifts! fluid,
workmanlike, fixing rips in the sky.
Here we go again, saying stuff,
coming up against this great easy other.
To what good isn’t clear but who’s to stop us tonight
as we make our beery diesel public transport way home
calling up a bird (never mind the name),
a small bursting thing – I have him
in a clearing, the world at his feet,
his chest giving in and out like a pedal.
