watching dawn decant on the city

Picked up this 2011 Andrew Greig volume the other day - hadn't seen it before ...

... here's a favourite from within:


First light, Edinburgh

Propped in bed watching
dawn decant on the city,
I look at the book then back at the sky.

Though the book does not claim to be
the word of God,
I do not defend myself when it speaks to me.
Though this tea is brown and tannin-dry
it clears the windows of the eyes
as though they really open on a soul.
Though this oatcake contains no sugar
it bears honey to my lips.
Though the woman singing in the kitchen is but five foot one
and breakfast is solo foraging in this house,
she contains all that is dear and she feeds me.

*

May the sky like a gleaming ewer
daily tipand pur its liquor in.
May the plug of the heart pop open,
let it all flow back out again.

Now sky, book, tea, oatcake
refloat this city's battered hulk
as though it were seaworthy,
as though we had some place to go,

our sails filling with the least
puff of the world.

---

Andrew Greig (1951 - )

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