many Februaries deep in thought with me

Swimming this morning - and managed a quick 20-lengths at Dalry.

Here's a verse written by Paul Farley - another poem from the pictured volume:


11th February 1963

The worst winter for decades. In the freeze
some things get lost and I'm not even born,
but think until you're many Februaries
deep in thought with me and find London
on that day as held inside a glacier;
a fissure where two postal districts touch,
its people caught mid-floe, at furniture,
the contents of their stomachs, a stopped watch.
At these pressures the distance has collapsed:
the studio clock winds up over Primrose Hill,
or the poet and her sleeping children crossed
the mile to Abbey Road. This milk bottle
might hold what John'll drink for one last take;
that she'll leave out for when the children wake.

---

The poem is about this day (11th February - in 1963) when Sylvia Plath commited suicide - and the Beatles recorded their first album.