Labouring up to light ...

Here's the third (and final, thankfully!) collection that I managed to acquire over the weekend :-(

This is a 2007 Thom Gunn selection, and I've always loved this one about the Nasturtium, which is - of course - about so much more:


Nasturtium

Born in a sour waste lot
You laboured up to light,
Bunching what strength you’d got
And running out of sight
Through a knot-hole at last,
To come forth into sun
As if without a past,
Done with it, re-begun.

Now street-side of the fence
You take a few green turns,
Nimble in nonchalance
Before your first flower burns.
From poverty and prison
And undernourishment
A prodigal has risen,
Self-spending, never spent.

Irregular yellow shell
And drooping spur behind . . .
Not rare but beautiful
—Street-handsome—as you wind
And leap, hold after hold,
A golden runaway
Still running, strewing gold
From side to side all day.

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Thom Gunn (1929-2004)

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