A sense of togetherness

Here's one of my very favourite Don Paterson poems, taken from his 2003 'Landing Light' collection.

The picture here is not directly connected - but another Nicholas Barnham watercolour; this one hanging in our living-room at home ;-)


The Thread

Jamie made his landing in the world
so hard he ploughed straight back into the earth.
They caught him by the thread of his one breath
and pulled him up. They don’t know how it held.
And so today I thank what higher will
brought us to here, to you and me and Russ,
the great twin-engined swaying wingspan of us
roaring down the back of Kirrie Hill

and your two-year-old lungs somehow out-revving
every engine in the universe.
All that trouble just to turn up dead
was all I thought that long week. Now the thread
is holding all of us: look at our tiny house,
son, the white dot of your mother waving.

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Don Paterson (1963 - )

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