Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

                                    I
                          Their Ghosts

Their ghosts arise in memory from the place
    Where I passed by them twenty years ago,
    Their long legs dancing softly to and fro.

Why did the proud scholar cast down his face?
    How for a book could he neglect them so?
Their ghosts arise in memory from the place
    Where I passed by them twenty years ago.

Often I see them in their former grace.
    Surely, they say, such a scholar should know
    He cannot make the river backwards flow.
Their ghosts arise in memory from the place
    Where I passed by them twenty years ago,
    Their long legs dancing softly to and fro.

                                   II
                                Flora

What can these mute and secret bluebells mean 
    That every year around the trees have sprung?
    If they might speak, it would be with your tongue.

You now I see clothed in this woodland green, 
    No more I question as when I was young— 
What can these mute and secret bluebells mean
    That every year around the trees have sprung? 

What shall be said amidst the floral scene?
    Such loving bird-songs everywhere are sung, 
    Such bargains made, the watching leaves among. 
What can these mute and secret bluebells mean 
    That every year around the trees have sprung? 
    If they might speak, it would be with your tongue. 

                                   III
                        This is Your Elegy 

This is your elegy, the grey sea grieving—
    This and the gulls' disconsolate reply.
    Beyond your hearing is their derelict cry.

Now every wave reminds me of your leaving;
    There is no houseless bird more lost than I.
This is your elegy, the grey sea grieving—
    This and the gulls' disconsolate reply.

To end your absence and your unbelieving
    With yet one more 'I love you ', I would try
    To call my sea-bird back from the cold sky.
This is your elegy, the grey sea grieving—
    This and the gulls' disconsolate reply.
    Beyond your hearing is their derelict cry.