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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Yann Lovelock

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Counting breaths

Such clarity of
mind this morning, all

is new. Candlelight
dances and I count

each breath. Outside the
panes the dark changes,

I can tell, and a
bird enters this calm:

or rather heightens
all that is here to

make of emptiness
completion. Clear notes

loop like gems to thread
the light a necklace

and, descending, web
bushes into bells.

So the world widens
as about a mosque,

before rooms fill with
flickering lamplight,

the muezzin’s call is
answered by others

and circles street by
echoing street to

lasso the city
in a noose of sound.

Men wake to cleansing
as here and take the

day up polished to
shining with breath warm

as bread. Scooters clank,
time moves back into

gear, as if the lungs
must pulse on unheard,

though it is only
a new mode of praise:

how you started has
lasted for ever.

 

Page(s) 19-20

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