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

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

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Jenny Hemlett

print this page

Stranger

From sunlight and red squirrels at Grasmere
I took a bus travelling north.

He, the only other passenger,
within minutes began to talk.

He’d heard me ask for the stones at Castlerigg.
We were more intelligent then,  he said.

Our civilisation took a huge step back.
Do you mind me saying this?  They’re better dead.

                                   *

I could not place him, clean shaven, well spoken,
not too far advanced in middle life.

A night watchman, he liked to work unsupervised.
Instinct told me.  There was no wife.

                                   *

Then as the fells closed in and the weather changed
he hesitated, gazing at the floor.

Though we were neighbours fifteen years
I hardly knew the girl next door.

Not to worry.  I notice rivers now.  I used to find
that boring.  We watched black Thirlmere ripple

and his voice - a disembodied whisper like a web
revealed his loss.  Running, tennis, football.

                                   *

Time for my stop.  Time to climb down,
to prepare myself for the trudge along an icy lane.

The wind knifed through my thin jacket.
I thought of missed opportunities, how life wastes,

and how, when he had turned to wave
something behind him clattered.  A walking stick

while up ahead thick clouds came and went
like bears across Blencathra’s hump-backed summit.

Page(s) 20-21

Back to top