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Daphne Gloag (1933-2024)
last update:
15th Jan12
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Daphne at Second Light
listen to poem
Dark Matter
poetry favourites:
Second Light
Poetry School
Long Poem Magazine
Cinnamon Press
and in the shop…
collections –
“Beginnings and Other Poems”
and
“A Compression of Distances”
Cinnamon Press
*Invisible matter – dark matter – is generally thought to be the main reason for the gravity holding the galaxies together.
That Volvo must be doing 70, I said
as we drove home from the museum. Words
as bridges, the road smooth as thought, sun low,
its brightness undone. Not so much traffic now.
Words as cushions. The engine’s so quiet, you said.
It was a kind of peace.
What did you like best today? I asked you. –
Well, the wise men – their huge star – on that ivory…
oh look at that, I knew that car would pull out.
My silent agreement merged with the quiet.
Long as memory it seemed, the road:
it could have gone on for ever, knowing nothing
of the souls it carried.
Today, I said, won’t last for ever
but our poems will remember it.
Clarity of being, bright surfaces
plain to see. Nothing to explain, except the comfort
of the banality of breath, except the ease
of words and silence
smooth as our speed,
except the way
two beings held together, hid one life,
just as in the galaxies
what cannot be seen
holds together the luminous stars.