The Friday Poem on 05/01/2024
Each of Lex Runciman’s poems feels like a gift. His first, ’After What You Have Been Through’, offers the chance to take time out, to concentrate on what it is to just be. What has the “you” of the poem been through? Could be anything, could be everything – what matters is the space that the poem opens up for a reader to reconnect with him- or herself. Follow the rhyme and sonic echo threading through the poem – from ‘roses’ we travel, via ‘hose’, ‘crows’, ‘slow’, ‘excuses’ and ’through’ to the final word, ‘choose’. The effect is lulling, almost hypnotic. The poem reads as if addressed to any one of us, and ends by putting our own future gently but firmly in our own hands.
After What You Have Been Through
If you have roses, it would be good
to water them now, though it be late, late
September, the few new, unlikely
blooms… Inhale. Claim your time. Aim
the hose at the roots. If you have
no roses, then recall how good it feels
to climb five stairs and need no
pause or rest, for today your shabby lungs
greet you, amiably, and your aged heart
agrees. Or, if you have no roses and no
stairs, you might sit outside and gaze
at an intermittent slug trail, for example,
glistening, neither straight line nor clear arc.
You might listen to how noise alters – crows,
motors, a dog’s bark… how they come and go.
Thing is, you have at least a dozen
excuses to burn now, slow as you wish, one
by one, after what you have been through,
days returned now, nights quiet,
hours in your hands as you choose.
