04 May 2011

Scottish poem

I give you an emptiness,
I give you a plenitude,
unwrap them carefully–
one’s as fragile as the other–
and when you thank me
I’ll pretend not to notice the doubt in your voice
when you say they’re just what you wanted.

Put them on the table by your bed.
When you wake in the morning
they’ll have gone through the door of sleep
into your head. Wherever you go
they’ll go with you and
wherever you are you’ll wonder,
smiling about the fullness
you can’t add to and the emptiness

that you can fill.

Norman MacCaig

2 comments:

am said...

Thank you for this Scottish poem. I first heard of Norman MacCaig at Solitary Walker's blog.

Jayne said...

Oh wow. I quite like this. :-)