Just 3 Poems Would Do

  “If I were to die thinking that I'd written three poems that people might read after me, I would feel that I hadn't lived in vain. Great poets might expect the whole body of their work, but most of us - well, I would settle for a handful.” – Andrew Motion

 

Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009, Motion’s poems are known for the insightful way in which they explore loss and desolation.  Born in 1952, he has authored a number of best-selling books and founded “Poetry Archive,” an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own works.  For Saturday’s Poem here is Motion’s,

 

                                       Diving

The moment I tire
of difficult sand-grains
and giddy pebbles,
I roll with the punch
of a shrivelling wave
and am cosmonaut
out past the fringe
of a basalt ledge
in a moony sea-hall
spun beyond blue.
Faint but definite
heat of the universe

 

flutters my skin;
quick fish apply
as something to love,
what with their heads
of gong-dented gold;
plankton I push

 

an easy way through
would be dust or dew
in the world behind
if that mattered at all,
which is no longer true,
with its faces and cries.

 

 

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