'It's the rhythms and the music'

 

“At school, I was never given a sense that poetry was something flowery or light. It's a complex and controlled way of using language.  Rhythms and the music of it are very important. But the difficulty is that poetry makes some kind of claim of honesty.” – Tobias Hill

 

A multi-talented writer of fiction, poems and short stories, Hill was born in London on March 30, 1970 and died of brain cancer in 2023.  He won awards for all his writing efforts, which included 4 volumes of poetry, 4 novels, a short story collection, and a children's book in just 20 years of writing.  

 

For Saturday’s Poem from his award-winning Midnight in the City of Clocks (influenced by his experience of life in Japan), here is Hill’s,

 

         October

She meets the train

at Burning Stone station,

                        red leaves in her pocket

and the river from the mountain

green as an eye.

 

The sun keeps rhythm

                        through the pines. The train beats time. She tells me that

her name translates as Three Eight Sweet One,

Sickle-Hand, and that her town

is famous for carrots, and that

 

The moon has no face in Japan,

but the shadow of a hare,

                        leapt from the arms of a god.

 

Later, under the sod-black trees

she hides her face against the wind

and asks me to teach her to kiss.