Wednesday Poem

At Llanvillo

An owl.

The slamming of a distant door.

A shrew-squeal in the hedge at hand.

So separate, so rare.
Inside this chic vitrine,
The night. The night. The
Silence and the deep Welsh night.
And now I turn inward, down through
Pure silence, seeing that to record,
Press flowers, take photographs,
Failure on failure waits to prove
Unrecordable silence rings each sound.
Immeasurable space surrounds each point.
Doubt upon doubt saharas assertion
And unbeing rules each rule of being.
Until I hear voices, the voices
Of friends from the village house.
Hey, John! John?

And I unbecome,
Become their John.

by John Fowles
from Poems
Ecco Books, 1973

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