Words, Wide Night

The winds of change are surely blowing over the Old Continent. “Carol Ann Duffy (…) is the first woman, the first Scot and the first openly lesbian person to hold the position, as well as the first laureate to be chosen in the 21st century.” [Extracted from wikipedia.] The poem that entitles this post is this:

 

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes
and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

 

‘Words, Wide Night’
Carol Ann Duffy