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  • Landscape with Flying Man
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Landscape with Flying Man

John Glenday

I read about him that was given wings.
His father fixed those wings to carry him away.

They carried him halfway home, and then he fell.
And he fell not because he flew

but because he loved it so. You see
it’s neither pride, nor gravity but love

that pulls us back down to the world.
Love furnishes the wings, and that same love

will watch over us as we drown.
The soul makes a thousand crossings, the heart, just one.


John Glenday

from Grain (London: Picador, 2009)

Reproduced by permission of the publisher.

Tags:

flying Love
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John Glendayb.1952

A poet who combines the everyday and the transcendent, John Glenday has four collections of poetry.
More about John Glenday

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