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  • Loss
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Loss

Gordon Jarvie

Emerging from the kirk
with my family
into a howling wind,
someone observed
my tear-stained cheek
and asked me
what was on my mind.

Nothing much, I replied.
I am merely lamenting
the long-lost certainties
of my childhood.


Gordon Jarvie

from A Man Passing Through: memoir with poems selected and new (London: Greenwich Exchange, 2014)

Reproduced by permission of the author and publisher.

Tags:

bereavement childhood churches loss
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Gordon Jarvieb.1941

Gordon Jarvie is the compiler of three enduring anthologies of Scottish poetry, has edited several of the 'Scottie Series' of children's books for National Museums Scotland, and has written his own poetry since the 1990s.
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