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Poem

Kathleen Jamie

I walk at the land’s edge,
turning in my mind
a private predicament.
Today the sea is indigo.
Thirty years an adult –
same mind, same
ridiculous quandaries –
but every time the sea
appears differently: today
a tumultuous dream,
flinging its waves ashore –

Nothing resolved,
I tread back over the moor
– but every time the moor
appears differently: this evening,
tufts of bog-cotton
unbutton themselves in the wind
– and then comes the road
so wearily familiar
the old shining road
that leads everywhere


Kathleen Jamie

from Love poet, carpenter: Michael Longley at seventy, edited by Robin Robertson (London: Enitharmon, 2009)

Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

21st century poems ageing Best Scottish Poems 2009 scottish poems sea seashore walking

About this poem

This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2009. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2009 was Andrew Greig.

Editor’s comment:
Apparently casual, as though in quiet, intimate conversation both with the reader and itself, ‘Poem’ wanders by the sea, across the moor, and then emerges somewhere simple, unexpected, inevitable. I love Kathleen Jamie’s characteristic vowel sound patterning here. I love the tact, the directness and the glow that develops after the poem has set. No fuss, no posturing, no self-admiration, just what it is. I’m suddenly reminded of MacCaig’s poetry – the apparent simplicity, the depth.

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Best Scottish Poems 2009

edited by Andrew Greig
Find out more

Kathleen Jamieb.1962

Kathleen Jamie is a poet, essayist and travel writer. She has been Professor of Poetry at the University of Stirling since 2010.
More about Kathleen Jamie

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