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  • Praise of a Man
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Praise of a Man

Norman MacCaig

He went through a company like a lamplighter –
see the dull minds, one after another,
begin to glow, to shed
a beneficent light.

He went through a company like
a knifegrinder – see the dull minds
scattering sparks of themselves,
becoming razory, becoming useful.

He went through a company
as himself. But now he’s one
of the multitudinous company of the dead
where are no individuals.

The beneficent lights dim
but don’t vanish. The razory edges
dull, but still cut. He’s gone: but you can see
his tracks still, in the snow of the world.


Norman MacCaig

from The Many Days: Selected Poems of Norman MacCaig (Edinburgh: Polygon, 2010)

Reproduced by permission of the publisher.

Tags:

For Funerals lamplighters the dead
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Norman MacCaig1910 - 1996

A poet who divided his life and the attention of his poetry between Assynt in the West Highlands, and the city of Edinburgh, Norman MacCaig combined ‘precise observation with creative wit’,  and wrote with a passion for clarity.
More about Norman MacCaig

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