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When Day Is Done

Iain Crichton Smith

Sorrow remembers us when day is done.
It sits in its old chair gently rocking
and singing tenderly in the evening.
It welcomes us home again after the day.
It is so old in its black silken dress,
its stick beside it carved with legends.
It tells its stories over and over again.
After a while we have to stop listening.


Iain Crichton Smith

from New Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2011)

Reproduced by permission of Carcanet Press.

Tags:

ageing Grief & Sorrow personification short poems sorrow tiredness
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Iain Crichton Smith1928 - 1998

Iain Crichton Smith was raised on Lewis and much of his poetry is grounded in the strict Presbyterian culture of the island, and his protest against it. He wrote both in Gaelic and English, novels, short fiction and poetry.
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