andrew soye




Reading Michael Longley

To write ‘for Michael Longley’ here
Would seem presumptuous, too inept
A homemade, term-end thank-you card
From an awkward teacher’s pet

But I have seen you striding
In the rows between the desks
Measuring out time and meter
In the lines of rhyming couplets

Quoting classics to a class
Who have long ago stopped their ears
An Argonaut lashed to his own mast
Perseus straightened by the fearsome task

Of pinning down life without killing it
Slaying Medusa while staying alive
With poetry as balanced, delicate
As a bird in flight

Words like polished, shining eyes



1 comment:

  1. by not writing this poem you wrote it and captured
    michael longley well i would have ended with delicate as a bird in flight the poem is from polished shining eyes.

    ReplyDelete