You are just trying to get me into trouble Mossy! :D
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I really like Carol Ann Duffy but its difficult to get a hold of her poems on the web, she must have done a good job withthe copy right...this means I have had to type out the following...so i hope you enjoy it as much as i did!....
The Light Gatherer
When you were small, your cupped palms
each held a candlesworth under the skin,
enough light to begin,
and as you grew
light gathered in you, two clear raindrops in your eyes,
warm pearls, shy,
in the lobes of your ears, even always
the light of a smile after your tears.
Your kissed feet glowed in my one hand,
or I'd enter a room to see the corner you played in
lit like a set,
the crown of your bowed head spotlit.
When language came, it glittered like a river,
silver, clever with fish,
and you slept
withthe whole moon held in your arms for a night light
where I knelt watching.
Light gatherer. You fell from a star
into my lap, the soft lamp at the bedside
mirrored in you,
and now you shine like a snow girl,
a buttercup under a chin, the wide blue yonder
you squeal at and fly in,
like a jewelled cave,
turquoise and diamond and gold, opening out
at the end of a tunnel of years.
I think her evocation of unconditional love in this poem (for her daughter) is breathtakingly moving....one can see why she is the poet laurete
This is rather sweet and, yes, uplifting
GLYN MAXWELL
Stargazing
The night is fine and dry. It falls and spreads
the cold sky with a million opposites
that, for a moment, seem like a million souls
and soon, none, and then, for what seems a long time,
one. Then of course it spins. What is better to do
than string out over the infinite dead spaces
the ancient beasts and spearmen of the human
mind, and, if not the real ones, new ones?
But, try making them clear to one you love —
whoever is standing by you is one you love
when pinioned by the stars — you will find it quite
impossible, but like her more for thinking
she sees that constellation.
After the wave of pain, you will turn to her
and, in an instant, change the universe
to a sky you were glad you came outside to see.
This is the act of all the descended gods
of every age and creed: to weary of all
that never ends, to take a human hand,
and go back into the house.