WOLVES
I do not want to be reflective any more
Envying and despising unreflective things
Finding pathos in dogs and undeveloped handwriting
And young girls doing their hair and all the castles of sand
Flushed by the children’s bedtime, level with the shore.
The tide comes in and goes out again, I do not want
To be always stressing either its flux or its permanence,
I do not want to be a tragic or philosophic chorus
But to keep my eye only on the nearer future
And after that let the sea flow over us.
Come then all of you, come closer, form a circle,
Join hands and make believe that joined
Hands will keep away the wolves of water
Who howl along our coast. And be it assumed
That no one hears them among the talk and laughter.
Louis Macneice
You may like to listen to this recording of a reading of the poem by Nick Laird at the Louis MacNeice Centenary Celebration and Conference at Queen's University, Belfast in September 2007.
It has a rather hesitant and unassuming introduction.
http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/media/Media,93708,en.mp3
Nick Laird was born in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone in 1975. He currently lives in Rome. His first collection To a Fault (2005) won the Rooney Prize and his first novel Utterly Monkey won the Betty Trask award. His second collection of poems, On Purpose, has just been published by Faber
jollyweez
I really KNOW I could have read the above poem better than Nick Laird. He needs to learn to be less aware of himself, (shy,) and think on that which he reads. Go inside it and look out from it. You could read this very well and had hoped it was you - but - alas!
Louis seems to hold a fear of the ocean. I agree with him entirely, never really felt at ease with the sea. It never stops for goodness sakes! Would far prefer a quiet river, lake or stream.
I have the same feeling as Louis when I am close to the ocean or just on a beach. I can sense that the ocean wants everything back and will finally gobble everything up, including us, one of these very strange days... or nights.