on being trapped (1)

The theme is no doubt universal, atemporal, etc., but I can't think of a poet who wrote more movingly about the condition of being trapped - inside/outside the language of communication, writing, yourself, life, 'love'... well, all "the difficult ones" - than W. S. Graham.


A Note To The Difficult One

This morning I am ready if you are,
To hear you speaking in your new language.
I think I am beginning to have nearly
A way of writing down what it is I think
You say. You enunciate very clearly
Terrible words nearly always just beyond me.

I stand in my vocabulary looking out
Through my window of fine water ready
To translate natural occurrences
Into something beyond any idea
Of pleasure. The wisps of April fly
With light messages to the lonely.

This morning I am ready if you are
To speak. The early quick rains
Of Spring are drenching the window-glass.
Here in my words looking out
I see your face speaking flying
In a cloud wanting to say something.


W.S. Graham, from "Implements in their Places" (1977), in Collected Poems, 1942-1977 (London: Faber, 1979), p. 199.