reading Carolyn Forché
You were in another country
that seems ever so familiar.
It was a time of change,
of revolution and exploration
of travel and concern
but I have only just
stumbled into your world.
The grey wires, slow trains,
strangers and lovers,
corpses and survivors,
will be gone by now.
I never knew them
but still dream of revolution,
and today I marked
a student’s poems
full of fire and passion,
attitude and anger,
the likes of which
I haven’t seen for years.
Thirty years from back then
I hold your book in my hands
and wonder at how old stories
stir up thoughts of revolution
and the need for change;
how your forgotten poems
shout their truth at me.
They come out fighting
(but oh so tender) and
stand silent, lost for words,
interrupting the world’s noise,
crossing the distance between us.
© Rupert Loydell
Illustration Nick Victor