1.1

just got back from a poetry reading by John Burnside.

AMOR VINCIT OMNIA (LOVE CONQUERS ALL)

What we need now

is fog;

fog, and the pincushion baize

of pine trees

like the trees in Chinese paintings.

What we need now is distance and local tradition;

the breve of italic; the minim of untold love;

a new vocabulary

of now-or-never:

names for the things we have lost,

         so we know what to mourn.