Septuagesima

Portrait of John Burnside
John Burnside 1955–2024

I dream of the silence the day before Adam came to name the animals,

The gold skins newly dropped from God's bright fingers, still implicit with the light.

A day like this, perhaps: a winter whiteness haunting the creation,

as we are sometimes haunted by the space we fill, or by the forms

we might have known before the names, beyond the gloss of things.

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