The World, Both Small And Wintry

I have said it more than once: what a small world this is. Aside from all redundant technology, sometimes the particulars of conversation highlight this.

I was speaking recently with a friend, a priest of this parish, and mentioned the northern poet Adam Johnson, who died in 1993 in his late twenties. It turns out that this friend knew him back in the eighties, and as ever I marvelled at the coincidence of connections. The conversation led me to seek out the poet’s work, and I share with you now one of his poems that is a favourite of mine, winter lover that I am.

December 1989

The nascent winter turns

Each root into a nail,

And in the West there burns

A sun morbid and pale.



Now, from the city bars

We drift, into a cool

Gymnasium of stars -

The drunkard and the fool:



Into the night we go,

Finding our separate ways -

The darkness fraught with snow,

The leaves falling like days.

             
     - Adam Johnson