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The freshet - Poem
Literary Review, Wntr, 2002 by Edwin Morgan
The Freshet Will you not brush me again, rhododendron? You were blowzy with rainwater when you drenched my cheek, I might have been weeping, but was only passing, too quickly! You were so heavy and wet and fresh I thought your purple must run, make me a Pict. You made yourself a sponge for me, I got a shower, a shot, a spray, a freshet, a headstart and then I was away from you. I can't go back. I can't go back, you know, retrace my steps, tilt my other cheek out like an idiot, stumble purposefully against the blooms for another heady shiver. I want it though! One day when I am not thinking, walking steadily past house and garden, measuring the traffic lights, you will reach out, won't you, at a corner, toppling over railings just to see me, crowd of mauve raindrops shaking and bursting, mauling me gently with your petal paws, shock of the petal, shock of the water, I am waiting for that, out of I don't care how many pavements, black railings, and the darkly breathing green.
Edwin Morgan is retired as Professor of English at the University of Glasgow and continues to live in Glasgow. His poems, translations, and essays have been widely published and anthologized. His numerous books of poetry include Virtual and Other Realities, Sonnets from Scotland, Poems of Thirty Years (which won the Scottish Arts Council Book Award), From Glasgow to Saturn, The New Divan, Concrete Poems, and a collection of translations, Rites of Passage.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Fairleigh Dickinson University
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