Linguistically Speaking

This Moment

A neighbourhood.
At dusk.

Things are getting ready
to happen
out of sight.

Stars and moths.
And rinds slanting around fruit.

But not yet.

One tree is black.
One window is yellow as butter.

A woman leans down to catch a child
who has run into her arms
this moment.

Stars rise.
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.

Eavan Boland (* 1944, Dublin), "This Moment".
barbara... - 10. Jul, 10:14

I love this.

I've never heard of the poet, though - how did you find him (or her?)?

si1ja - 10. Jul, 21:58

Her!

I did a course on Irish and Scottish literature in Scotland and have come to really love Eavan Boland and Carol Ann Duffy (will publish one of hers soon). They write real "woman poems" without being "unpoetically feministic" or drifting into the "women's literature" genre.

What I love particularly about this poem is the pace: when the run-on-lines occur, there's movement; stillness is expressed in extremely short sentences and fragments.
Moreover, it's almost symmetrical around the "but not yet".
 
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