Poem of the day

Today, something by Don Paterson.

It's extremely quiet here today - just a bare-minimum skeleton staff among whom I, alas, am numbered. Quite peaceful, really (the usual email flood has happily slowed to a trickle as all sensible folk are outside enjoying the spring sunshine). In honour of the quietude, then, here's poem about a moment of stillness by Don Paterson from his Whitbread- and TS Eliot-winning collection, Landing Light. It knocked me sideways the first time I read it and still has the power to bring tears to my eyes.

Waking with Russell

Whatever the difference is, it all began the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again, possessed him, till it would not fall or waver; and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin but his own smile, or one I'd rediscovered. Dear son, I was mezzo del cammin and the true path was as lost to me as ever when you cut in front and lit it as you ran. See how the true gift never leaves the giver: returned and redelivered, it rolled on until the smile poured through us like a river. How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men! I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.