and there was this one <br />which I was particularly proud of <br />where I thought I’d caught <br />just the right pace, then <br />the change of pace when <br />the poem goes deeper <br />and then the perfectly chosen metaphor <br />with a rallentando <br />which made it musical <br />and ended it just <br />knock-’em-flat <br />sheer poetry <br /> <br />then last night <br />I read your poems <br />for the first time in oh fifty years <br />and there it was <br />almost identical and <br />I realised where I’d got it from <br />and the part of me that <br />wasn’t bruised ego wept inwardly without naming any cause <br /> <br />and maybe when I’ve recovered <br />and demoted my poem in <br />the collected works of pride <br />I’ll marvel at the power of poetry even if yours not mine <br />which can lie low in the mind <br />for fifty years and not only that <br />but may well, and here we should be careful <br />but reflective, respectful even awed, <br />have subtly infinitesimally but significantly <br />like some homeopathic almost unquantifiable tincture, <br />altered my whole life. For fifty years. <br /> <br />now that’s something<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0009-a-palinode/
