Thursday, 9 January 2014

Vocabulary test

Well, here’s something –
an almost balmy January day
and pale green bulb shoots
across saturated ground.

Unpicked apples still hang
and finches squabble.
It’s not too late for us now.
No frost or breeze to speak of.

Amid coffee, packed lunches,
drying washing, fried eggs,
weather reports on Radio Four,
it might be that I’ve just returned.

On the table, exercise books
with words from that language
I’m trying to learn: verb-forms,
participles, slender distinctions

between ‘want’, ‘desire’ and ‘love’.


Tom Phillips, Jan 2014

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