Thursday 12 November 2020

Self Deception

 I thought I heard a curlew cry,

beneath the dull November sky,

somewhere above the drifts of fog,

just for a moment, then I knew,

no curved billed bird would come in view.

It was a walker passing by,

who whistled for his dog,

instead. And yet it made my heart as glad

to hear that sound, as if I had

in truth experienced the bird,

his haunting song, the one I’d heard,

still filled my soul with pure, immense

nostalgia from those hidden springs,

the geyser which with power flings

this sentimental substance through

one’s veins and up into one’s head.

And so one is complicit in

such self deceptions as improve

one’s spirits and elicit in

oneself the comforting, Proustian mood

‘du temps perdu.’


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