Helen Moffett
Those years, sitting in the binding hush
of the Bodleian Library,
parchment leaves sifting down outside,
I turned the pages of your tiny notebooks
tracing the progress of each poem;
after the initial burst, words cascading down,
the hard work beginning:
stoking the refining fire,
scouring every line.
I had no idea that one day
I would also wrestle, endlessly
pick at a knot of words, strain to make
language go where I wanted.
I scrutinised your laundry lists,
your letters, even the dull ones of thanks;
at Princeton, in a room glossy with wealth,
they let me hold your hair in my hand.
Perhaps some germ jumped; perhaps
I learnt more than I knew;
perhaps you showed me
that poetry is possible; a strange fuse
of voices in the head and hands braced for toil.
Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow in-person launch of The Only Magic We Know: Selected Modjaji Poems 2004-2020 on 1 March 2022
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