Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Stav Poleg's Banquet Stanley Moss In a concluding conversation, with Neilson MacKay John Koethe Poems Gwyneth Lewis shares excerpts from 'Nightshade Mother: a disentangling' John Redmond revisits 'Henneker's Ditch'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 97, Volume 20 Number 5, May - June 1994.

Five Poems Richard Dove

Ice Age
(for Michael Hamburger)

Inevitable Arctic,
strait as lace,
indeed entirely puritanical…
one's compass-needle wobbles,
gets frenetically erect…

It's not much fun
in so much frost:
one squats beside
iced-over holes
where what was lost
will surface- soon!-
and watches all the waddling,
the bluish-black and white.

O precious scales
upon the eyes;
this is no borough
for a bird of paradise.
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image