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This poem is taken from PN Review 164, Volume 31 Number 6, July - August 2005.

Pluck Gwyneth Lewis

I Riddle of a Harp

We have the answer:
Catrin Finch's harp.
Now I'll riddle it backwards.

Cheese-cutter morphing
into fiddle-head fern.
Part shepherd's crook
turned to woman's hip.
Chromatic spaghetti.

It's an abacus and the beads
it counts are crotchets.
It's a see-through sail.
The harpist rides the melody's board,
weaving her way on symphonic gales
but she's always thrown off at the final chord.

It's a stand of trees,
...


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