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This poem is taken from PN Review 89, Volume 19 Number 3, January - February 1993.

Five Poems Iain Crichton Smith

TURKEY

In this land
I see my own reflected,
the women with their creels
of overweighing grass.

The poverty of rocks,
the broken houses,
a man leading a cow
past infertile thorns.

This could have been my country,
the black-skirted old women,
boys on bicycles
heading towards the dance.

An absence of roses,
a plethora of cactus,
resonance of psalms,
...


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