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This poem is taken from Poetry Nation 1 Number 1, 1973.

Morning Donald Davie
MORNING

Rose late: the jarring and whining
Of the parked cars under my windows, their batteries drained,
Somehow was spared. When I let out our schoolboy
Into the street, it was good; the place was alive, and scented.

Spared too, for the most part, the puzzling tremulousness
That afflicts me often, these mornings. (I think
Either I need, so early, the day's first drink or
This is what a sense of sin amounts to:
Aghast incredulity at the continued success
Of my impersonation, the front put on to the world,
The responsibilities ...)
           Let all that go:
Better things throng these nondescript, barged-through streets
(The sun! The February sun, so happily far and hazy ...)
Than a mill of ideas.
       Sin, I will say, comes awake
...


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