Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(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 Between Languages, Howard Cooper 'Ur-language' Oksana Maksymchuk 'Multifarious Beast' Zinovy Zinik 'My Mother Tongue, My Fatherland' Philip Terry 'Lost Languages' Victoria Moul 'Bad Latin, Barbarous Inglishe'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from Poetry Nation 2 Number 2, 1974.

Roe Park George Buchanan

Sun beautifies the tennis strokes. A hum
of racquet strings. Talk by the summer-house
suggests a branch of happiness. Now guests
are leaving, loitering by the door beside
the yellow valley, silent after so much
laughing . . .

Her husband died, she spent her days in the garden
and walked across the floors to watch the fading
daylight as she passed from room to room.
Outside - a war beyond soft Irish slopes:
in it someone she wrote letters to.
When the war ended he saluted trees
instead of officers. They farmed like poets,
digging deeply for a gentle word.
Can love be free of geography? He said
'Place exists in you, the green
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image