Glanmore Revisited 6. Bedside Reading

  Summertime in Glanmore –  from his early morning marital  bed (we) the poet is refreshed by a new optimism: open windows, brighter light (the whole place airier); a horizontal (eye level) view into the wind-stirred world outside, from distant big summer trees to little shoots of ivy around the window. His power to control ivy (creeping in unless … trained out) extends to memories which time (trained so long now) has taught him to manage such that they crop up without taking over his agenda show their face and keep their distance. He confesses to a troubling period of despondency (white-mouthed depression) figured as a dolphin, (swims out from its shadow) conveyed by its rueful (wet), inscrutable (unreadable), guileless […]