An untilled
strip beside a cornfield,
flowers growing wild.
Not an enameled Book of Hours.
Unkempt. Unruly. More like Lear.
A mad euphoria of flowers.
We stopped the car
in the Midi somewhere,
the middle of nowhere.
It was a great dictionary,
wild beyond words, wary
of names, silent poetry.
An illiterate, beautiful
barbaric Babel.
A magic carpet. A thick ripple.
A tapestry. Which displayed
its Jackson Pollock underside.
This unforgettable, forgotten aside.
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Craig Raine is emeritus fellow in English at New College, Oxford. His most recent book is “My Grandmother’s Glass Eye: A Look at Poetry” (Atlantic Books)
[See also: The NS Poem: October 2023]
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This article appears in the 25 Jul 2024 issue of the New Statesman, Summer Special 2024