CHARLES TOMLINSON

Meditating with Davie

yet convulsed by the age

in the not so gentle

English academic halls

we turn over a page,

Burning with your Muse

to inflame words on fire

unraveling language
as a lily flower,

your glance rises
with a gentle desire

for a dance of the hour,

With proverbs

mounting over
each creation's stage 

(in experimental
fragmentation)

with a traveler's wish
not to age,

Yet to be cast
from small iconic fragility

and last beyond
your stations,

now you too are translated

beyond all used bookstalls

in hundreds of nations.