Glaciation
James Fountain (University Of Glasgow, Scotland)
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The clouds of this starless night cloak thought,
Obscure the tread of tireless pacing among dreams,
In the sun of meagre spacing, of buildings
Traced against the skyline, the mind reaches
A momentary peace, a fossilization of emotion,
While you in the far flung twinkling of Sirius appear.
To the shoreline racing seagulls, you motor through
This night, a tide of trembling feeling envelops
The senses, a glacial erosion creates a carving
In your country, hollows out a space where I once was,
Bringing a freedom, a lowland exposure yearned for,
And the stratosphere crouches, waiting to be filled.
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James Fountain is 28 and in the final year of his PhD at the University of Glasgow on the literary biography of neglected Scottish modernist poet, Joseph Macleod. He is the author of the autobiographical novel Out of Time (2006).
