Sorry

This is a poem a wrote a few years ago, but I've never sent it out or published it anywhere. I'm not sure if I will. I was only mistaken for Douglas Dunn once this time at StAnza.

Sorry, I’m not Douglas Dunn

Each year in St Andrews some strangers,

sometimes acquaintances,

greet me as if I’m the famous poet.

I let them past the first sentence,

maybe the second, noting the hint

of uncertainty entering the eyes

And then I tell them no, it’s me,

a poet too, though less well known,

similar in some ways, in others not.

I’m not the lyric poet of Terry Street;

much as I admire him, praise his craft,

his generosity, humanity, warmth.

My words try to photograph the spirits of place,

the kami of wildness of mountain and sea,

and the reefs of the unconscious.

Our histories are different, but that’s invisible;

personalities not evident across a room.

How are we resembled? Let me count the ways:

In stature, neither would pass

for basketballers, and in girth

it’s clear that jogging’s off our menus.

Silver hair, yes, though mine is slightly darker,

white beards certainly, though mine

unshaped, definitely less kempt.

We both wear glasses, I guess

myopia’s a gene we share

plus taste in frames.

Born the same mid-War year,

you West, me East, so that ensures

our accents differ, so to speak.

Careers in libraries paralleled,

you in Larkin’s Hull

and me among the books on rocks and plants.

There’s no outward sign these days

in either of us, of far-gone

clarinetting times, and didn’t you play alto too?

It’s down, I’m sure, to squarish outlines,

white, white beards and, I like to think

the kind eyes of two amiable men.

Colin Will