Poetry Pick

SITTING IN WORDSWORTH’S WRITING CHAIR

by Kersti Cull
British Columbia, Canada

Tendrils of time from the garden
that is Wordsworth,
the flowers and the foliage
draping themselves across the centuries
and falling like a fringed shawl
around my shoulders.

I sat down not once but twice
in Wordsworth’s writing chair
in Dove Cottage,
as if staking my claim
of homage and kinship.

Dove Cottage: the fireplaces,
the stone floor, the wood furniture,
even a room with newspapered walls.
The ceiling was low in his home.
People were shorter in those days,
the guide said.

A hive that once hummed with poetry.

And I — happy to be in the Lake District —
caught up in the mood of the moment,
sat down in Wordsworth’s writing chair
(dark wood and a hard seat,
despite the rosy inlaid cushion),
happy that I had championed his oeuvre.


 

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