Sounds of the day- Norman MacCaig || Poetry 4

Damion is typing

Xey/Cey/It, Masc only please

When a clatter came,

it was horses crossing the ford.

When the air creaked, it was

a lapwing seeing us off the premises

of its private marsh. A snuffling puff

ten yards from the boat was the tide blocking and

unblocking a hole in a rock.

When the black drums rolled, it was water

falling sixty feet into itself.

*•……•*

When the door

scraped shut, it was the end

of all the sounds there are.

*•……•*

You left me

beside the quietest fire in the world.

*•……•*

I thought I was hurt in my pride only,

forgetting that,

when you plunge your hand in freezing water,

you feel

a bangle of ice round your wrist

before the whole hand goes numb.

Why I like this poem

You see, I like it because of its complex nature despite the simplicity of the poem. Or the seeming simplicity.

The last lines. “A bangle of ice around your wrist // before the whole hand goes numb” is what I love most.

Is he referring to purposely numbing the pain of the breakup? Is he reminding himself that no matter how “numb” he is to the pain, there will always be this pain.

it reminds me of the word Anhedonia. While that is the inability to feel pleasure- as far as I’m aware that is a symptom of depression. Which someone may get after a messy breakup, which in my opinion , the poem implies.

”scraped“ suggests that there was a struggle to keep the door open. To hold onto it. To hold on what there once was. But of course, all things must come to an end at one point

Anyway yes! That’s this poem . I’m hitting you with Edwin Morgan next