The Mirror

Gavin’s Notes:

The Mirror

There is a mirror only we can see.

It hangs in time and not in space. The day

goes down in it without ember or ray

and the newborn climb through it to be free.

The multitudes of the world cannot know

they are reflected there; like glass they lie

in glass, shadows in shade, they could not cry

in airless wastes but that is where they go.

We cloud it, but it pulses like a gem,

it must have caught a range of energies

from the dead. We breathe again; nothing shows.

Back in space, ubi solitudinem

faciunt pacem appellant. Ages

drum-tap the flattened homes and slaughtered rows.

Edwin Morgan (from Sonnets from Scotland)