A gust of nothing new diverts my thought.
The things that occupy my mind are old –
French words or words for the sounds
birds make, or the country names of flowers.
It’s like this when I’m walking in the woods.
What do you think about, someone asked
because I had been gone for long hours
and I could only answer nothing,
although I did remember singing
as I tramped and I also remembered
sheltering under an ash when it rained a bit.
I’m afraid that when I turn the pages of my
scrapbook mind I’ll find they’re empty.
O will I have nothing to show for the long miles.
Katharine Towers’ most recent book is Oak (Picador, 2021). Her first book, The Floating Man (2010), won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and her second, The Remedies (2016), was shortlisted for the T.S Eliot Prize.
new boots and pantisocracies 