Poem of the Day
Today's Poem of the Day – the last one of National Poetry Week – is from Michael Schmidt. The poem originally appeared in his 1983 new and selected poems, 'Choosing A Guest', and can also be found in his Collected Poems (Smith/Doorstop, 2009).
CHOOSING A GUEST
1
Whom shall I invite? The centrepiece
Is five red apples on a walnut dish.
The table takes their sheen. Whom
Shall I invite to what the trees provide?
2
Before I choose a guest I go outside.
It is evening almost, almost winter here:
Under the apple tree a pungent mud of fruit,
One bough fractured by the wealth it bears.
3
I have chosen. And will she come?
It is like necromancy to invite
The guest who yesterday, the day before,
Laughing, turned to darkness at my board.
4
Absence I will invite. I will invite
The morning birds, and I will not ask her.
The birds will not come, and she will not come.
The sheen will pass from fruit into the dark.
5
It is too late to eat, too late to ask.
I shall say grace but break no bread.
The lamp will not be lit; I shall sit still
As shadow takes the taste instead.
6
Here is my bed. How the scent of apples clings
To my breathing, and the scent of her.
I am alarmed
How nothing leaves me, though the light is gone.
– Michael Schmidt, Collected Poems (2009)
The Poetry Business receives financial assistance from Arts Council England.
