Norman MacCaig

“I think these movements and become them, here,In this room's stillness, none of them about,And relish them all-until I think of whereThrashed by a crook, the cursive adder writesQuick V's and Q's in the dust and rubs them out.from "Movements”

“IfIf your hand came, dead in the dead of night,And touched my forehead, waking me to seeYou standing dead there in the dead of night,I who fear ghosts would have no fear at all.I'd greet you with the tenderest helloAnd you would smile, though sad. And then you'd go.There would be nothing deathly in your deathFor your love always was the laughing sortThat quickened life and would not die with death.And when you'd gone, I would not want to weep -- That loving gaiety would still be thereFilling with its own peace the quickened air.”

“Landscape is my religion....God in a green legend, I lean over the poolIn a testament of leaves. I dangle my twinkling mood Before me in a cool cave roofed with branchesAnd floored with a skin of water. ”