Poetry Day - Written in buses
It’s recently been the 25th anniversary of the death of poet Philip Larkin, and verses of his are appearing in buses in Hull, England, where he worked as a Librarian at the University, and across East Yorkshire. So I thought I’d give you a couple of the short poems from which fragments are to appear in the buses, just so you're up to speed with bus poetry in Yorkshire.
This is the first thing
This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood.
Days
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.
New eyes each year
New eyes each year
Find old books here,
And new books, too,
Old eyes renew;
So youth and age
Like ink and page
In this house join,
Minting new coin.
Philip Larkin