Letter to Robert Hass

For the last two weeks, since coming home from a residential (Arvon) poetry course I've been reading more than writing. The course was at Totleigh Barton in North Devon, in the depths of a landscape that I know quite well because my parents lived nearby. It was an intensive four days in close company with fourteen other poets as well as Dónall (my partner) and the two tutors, Mimi Khalvati and David Harsent, who led seminars and gave individual help most generously. I was also introduced to poets whose work I hadn't read before. Robert Hass was one of those. I'm reading his collected poems now and I'm absolutely blown away by the power of his observation, thinking and language. The poem below is one I wrote today after reading the first few poems in "The Apple Trees at Olema" (Bloodaxe)

Dear Robert Hass

Thank you for
the white egret
and for
the colours of
California where you
dream your life awake.
I slept 
after you told
me about the boy with 
the gun

*

Afterwards
I woke poised 
between D’s hand 
and my own
where they 
interlaced
across the space 
between our sleep-
numbed bodies
my foot hooked
under his 
my head nested
next to his open
dreaming mouth

*

my breast under his
warm palm
his breath on
my calm fingers

*

I hope to see you again soon
when I have woken up some more

Janice Windle