Larkin and the Animal Shelter

 Talking In Bed

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,

Lying together there goes back so far,

An emblem of two people being honest.

Yet more and more time passes silently.

Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest

Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,

And dark towns heap up on the horizon.

None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why

At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find

Words at once true and kind,

Or not untrue and not unkind.

-- Philip Larkin

I like to get to work a little early and read some poetry before I go in, at least when it isn't 90 degrees outside.  Call it my "centering" practice.  So it was nice to spend some time with one of my favorite, delightfully grim poets over the past few months with a used copy of his Collected Poems.  (A prolific poet he was not, which I also count as a bonus.  Take him or leave him.  No sticky editorial issues.  It's all there in about 200 pages.  Was he a horrible racist?  Yes, probably.)

Working at the animal shelter since last fall, maybe the choice was subconscious.  Some of Larkin's best and most famous poems are, in fact, about animals -- "The Mower" (about killing a hedgehog accidentally), "Myxomatosis" (about killing a rabbit on purpose), "Toads" (about people, really).

I'll always tell people, if they ask, my favorite poem remains "This Be The Verse."  But I was less familiar with "Talking In Bed," and I'd have to say it's my favorite utterly unromantic love poem of all time.  Which is to say, it's beautiful and true.  A response to Sonnet #130, I think.