“The Sandhills of Saskatchewan”

I found this poem by the Irish poet Paul Muldoon in the January 6 issue of The Times Literary Supplement. Here’s hoping you like it as much as I do.

By the Time You Read This

By the time you read this I’ll be gone
for a newspaper and quart of milk
never to return, a half-mowed lawn
leading to me as a scroll of silk
once led to the mulberry silkworm.
By the time you read this I’ll be gone
AWOL in spite of the fact, in terms
of domesticity, I’ve outshone
even he heedful trumpeter swan
that spends five weeks constructing a nest.
By the time you read this I’ll be gone
less because of some profound unrest
than my fascination with the Cree
and the sandhills of Saskatchewan
into which windswept immensity,
by the time you read this, I’ll be long gone.