! ! Celebrating Philip Larkin

He looks out at you from the photograph or rather, doesn’t: eyes wide but blank, thick lenses would place your image in a plane you don’t inhabit; like a fish that in an aquarium suddenly swims direct toward you stopping at the glass to stare a moment: was there a meeting? What are you to the fish? So, nothing. Then next day, he’s propping his bike against the wall, bending down to take off his cycle clips; caught so close, you exchange English noises: the weather, a joke or was it, delivered deadpan: but the sound of him stays with you: melancholy and yet celebrating the confidence in being ordinary. Then next day, the poetry: starts matter-of-fact, regretful, doesn’t miss a thing around him, sharp eyes hiding behind pebble lenses: then, dives with us into the sea of greatness: calls us, reels us in, enslaves the heart with voice that speaks beyond all melancholy; haunted by the completeness of eternity.