I've just picked up the latest Alan Brownjohn novel, his fourth, Windows on the Moon, set in 1947-48 (Austerity) Britain - the period of my doctoral research. I like Brownjohn as a critic, poet, and person, and think I may like this book, also. It opens well, and intriguingly. It comes with blurbs from Margaret Drabble, Jonathan Fuller and David Kynaston (the leading popular historian of this period).
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
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