A POEM with a feel-good factor to start the week. The narrator is Keith Murray of Aberdeen, who has contributed regularly to this column since it started 20 years ago.
CHINESE TAKE AWAY
The light from the Chinese take-way
spills onto the cracked pavement
frosted over now
sparkling in delicate yellow
the pretty and diminutive girl politely
takes my order from my broad Scots dialect
writes it down in crisp black Chinese letters
on a pad of pure white rice paper
already there is a seam of truth
immediate in the warmth
during the time it takes
to present me with my meal
the phone rings and she talks
writes a large order for the children’s hospital
ten or fifteen minutes in this tiny place I feel
I am vestibuled towards some fuller understanding
of the growing and deepening night
the dancing snowflakes in the shut out wind
here where beauty has been discovered
and all must surely now be safe and sound.
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