Delayed Gratification

16 Ramadhan 1434

In addition to my Islamic-themed reading I've been getting on with Old and New Poems, the Donald Hall collection I got around about this time last year. I was excited about reading it then, but at the same time I used the book tokens for my annual appearance at MOE's Literature Seminar to get quite a few poetry books and decided to move ahead with some of the others first. Finally arriving at the great American Poet Laureate I've been diligently reading the poems in the 'right' order.

It's been a slow process as I've found it wise to restrict myself to groups of three or four at a time, and I'm only halfway through now. I've been enjoying the sense of the poet's development as time progresses since the collection is organised chronologically. In fact, I get a distinct sense of Hall just getting better and better. The early stuff, from the late forties to fifties, is worthy enough, but somewhat opaque - hard work to read at times. Now I've reached the seventies and the first poem in there Gold is just that - pure poetic gold, exploding off the page. Crystalline clarity, real shivers down the spine time and absolutely worth waiting for, rather than encountering directly, out of context, as it were.

It's akin to the rich enjoyment experienced of quite 'ordinary' food and drink in this month of fasting. This evening, for example, I had quite a bit to do directly after breaking the fast and couldn't really eat and drink properly until after ten. Far from being a bother this seemed somehow a worthwhile thing to do. Perhaps we are in danger of forgetting that anything worthwhile is not just worth waiting for but somehow gains in worth as a result of waiting?