Cabin

Three centuries since its frame was raised
using wood logged on this site—oak and beech;
surfaces inside black with age, rough-planed
by hand upon this hill, struck into place. Creaks
at every joint, with footfalls, noises, but
its ghosts don’t frighten me—spirits trapped
outside the window whose voices don’t cut
through the glass. The joints, mostly inexact,
speak of their author—someone like me
living rough upon this slope, crafting the wood
with unpracticed but devoted skill. The
cabin is a barque upon the flood
ferrying its ghost-crew relentlessly
over the passing years, an endless sea.

Duncan Wu is Raymond A. Wagner Professor of English Literature at Georgetown University, Washington DC. He was also Professor of English Literature at Glasgow University and Professor of English Language and Literature at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. He is the editor of Romanticism: An Anthology, now in its fourth edition, and is the author of numerous books on the Romantics, contemporary British drama, and poetry. He edited Poetry of Witness with Carolyn Forché in 2018 and dog-eared: Poems about Man’s Best Friend in 2020. He became a US citizen in 2013.

Duncan Wu