The Irish-American poet James Thornton is known globally as a world-leading environmental lawyer working to save the planet. In this second collection he returns to the same French Pyrenean village every Spring. Over 25 years he has settled at his desk, the flanks of hillsides beyond his window, and captured in verse the life and nature of the French Pyrenean village that is his second home. James’s poetry conjures the lives of ancient villagers. snakes, turtles, fish, birds, flowers, crops, insects, hogs and children. And here’s ‘Old bones’ as a sample taste:
Old bones
Because his old bones know
that growing things will in the end
unmake everything we build
the ancient I meet on my morning walk
was standing in the rain today
supporting himself with one hand
against the wall of the house
long vacant, he’s lived
across from all his life
and, using his cane
in the other hand, carefully
methodically, extinguishing
every green thing that had
found a purchase in the wall
Looking slowly up, he gave me
an uncomplicated “bonjour”
‘James Thornton speaks as both a poet who has colonised science and a scientist who speaks a poetic tongue.’ – E.O.Wilson, double Pulitzer prizewinner.
