Happy Friday, and I hope you’re enjoying National Poetry Month!
I don’t know that I’ve ever read a poem with just one “hidden” meaning the reader was meant to “unlock.” But I do know one poem you can read with a key — from the Scottish poet Robin Robertson, first printed in a January 2000 issue of The New Yorker.
A very happy birthday to Dara today, who showed me the locks and keys of Kraków this past fall —
Enjoy,
Ellen
The slow-grained slide to embed the blade
of the key is a sheathing,
a gliding on graphite, pushing inside
to find the ribs of the lock.
Sunk home, the true key slots to its matrix;
geared, tight-fitting, they turn
together, shooting the spring-lock,
throwing the bolt. Dactyls, iambics—
the clinch of words—the hidden couplings
in the cased machine. A chime of sound
on sound: the way the sung note snibs on meaning
and holds. The lines engage and marry now,
their bells are keeping time;
the church doors close and open underground.