It’s so beautiful in its almostness,
The late-medieval Scots phrasing estranged
Even further by its orthography,
All alliterative and suggestive
Of meanings, to you, that it doesn’t mean.
Sau isn’t saw, and sickker is nothing
To do with succumbing to an illness,
And seill intended neither soul nor sail
Nor self but seal, as on a document—
His say-so is as certain as his seal—
Fine, but then the strangeness evaporates,
Mostly, and you come to poems for strangeness
Like the twist of that small quake this morning.
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