*Apr 25, 2026 | From The Chinese by John Burnside

FROM THE CHINESE

Turn of the year
and a white Christmas turning to slush
on my neighbours' fields,

crows on the high road,
the yard streaked with coal dust
and gritting,

geraniums turning to mush
in the tubs and baskets.

I walk to the end of the road
to ease my sciatica:
ditch water, gorse bones; how did I get so cold

so quickly?

Thaw in the hedge
and the gods return to the land
as buzzard and pink-footed goose and that

daylong, perpetual scrape
of winter forage;

but this is the time of year
when nothing to see
gives way to the hare in flight, the enormous

beauty of it stark against the mud
and thawglass on the track, before
it darts away, across the open fields

and leaves me dumbstruck, ready to be persuaded.

Have been on a bit of a Burnside jag recently after listening to an LRB podcast discussing him and his work. I just reread "Black Cat Bone". My favorite, and the one I wanted to post is the first, "The Fair Chase", but decided it was too long. So instead this is the last in the collection. It has the misty imagery of so much of his work, gods at the edge, nature surrounding and setting the mood. I love his spacing and the shape of lines - like the short "so quickly" after the longer wonder at how he got so cold.

>2 xkyzero: This is a lovely addition to the rolling anthology of our group. I like reading why you selected it, how you are on a jag with this poet. I suspect many of us do the same from time to time. It's helpful too to know this is indicative of Burnside's work. I always enjoy poems that include nature. Gotta have at least a cloud! ha

LRB podcast is new to me, so thank you for that, too. https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast

Now I'm off to do a little Burnside searching. He seems just the kind of poet I could use more of in my life. Observant, responsive, introspective.

Thank you!

This is nice, this poem read by Burnside

https://www.lyrikline.org/pt/poemas/chinese-14353

I found it while looking for the meaning of "thawglass." I didn't find the meaning, but I watched a glassblower for a while; he used that moniker on Instagram.

>1 xkyzero: I am not familiar with this poet.

This is a truly wondergful poem.

I see modern ghosts of Robert Frost in some of the imagery, however, it is both observation and the hint of change and possibilities.

I will re-read this and explore more of his work.

Thank you

--Matt

>1 xkyzero: I think it's cool to see descriptive imagery poetry that focuses on the less appreciated things—not the white Christmas, but the slush that it leaves behind. Burnside does a great job of introducing the narrator's character through the way they view the scene in their melancholy, their disgust at the rot of beauty past its prime.

And then they shatter that distasteful image with the awe of the hare in flight. I like it.

>1 xkyzero: I need to familiarize myself with Burnside's work more. I remember being impressed with Black Cat Bone a few years back but feel like I may have missed a lot after reading this.

The title threw me, normally something you'd see in an actual translation, a title I might expect from Pound or Hass. But here, is it imitating a translation, copying the minimalist approach?

The vivid description of landscape that is usually far from beautiful, melt, sludge, the formerly white blanket streaked with coal dust, decorative plants turning to mush - the grim reality after the holiday season.

I love the speaker's brief appearance, faced with the reality of nerve pain, cold that hasn't left yet, still finding beauty, visited by the 'gods' and the transcendent 'hare in flight' who didn't get the memo that there's nothing to see, who've come to forage whatever the melt has left them.

And the last line, the lingering question that it poses, though there are so many reasons to be open minded, persuaded, seeing flashes of life that weight against expectations of mud and dirty snow.

>4 DebiCates: I love the sound of it and can imagine it under my shoes.

>5 hamlet61: So much of his work inhabits the sort of magic at the edges world.

>6 Interstellar_Octopus: I love the exploding of the hare in flight as well.

>7 DAGray08: I bought John Burnside's "Black Cat Bone" and Michael Longley's Angel Hill 6ish years ago. Really enjoyed both then put them on the shelf. They would both pass through my mind now and then. A few weeks ago I was listening to the LRB Bookshop podcast on Burnside and learned they had both passed. Wish I would have collected more of their stuff before (though I'm not sure why), but I am doing so now. Just ordered Burnside's "The Empire of Forgetting" (from my new local bookshop - they are slow but I love them anyway).

I immediately reread "Black Cat Bone" and like you realized I had missed a lot. I have a feeling it won't find its way back to the shelf very soon.

Agree with your description of the last line - and what a way to end the collection.