Click here to read a thoughtful Publisher Weekly’s interview with me about my new novel, Telephone of the Tree. 

Today I sat in my favorite bakery working on a new book. This is a bakery I go to once or twice a week, where most of the staff are young and beautiful the way young people are always beautiful. It was late afternoon, a slow time of day, and behind the counter two of them were talking. Their voices rose and receded, paused and then tumbled along, full of laughter, then murmurs, then laughter again, and I thought of this poem. Maybe they’ve been friends for a long time. Maybe something is changing. Maybe they left the bakery and went to their separate homes and are thinking about each other now and smiling.

Serious, by James Fenton

Awake, alert,
suddenly serious in love,
you’re a surprise.
I’ve known you long enough —
now I can hardly meet your eyes.

It’s not that I’m
embarrassed or ashamed.
You’ve changed the rules

the way I’d hoped they’d change before I thought: hopes are for fools.

Let me walk with you.
I’ve got the newspapers to fetch.
I think you know
I think you have the edge
but I feel cheerful even so.

That’s why I laughed.
That’s why I went and kicked that stone.
I’m serious!
That’s why I cartwheeled home.
This should mean something. Yes, it does.

Click here for more information about James Fenton. Today’s poem, “Serious,” is from his collection Yellow Tulips, published in 2012 by Faber and Faber. 
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