Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
Answers
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Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
When the gardener has gone this garden
Looks wistful and seems waiting an event.
It is so spruce, a metaphor of Eden
And even more so since the gardener went,
Quietly godlike, but of course, he had
Not made me promise anything and I
Had no one tempting me to make the bad
Choice.
Yet I still felt lost and wonder why.
Even the beech tree from next door which shares
Its shadow with me, seemed a kind of threat.
Everything was too neat, and someone cares
In the wrong way.
I need not have stood long
Mocked by the smell of a mown lawn, and yet
I did.
Sickness for Eden was so strong.
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Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
Over the surging tides and the mountain kingdoms,
Over the pastoral valleys and the meadows,
Over the cities with their factory darkness,
Over the lands where peace is still a power,
Over all these and all this planet carries
A power broods, invisible monarch, a stranger
To some, but by many trusted.
Man's a believer
Until corrupted.
This huge trusted power
Is spirit.
He moves in the muscle of the world,
In continual creation.
He burns the tides, he shines
From the matchless skies.
He is the day's surrender.
Recognize him in the eye of the angry tiger,
In the sign of a child stepping at last into sleep,
In whatever touches, graces and confesses,
In hopes fulfilled or forgotten, in promises
Kept, in the resignation of old men -
This spirit, this power, this holder together of space
Is about, is aware, is working in your breathing.
But most he is the need that shows in hunger
And in the tears shed in the lonely fastness.
And in sorrow after anger.
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Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
Why did you travel?
Because the house was cold.
Why did you travel?
Because it is what I have always done between sunset and sunrise.
What did you wear?
I wore a blue suit, a white shirt, yellow tie, and yellow socks.
What did you wear?
I wore nothing.
A scarf of pain kept me warm.
Who did you sleep with?
I slept with a different woman each night.
Who did you sleep with?
I slept alone.
I have always slept alone.
Why did you lie to me?
I always thought I told the truth.
Why did you lie to me?
Because the truth lies like nothing else and I love the truth.
Why are you going?
Because nothing means much to me anymore.
Why are you going?
I don't know.
I have never known.
How long shall I wait for you?
Do not wait for me.
I am tired and I want to lie down.
Are you tired and do you want to lie down?
Yes, I am tired and I want to lie down.
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Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
At this particular time I have no one
Particular person to grieve for, though there must
Be many, many unknown ones going to dust
Slowly, not remembered for what they have done
Or left undone.
For these, then, I will grieve
Being impartial, unable to deceive.
How they lived, or died, is quite unknown,
And, by that fact gives my grief purity--
An important person quite apart from me
Or one obscure who drifted down alone.
Both or all I remember, have a place.
For these I never encountered face to face.
Sentiment will creep in.
I cast it out
Wishing to give these classical repose,
No epitaph, no poppy and no rose
From me, and certainly no wish to learn about
The way they lived or died.
In earth or fire
They are gone.
Simply because they were human, I admire.
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Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere - it is as if they wait
Some new event: the book he holds unread,
Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.
Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie.
They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do, it is like a confession
Of having little feeling - or too much.
Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.
Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in.
And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently.
Do they know they're old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?
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Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
Nature teaches us our tongue again
And the swift sentences came pat.
I came
Into cool night rescued from rainy dawn.
And I seethed with language - Henry at
Harfleur and Agincourt came apt for war
In Ireland and the Middle East.
Here was
The riddling and right tongue, the feeling words
Solid and dutiful.
Aspiring hope
Met purpose in "advantages" and "He
That fights with me today shall be my brother.
"
Say this is patriotic, out of date.
But you are wrong.
It never is too late
For nights of stars and feet that move to an
Iambic measure; all who clapped were linked,
The theatre is our treasury and too,
Our study, school-room, house where mercy is
Dispensed with justice.
Shakespeare has the mood
And draws the music from the dullest heart.
This is our birthright, speeches for the dumb
And unaccomplished.
Henry has the words
For grief and we learn how to tell of death
With dignity.
"All was as cold" she said
"As any stone" and so, we who lacked scope
For big or little deaths, increase, grow up
To purposes and means to face events
Of cruelty, stupidity.
I walked
Fast under stars.
The Avon wandered on
"Tomorrow and tomorrow".
Words aren't worn
Out in this place but can renew our tongue,
Flesh out our feeling, make us apt for life.
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Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
I keep my answers small and keep them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bulwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I keep from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved
Into my life.
Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, I still hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow
And all the great conclusions coming near.
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Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
The radiance of the star that leans on me
Was shining years ago.
The light that now
Glitters up there my eyes may never see,
And so the time lag teases me with how
Love that loves now may not reach me until
Its first desire is spent.
The star's impulse
Must wait for eyes to claim it beautiful
And love arrived may find us somewhere else.
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Written by
Elizabeth Jennings |
You are no longer young,
Nor are you very old.
There are homes where those belong.
You know you do not fit
When you observe the cold
Stares of those who sit
In bath-chairs or the park
(A stick, then, at their side)
Or find yourself in the dark
And see the lovers who,
In love and in their stride,
Don't even notice you.
This is a time to begin
Your life.
It could be new.
The sheer not fitting in
With the old who envy you
And the young who want to win,
Not knowing false from true,
Means you have liberty
Denied to their extremes.
At last now you can be
What the old cannot recall
And the young long for in dreams,
Yet still include them all.
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