by
Yves Bonnefoy
I remember, it was a morning, in summer,
The window was half-open, I drew near,
I could see my father at the end of the garden.
He was motionless, looking for something,
I could not tell what, or where, beyond the world,
His body was already bent over, but his gaze
Was lifted toward the unaccomplished or the impossible.
He had put aside his pick and his spade,
The air was fresh on that morning of the world,
But even freshness can be impenetrable, and cruel
The memory of the mornings of childhood.
Who was he, who had he been in the light,
I did not know, I still do not.
But I also see him on the boulevard,
Walking slowly, so much weariness
Weighing down the way he now moved,
He was going back to work, while I
Was wandering about with some of my classmates
At the beginning of an afternoon still free from time.
To this figure, seen from afar, moving on its way,
I dedicate the words that cannot say what they would.
(In the dining room
Of the Sunday afternoon, in summer,
The shutters closed against the heat,
The table cleared, he suggested
Cards, since these are the only pictures
In the childhood house to satisfy
The needs of dream, but he leaves,
And when he does, the child clumsily takes the cards,
He puts the winning ones in the other’s hand,
Then waits feverishly for the game to begin again,
And for the one who was losing to win, and so triumphantly
That he might see in this victory a sign, something
To nourish some hope the child cannot know.
After this, two paths part, and one of them
Vanishes, and almost immediately, forgetfulness
Sets in, avid, relentless.
I have crossed out
These words a hundred times, in verse, in prose,
But I cannot
Stop them from coming back.)
|
by
Galway Kinnell
There is a fork in a branch
of an ancient, enormous maple,
one of a grove of such trees,
where I climb sometimes and sit and look out
over miles of valleys and low hills.
Today on skis I took a friend
to show her the trees. We set out
down the road, turned in at
the lane which a few weeks ago,
when the trees were almost empty
and the November snows had not yet come,
lay thickly covered in bright red
and yellow leaves, crossed the swamp,
passed the cellar hole holding
the remains of the 1850s farmhouse
that had slid down into it by stages
in the thirties and forties, followed
the overgrown logging road
and came to the trees. I climbed up
to the perch, and this time looked
not into the distance but at
the tree itself, its trunk
contorted by the terrible struggle
of that time when it had its hard time.
After the trauma it grows less solid.
It may be some such time now comes upon me.
It would have to do with the unaccomplished,
and with the attempted marriage
of solitude and happiness. Then a rifle
sounded, several times, quite loud,
from across the valley, percussions
of the custom of male mastery
over the earth ¡ª the most graceful,
most alert of the animals
being chosen to die. I looked
to see if my friend had heard,
but she was stepping about on her skis,
studying the trees, smiling to herself,
her lips still filled, for all
we had drained them, with hundreds
and thousands of kisses. Just then
she looked up ¡ª the way, from low
to high, the god blesses ¡ª and the blue
of her eyes shone out of the black
and white of bark and snow, as lovers
who are walking on a freezing day
touch icy cheek to icy cheek,
kiss, then shudder to discover
the heat waiting inside their mouths.
|
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.
|
by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne
From year to year until I saw thy face,
And sorrow after sorrow took the place
Of all those natural joys as lightly worn
As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn
By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace
Were changed to long despairs, till God's own grace
Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn
My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring
And let it drop adown thy calmly great
Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing
Which its own nature doth precipitate,
While thine doth close above it, mediating
Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.
|