Last Word
—Lingers in Nerves—
Thou say’st that less is more; I bow thereto—
yet silence, once begotten, will not cease;
for what thy lips deny returns anew,
and what was once a hush devours my peace;
till what was but the little hush of breath
outgrows the tongue, and speaks beyond all death.
My cedar-born quill, once quick with vernal flame,
could summon dawn from darkness at my hand;
now grey comes creeping where the colours came,
and leaves no kingdom bright enough to stand;
yet, bleeding inwardly, it makes no plea—
but spends my briny blue obediently.
The page once opened like a sovereign gate,
and every letter entered it like song;
now whiteness guards an inviolate state
where even light seems trespass all day long;
and every stroke that falters on its skin
seems less a word than silence entering in.
Still do I write—for love, when answer’s fled,
becomes the hand that writes against the void;
one syllable survives where ten lie dead,
and one more follows, though the first’s destroyed;
for what returns is neither thine nor mine,
but silence wearing language as a sign.
Thou hast but said be still—and stillness grew
until it filled the empire of my speech;
it drank the names by which I summoned you,
and drew their buried meanings out of reach;
till less, which seemed so little when begun,
hath so consumed the word that none is one.
Now watch the cedar yield—not unto age,
nor grief, nor any wound the years can heal,
but to the dark beyond the final page
where nothing waits that it is sworn to feel;
the last stroke stills the worlds it might have sung—
and unborn songs die wordless on the tongue.
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