I Will Follow You Into the Dark

    

Love of mine, someday you will die,
But I'll be close behind--
I'll follow you into the dark;
No blinding light, or tunnels to gates of white,
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark.

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the "No's" on their vacancy signs;
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks,
Then I'll follow you into the dark.

In Catholic school, as vicious as Roman rule,
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black.
I held my tongue as she told me, "Son, 

Fear is the heart of love,"
So I never went back.

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the "No's" on their vacancy signs;
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks,
Then I'll follow you into the dark.

You and me have seen everything to see,
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes 

are all worn down. The time for sleep is now
But it's nothing to cry about,
'Cause we'll hold each other soon
In the blackest of rooms....

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the "No's" on their vacancy signs;
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks,
Then I'll follow you into the dark--
Then I'll follow you into the dark.

--Benjamin Gibbard (1976- ), American songwriter and musician who performs as the lead singer for the band Death Cab for Cutie.

Video here:

Those Winter Sundays

 

    

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

-- Robert Hayden  (1913-1980), born Asa Bundy Sheffey, devout Baha'i, poet, and professor, first African American appointed Poet Laureate, 1976-1978.

Robert Hayden reads this poem:

Kiss

    

When Lynne saw the lizard floating

in her mother-in-law’s swimming pool,
she jumped in. And when it wasn’t
breathing, its body limp as a baby
drunk on milk, she laid it on her palm
and pressed one fingertip to its silky breast
with just about the force you need
to test the ripeness of a peach, only quicker,
a brisk little push with a bit of spring in it.
Then she knelt, dripping wet in her Doc Martens
and camo T-shirt with the neck ripped out,
and bent her face to the lizard’s face,
her big plush lips to the small stiff jaw
that she’d pried apart with her opposable thumb,
and she blew a tiny puff into the lizard’s lungs.
The sun glared against the turquoise water.
What did it matter if she saved one lizard?
One lizard more or less in the world?
But she bestowed the kiss of life,
again and again, until
the lizard’s wrinkled lids peeled back,
its muscles roused its own first breath
and she set it on the hot cement
where it rested a moment
before darting off.

-- Ellen Bass (1947- ), American poet, editor, and author