No raised glasses, no speeches, As a missing person makes the world lighter, Leaves everyone with a kind of debt.
A name that has no-one floats away Like a dropped holiday photograph Of no-one waving from lost blue seas.
A ghost's bedroom is guarded like a prince's, By mothers, wives, and soldier ranks Of empty suits and empty shoes. A ghost has an answering machine but no home,
The parabolas of jets and bombs, Lead to a new geological age, to fossil lives. They leave no place, no centre, for love to go to; Love can just catch trains of half-remembered conversations That lead only to pictures of a ghost.
Firemen, soldiers, the inquiring spades that probe as shrapnel, Police dogs. These are guests at a kind of wedding Where ghost and man fuse.
Behind Police Line Don't Cross tapes, A policewoman with his wallet blots out the sun.
--Michael Brett (1934- ), British poet, first published in Heroes: 100 Poems from the new Generation of War Poets
This is just a place: we go around, distanced, yearly in a star’s
atmosphere, turning daily into and out of direct light and
slanting through the quadrant seasons: deep space begins at our
heels, nearly rousing us loose: we look up or out so high, sight’s
silk almost draws us away: this is just a place: currents worry themselves
coiled and free in airs and oceans: water picks up mineral shadow and
plasm into billions of designs, frames: trees, grains, bacteria: but
is love a reality we made here ourselves— and grief—did we design
that—or do these, like currents, whine in and out among us merely
as we arrive and go: this is just a place: the reality we agree with,
that agrees with us, outbounding this, arrives to touch, joining with
us from far away: our home which defines us is elsewhere but not
so far away we have forgotten it: this is just a place.
--A. R. Ammons (1926-2001), American poet and teacher, awarded two National Books Awards, a National Book Critics Circle Award, the Library of Congress’s Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, and the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, from A Coast of Trees (1981).
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around The castle o' Montgomery, Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie! There Simmer first unfald her robes, And there the langest tarry: For there I took the last Fareweel O' my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloom'd the gay, green birk, How rich the hawthorn's blossom; As underneath their fragrant shade, I clasp'd her to my bosom! The golden Hours, on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my Dearie; For dear to me as light and life Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Wi' mony a vow, and lock'd embrace, Our parting was fu' tender; And pledging aft to meet again, We tore oursels asunder: But Oh! fell Death's untimely frost, That nipt my Flower sae early! Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, That wraps my Highland Mary!
O pale, pale now, those rosy lips, I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly! And clos'd for ay the sparkling glance, That dwalt on me sae kindly! And mouldering now in silent dust, That heart that lo'ed me dearly! But still within my bosom's core Shall live my Highland Mary.
--Robert Burns (1759-1796), national poet of Scotland. Today is Burns's birthday, and tonight is Burns' Night.
This is one of three songs Burns wrote to honor Mary Campbell, whom he loved. It is sung to the tune of "Katherine Ogie."
The bronze statue above was unveiled on 21 July 1896, the centenary of Burns' death, and made of bronze, was sculpted by David Watson Stephenson. It stands, facing southeast, on a round ashlar pedestal with an octagonal cap and base. It is inscribed Burns Highland Mary.
<"Out of the Blue," a poem-video on the 5th Anniversary of 9/11, read by Rufus Sewell
1.
All lost.
All lost in the dust. Lost in the fall and the crush and the dark. Now all coming back.
2.
Up with the lark, downtown New York. The sidewalks, the blocks. Walk. Don't walk. Walk. Don't Walk.
Breakfast to go: an adrenalin shot in a Styrofoam cup
Then plucked from the earth, rocketed skyward, a fifth a mile in a minute, if that. The body arrives then the soul catches up.
3.
That weird buzz of being at work in the hour before work.
All terminals dormant, all networks idle. Systems in sleep-mode,
all stations un-peopled. I get here early just to gawp from the window.
Is it shameless or brash to have reached top, just me and America ninety floors up?
Is it brazen to feel like a king, like a God, to ge surfing the wave of a power trip,
a fortune under each fingertip, a billion a minute, a million a blink, selling sand to the desert,
ice to the Arctic, money to the rich. The elation of trading in futures and risk.
Here I stand, a compass needle, a sundial spindle right at the pinnacle.
Under my feet Manhattan's a simple bagatelle, a pinball table, all lights and mirrors and whistles and bells.
The day begun. The sun like a peach. A peach of a sun.
And everything framed by a seascape dotted with ferries and sails and a blue sky zippered with vapour trails.
Beyond this window it's vast and it's sheer. Exhilaration. All breath. All clear.
4.
Arranged on the desk among the rubber bands and bulldog clips:
here is a rock from Brighton beach, here is a beer-mat, here is a leaf
of a oak, pressed and dried, papery thin. Here is a Liquorice Allsorts tin.
A map of the Underground pinned to the wall The flag of St George. A cricket ball.
Here is a calendar, counting the days. Here is a photograph snug in its frame,
this is my wife on our wedding day, here is a twist of her English hair.
Here is a picture in purple paint: two powder-paint towers, heading for space,
plus rockets and stars and the Milky way, plus helicopters and aeroplanes.
Jelly-copters and fairy-planes. In a spidery hand, underneath it, it says,
"If I stand on my toes can you see me wave?"
5.
The towers at one. The silent prongs of a tuning fork, testing the calm.
Then a shudder or bump. A juddering thump or a thud. I swear no more
than a thump or a thud But a Pepsi Max jumps out of its cup. and a filing cabinet spews its lunch.
And the water-cooler staggers then slumps. Then a sonic boom and the screen goes blue. Then a deep, ungodly dragon's roar.
In the lobby, the lift opens up, and out of the door the tongue of a dragon comes rolling out.
Then the door slides shut and the flames are gone. Then ceiling tiles, all awry at once. Then dust, a soft, white dust
snowing down from above. We are ghostly at once. See, there on the roof,
the cables, wires, pipes and ducts, the veins and fibres and nerves and guts, exposed and loose.
In their shafts, the lift-cars clang and the cables are plucked, a deep, sub-human, unaudible twang.
And a lurch. A pitch. A sway to the south.
I know for a fact these towers can stand the shoulder-charge of a gale force wind or the body-check of a hurricane.
But this is a punch, a hammer blow. I sense it thundering underfoot, a pulsing, burrowing, aftershock
down through the bone-work of girders and struts, down into earth and rock. Right to the root.
The horizon totters and lists. The line of the land seems to teeter on pins and stilts,
a perceptible tilt. Then the world re-aligns, corrects itself. Then hell lets loose.
And I knew we torn I knew we were holed because through that hole
a torrent of letters and memos and forms now streams and storms now flocks and shoals now passes and pours now tacks and jibes now flashes and flares now rushes and rides now flaps and glides...
the centrefold of the New York Times goes winging by
then a lamp a coat a screen a chair
a yoghurt pot a yucca plant a yellow cup a Yankees cap
A shoe falls past, freeze-framed against the open sky. I see raining flames. I see hardware fly.
6.
Millicent wants an answer now. Anthony talks through a megaphone. Mitch says it looks like one of those days. Abdoul calls his mother at home.
Christopher weeps for his cat and his dog. Monica raises her hand to her eye. Lee goes by with his arm on fire. Abigail opens a bottom drawer.
Raymond punches a hole in the wall. Pedro loosens his collar and tie. Ralph and Craig join an orderly queue. Amy goes back to look for her purse.
Joseph presses his face to the glass. Theresa refrains from raising her voice. Abdoul tries his mother again. Bill pulls a flashlight out of his case.
Tom replaces the top on a pen. Peter hears voices behind the door Abdoul tries his mother again. Glen writes a note on a paper plane.
Gloria's plan is another dead-end. Paul draws a scarf over Rosemary's face. Arnold remembers the name of his wife. Judy is looking for Kerry and Jack.
Edwardo lights a cigarette. Dennis goes down on his hands and knees Stephanie edges out onto the ledge. Jeremy forces the door of the lift.
Dean gets married in less than a month. Peter is struggling under the weight. Sue won't leave without locking her desk. Mike lifts a coat-stand over his head.
Elaine is making a call to a school. Claude won't be needing this anymore. Rosa and Bob never stood a chance. Josh goes looking but doesn't come back.
7.
Go up go down. Sit right for now. Or move. Don't move. It's all in hand. Make a call on the phone. Stay calm. Then shout. Stay calm. Then SHOUT. Come back. I think we should leave but not in the lift. This staircase closed. This stairwell black. Keep cool. Keep your head. For fuck's sake man this telephone's dead. Get low to the floor. Who bolted this door? Try the key, try the code. Hit nine one one. Come away from the glass. Keep back from the heat. Heat rises, right? Go down. Go south. That exit locked. That lobby blocked. That connecting corridor clogged with stone. The lights go out. Come on. Go out. A fire alarm drones. Come away from the edge. Hit nine one one. Call home call home. Come here and see, we made the news. Try CNN. Try ABC. They say it's a plane. So bung it with something to stop the smoke. Or we choke. Use a skirt, use a shirt Rescue services now on their way. What with. With what - with a magic carpet? A thousand foot rope? Stand back from the door. They're saying it's war. Don't break the glass - don't fan the flames. Outside it's sheer. A wing and a prayer. Go up. Go north. Get out on the roof. No way. Call home. Call home. It's daddy, ask mummy to come to the phone. Get mummy, tell mummy to come to the phone. Just DO AS YOU'RE TOLD. this glass, like metal. If we step out there...if we stay in here. This glass, like metal. Just DO AS YOU'RE TOLD. Get mummy, tell mummy to come to the phone. It's daddy, ask mummy to come to the phone. Call home. Call home. Get out on the roof. Go north. Go up. A wing and a prayer. It's air. Outside it's sheer. Outside it's air. Don't break the glass -don't fan the flames. They're saying it's war. Stand back from the door. What with? With what - a magic carpet? A thousand foot rope. Rescue services now on their way. Use a skirt, use a shirt. Or we choke. So bung it with something to stop the smoke. They say it's a plane. Try ABC. Try CNN. Come here and see, we made the news. Call home call home. Hit nine one one. Come away from the edge. A fire alarm drones. Go out. Come on. The lights go out. That connecting corridor clogged with stone. That lobby blocked. That exit locked. Go south. Go down. Heat rises, right? Keep back from the heat. Come away from the glass. Hit nine one one. Try the key, try the code. Who bolted this door? Get low to the floor. For fuck's sake man this telephone's dead. Keep your head. Keep cool. This stairwell black. This staircase closed. I think we should leave but not in the lift. Come back. Then SHOUT. Stay calm. Then shout. Stay calm. Make a call on the phone. It's all in hand. Don't move. Or move. Sit tight for now. Go up go down. Sit tight for now. Go up. Go down.
8.
Fire as a rumour at first. Fire as a whisper of wolves, massing and howling
beneath the floor, clawing and scrabbling, tongues of flame licking under the door.
And smoke like fear. Smoke as a bear, immense and barrelling, horribly near.
Then furious heat. Incensed. Every atom irate and alive with heat.
And air won't arrive. Un-breathed, an ocean of sky goes sailing past on the other side.
Now heat with its nails in your eye. With its breath to your face. With its hands in your hair,
its fist in your throat. So the window shatters, the glass goes through.
Crane into with void Lean into the world. It's not in my blood
to actually jump. I don't have the juice. But others can't hold.
So a body will fall. And a body will fall. And a body will fall. And a body will fall. And a body will drop
through the faraway hole of vanishing point, smaller then gone,
till the distant hit and the burst of dust. The shock. the stain of fruit and stone.
9.
I was fighting for breath. I was pounding the glass when a shape flew past…
A snapshot only. The shape of a cross, as it were. Just a blur.
But detail. Fact. An engine. A wing. I sort of swayed, sort of thing,
sort of swooned, that fear when something designed to be far comes illogically near.
Then it banked. It scooped. It was tipping. Not dipping away, but towards. On the turn.
Then the groan and the strain as it turned. I see it now, over and over,
Frame by frame by frame. Then everything burned. And I thought – how crazy is this –
this can't be the case. I actually thought there's got to be some mistake: they'll wind back the film,
call back the plane, they'll try this again. The day will be fine,
put back as it was. Because lightning never strikes once, let alone twice,
and no two planes just happened to veer through mechanical fault or human error
one after the other. It must be a mirage. It must be mirror.
That thought didn't last. That thought was a lie which darkened and died the second it formed.
Then it dawned. What else is a plane but a flying bomb. A man with his arm in his hand, in a mess, mumbles "this is so wrong."
10.
We are spinning a web. We are knotting a net. These are delicate threads.
These are desperate times. We are throwing out lines so subtle and slight
they are lighter than air. We are spanning the sky with wireless wires
too faint by far for the naked eye, untraceably thin, imperceptibly fine.
But they carry our breath. We are making our calls. They are tightropes, strung
from the end of the phone to a place called home so our words can escape,
our voices trapeze for mile after mile or in my case traverse
the width of the sea. My beautiful wife, sit down in the chair,
put the phone to your ear. Let me say. Let me hear.
We are spinning a web. But such delicate threads, the links so brittle,
too little, too late. Not one can save us or bear our weight.
11.
Then enormity falls. Then all sense fails.
The strings are cut and the world goes slack.
The tower to the south, holding on to the moon by its fingernails
now looses its fix and drops from view.
The tower to the south now looses heart,
now sieves itself through itself. Just gives up the ghost.
All logic and fact on the slide. Through a crack in the sky
for a second or so… a river… and land on the other side.
Then the image lost to uplift of ash and an inrush of dust.
Then the overwhelming urge to run. The impulse to pump with the arms and fists,
sprint hell-for-leather up seventh or fifth, a wish for the earth to be solid and not to give,
for concrete or tarmac under the feet, to sprint for the light at the end of the street,
one last race, the utmost desire to be downing litres of smokeless air
and to run and run and run and run, and break the finish line, burst a lung.
I watch sirens and lights, the soldier-ants
of vehicles wearing emergency red all filing this way,
And the people…New Yorkers flowing away, a biblical tide of humankind, going north, going safe,
the faces of women and men looking up at the nightmare of where I am.
Looking back at the monstrous form I've become. They turn and run.
And through the blitz of that awful snow, the only colours:
mile beyond mile of traffic lights changing. Stop. Wait. Go.
12.
You have picked me out. Through a distant shot of a building burning you have noticed now that a white cotton shirt is twirling, turning.
In fact I am waving, waving. Small in the clouds, but waving, waving. Does anyone see a soul worth saving?
And when will you come? Do you think you are watching, watching a man shaking crumbs or pegging out washing?
I am trying and trying. The heat behind me is searing, searing, but the white of surrender is not yet flying. I am not at the point of launching, leaving.
A bird goes by. The depth is appalling. Appalling that others like me should be wind-milling, wheeling, spiralling, falling.
Are your eyes believing, believing? Here in the gills I am still breathing.
But tiring, tiring. Sirens below me are wailing, firing. My arm is numb and my nerves are sagging. Do you see me, my love. I am flagging. Flagging.
13.
What reveals itself once night has cleared? What emerges by day,
what fragments, what findings, what human remains?
The steaming mound like a single corpse: stony tissue, skeletal steel,
and not matter alone but ideas as well:
concepts torpedoed and theories trashed,
refuted schematics, a carcass of zeroed numbers and graphs.
The gleaners arrive to pick and prise, to rummage by any and every means:
claw and spike. hook and crane,
bucket and spade on hands and knees. Some use the phrase "a fruitless search,"
some fall and weep, some gag and wretch, some report that death has the scent of a peach.
Neither here nor there
the will-o-the-wisp of a welder's torch, two right-angled girders raised as a cross.
The numbers game. The body count.
Then part of a body is stretchered out, carried by bearers, clothed in a flag.
The rest is boated and trucked, strewn in a field to be raked and forked,
to be sifted and bagged, numbered and tagged.
What comes to light are the harder things: eternity rings,
Watches are found still keeping time - the escapement sound, the pulse still alive
but others have locked at ten-twenty-eight. Others like mine.
And here is a rock from Brighton beach, here is a beer-mat, here is the leaf
of an oak, pressed and dried, papery thin. Here is a Liquorice Allsorts tin.
The flag of St George. A cricket ball.
Here is calendar, counting the days. Here is a photograph snug in its frame,
this is my wife on our wedding day, here is a twist of her English hair.
No ashes as such, but cinders and grains are duly returned,
sieved and spooned and handed back
in a cherry-wood urn in a velvet bag.
All lost. All lost in the dust. Lost in the fall and the crush and the dark. Now all coming back.
Five years on, nothing in place: the hole in the ground
still an open wound, the gaps in the sky still empty space,
the scene of the crime still largely the same… but everything changed.
Five years on what false alarm can be trusted again? What case or bag can be left unclaimed? What flight can be sure to steer its course? What building can claim to own its form? What column can vow to stand up straight? What floor can agree to bear its weight? What tower can vouch to retain its height? What peace can be said to be water-tight? What truth can be said to be bullet-proof? Can anything swear to be built to last? Can anything pledge to be hard and fast? What system can promise to stay in place? What structure can promise to hold its shape? What future can promise to keep the faith?
Everything changed. Nothing is safe.
--Simon Armitage (1963- ), British poet, professor, lecturer, playwright, musician, disc jockey, and former probation officer, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom as of 2019.
Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night. A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze, And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows, I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened, Then Baxter and Calabro, Davis and Eberling, names falling into place As droplets fell through the dark. Names printed on the ceiling of the night. Names slipping around a watery bend. Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream. In the morning, I walked out barefoot Among thousands of flowers Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears, And each had a name -- Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins. Names written in the air And stitched into the cloth of the day. A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox. Monogram on a torn shirt, I see you spelled out on storefront windows And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city. I say the syllables as I turn a corner -- Kelly and Lee, Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor. When I peer into the woods, I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden As in a puzzle concocted for children. Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash, Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton, Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple. Names written in the pale sky. Names rising in the updraft amid buildings. Names silent in stone Or cried out behind a door. Names blown over the earth and out to sea. In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows. A boy on a lake lifts his oars. A woman by a window puts a match to a candle, And the names are outlined on the rose clouds -- Vanacore and Wallace, (let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound) Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z. Names etched on the head of a pin. One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel. A blue name needled into the skin. Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers, The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son. Alphabet of names in a green field. Names in the small tracks of birds. Names lifted from a hat Or balanced on the tip of the tongue. Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory. So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.
-- Billy Collins (1941- ), poet laureate of the United States 2001-2003. Collins was poet laureate at the time of the attack, and a year later published this poem after reading it for a join session of Congress on he first anniversary of this day.
The steel tsunamis will froth back upwards And become solid. The planes will be pulled out like javelins And slide backwards, swallowing their vapour trails.
Tomorrow, everyone will be fine.
Tomorrow, everyone who died will come home. They will sit again at the tables of home And rejoin life's fellowship, its snapshots, tea And picnics.
Tomorrow, all will be well.
Everyone will sleep as babies do under mobiles, Untroubled by strange sounds, of aero engines Flying too low and shadows over the streets.
Tomorrow, mobile phones will be just toys again.
The sky will be clear, blue, unbroken.
-Michael Brett (1936- ), British poet, published on 12/31/2009.
and I had a cell phone, I'd have called my sister and brother and told them I'd loved my life, loved them, always would, and to thank everyone for being so good to me and to take no avenging actions, nor support the avenging actions of others, but to let me die with the dignity of my faith. Then I'd step out into the air, something opening beneath me, the last fall of my life. It's hard to say what I'd be feeling, surprise, mystification, terror, glory, but I'm sure I wouldn't be angry. In the last moments there's nothing to fix, no protest against the speed of the fall. I imagine I 'd be filled with something beyond terror, a feeling which is (from where we stand) intolerably bright.
I Here is an architecture of air. Where dust has cleared, nothing stands but free sky, unlimited and sheer.
II Smoke's dark bruise has paled, soothed by wind, dabbed at and eased by rain, exposing the wound.
III Over the spoil of junk, rescuers prod and pick, shout into tangled holes. What answers back is aftershock.
IV All land lines are down. Reports of mobile phones are false. One half-excoriated Apple Mac still quotes the Dow Jones.
V Shop windows are papered with faces of the disappeared. As if they might walk from the ruins - chosen, spared.
VI With hindsight now we track the vapour-trail of each flight-path arcing through blue morning, like a curved thought.
VII And in retrospect plot the weird prospect of a passenger plane beading an office-block.
VIII But long before that dawn, with those towers drawing in worth and name to their full height, an opposite was forming,
IX a force still years and miles off, yet moving headlong forwards, locked on a collision course.
X Then time and space contracted, so whatever distance held those worlds apart thinned to an instant.
XI During which, cameras framed moments of grace before the furious contact wherein earth and heaven fused.
--Simon Armitage (1963- ), British poet, professor, lecturer, playwright, musician, disc jockey, and former probation officer, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom as of 2019. This poem was written in 2005.
Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved; Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.
Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest, Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I. All of the night was quite barred out except An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry
Shaken our long and clear upon the hill, No merry note, nor cute of merriment, But one telling me what I escaped And others could not, that night, as in I went.
And salted was my food, and my repose, Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voice Speaking for all who lay under the stars, Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
--Edward Thomas (1878-1917), English biographer, critic, poet and soldier, killed in the Battle of Arras, Easter Monday, 1917.
When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety.
When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken.
Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves.
And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.
-- Maya Angelou (1928-2014), African American poet, writer, activist, and memoirist.
Posted in Memory of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last night on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.
Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just.
Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou. Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow.
Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before,
But vaster. We are fools and slight; We mock thee when we do not fear: But help thy foolish ones to bear; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.
Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; What seem'd my worth since I began; For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
Forgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair. I trust he lives in thee, and there I find him worthier to be loved.
Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confusions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise.
I
I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.
But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? Or reach a hand thro' time to catch The far-off interest of tears?
Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let darkness keep her raven gloss: Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground,
Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love, and boast, `Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn.'
II
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men.
O, not for thee the glow, the bloom, Who changest not in any gale, Nor branding summer suns avail To touch thy thousand years of gloom:
And gazing on thee, sullen tree, Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood And grow incorporate into thee.
III
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip?
'The stars,' she whispers, `blindly run; A web is wov'n across the sky; From out waste places comes a cry, And murmurs from the dying sun:
'And all the phantom, Nature, stands— With all the music in her tone, A hollow echo of my own,— A hollow form with empty hands.'
And shall I take a thing so blind, Embrace her as my natural good; Or crush her, like a vice of blood, Upon the threshold of the mind?
IV
To Sleep I give my powers away; My will is bondsman to the dark; I sit within a helmless bark, And with my heart I muse and say:
O heart, how fares it with thee now, That thou should'st fail from thy desire, Who scarcely darest to inquire, 'What is it makes me beat so low?'
Something it is which thou hast lost, Some pleasure from thine early years. Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, That grief hath shaken into frost!
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross All night below the darken'd eyes; With morning wakes the will, and cries, 'Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.'
V
I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold: But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.
VI
One writes, that `Other friends remain,' That `Loss is common to the race'— And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more: Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.
O father, wheresoe'er thou be, Who pledgest now thy gallant son; A shot, ere half thy draught be done, Hath still'd the life that beat from thee.
O mother, praying God will save Thy sailor,—while thy head is bow'd, His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud Drops in his vast and wandering grave.
Ye know no more than I who wrought At that last hour to please him well; Who mused on all I had to tell, And something written, something thought;
Expecting still his advent home; And ever met him on his way With wishes, thinking, `here to-day,' Or `here to-morrow will he come.'
O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, That sittest ranging golden hair; And glad to find thyself so fair, Poor child, that waitest for thy love!
For now her father's chimney glows In expectation of a guest; And thinking `this will please him best,' She takes a riband or a rose;
For he will see them on to-night; And with the thought her colour burns; And, having left the glass, she turns Once more to set a ringlet right;
And, even when she turn'd, the curse Had fallen, and her future Lord Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford, Or kill'd in falling from his horse.
O what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good? To her, perpetual maidenhood, And unto me no second friend.
VII
Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand,
A hand that can be clasp'd no more— Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door.
He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day.
VIII
A happy lover who has come To look on her that loves him well, Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell, And learns her gone and far from home;
He saddens, all the magic light Dies off at once from bower and hall, And all the place is dark, and all The chambers emptied of delight:
So find I every pleasant spot In which we two were wont to meet, The field, the chamber, and the street, For all is dark where thou art not.
Yet as that other, wandering there In those deserted walks, may find A flower beat with rain and wind, Which once she foster'd up with care;
So seems it in my deep regret, O my forsaken heart, with thee And this poor flower of poesy Which little cared for fades not yet.
But since it pleased a vanish'd eye, I go to plant it on his tomb, That if it can it there may bloom, Or, dying, there at least may die.
IX
Fair ship, that from the Italian shore Sailest the placid ocean-plains With my lost Arthur's loved remains, Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er.
So draw him home to those that mourn In vain; a favourable speed Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn.
All night no ruder air perplex Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright As our pure love, thro' early light Shall glimmer on the dewy decks.
Sphere all your lights around, above; Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow; Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, My friend, the brother of my love;
My Arthur, whom I shall not see Till all my widow'd race be run; Dear as the mother to the son, More than my brothers are to me.
X
I hear the noise about thy keel; I hear the bell struck in the night: I see the cabin-window bright; I see the sailor at the wheel.
Thou bring'st the sailor to his wife, And travell'd men from foreign lands; And letters unto trembling hands; And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life.
So bring him; we have idle dreams: This look of quiet flatters thus Our home-bred fancies. O to us, The fools of habit, sweeter seems
To rest beneath the clover sod, That takes the sunshine and the rains, Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of God;
Than if with thee the roaring wells Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; And hands so often clasp'd in mine, Should toss with tangle and with shells.
XI
Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro' the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high world, And on these dews that drench the furze, And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, And crowded farms and lessening towers, To mingle with the bounding main:
Calm and deep peace in this wide air, These leaves that redden to the fall; And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair:
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
XII
Lo, as a dove when up she springs To bear thro' Heaven a tale of woe, Some dolorous message knit below The wild pulsation of her wings;
Like her I go; I cannot stay; I leave this mortal ark behind, A weight of nerves without a mind, And leave the cliffs, and haste away
O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large, And reach the glow of southern skies, And see the sails at distance rise, And linger weeping on the marge,
And saying; `Comes he thus, my friend? Is this the end of all my care?' And circle moaning in the air: 'Is this the end? Is this the end?'
And forward dart again, and play About the prow, and back return To where the body sits, and learn That I have been an hour away.
XIII
Tears of the widower, when he sees A late-lost form that sleep reveals, And moves his doubtful arms, and feels Her place is empty, fall like these;
Which weep a loss for ever new, A void where heart on heart reposed; And, where warm hands have prest and closed, Silence, till I be silent too.
Which weep the comrade of my choice, An awful thought, a life removed, The human-hearted man I loved, A Spirit, not a breathing voice.
Come, Time, and teach me, many years, I do not suffer in a dream; For now so strange do these things seem, Mine eyes have leisure for their tears;
My fancies time to rise on wing, And glance about the approaching sails, As tho' they brought but merchants' bales, And not the burthen that they bring.
XIV
If one should bring me this report, That thou hadst touch'd the land to-day, And I went down unto the quay, And found thee lying in the port;
And standing, muffled round with woe, Should see thy passengers in rank Come stepping lightly down the plank, And beckoning unto those they know;
And if along with these should come The man I held as half-divine; Should strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home;
And I should tell him all my pain, And how my life had droop'd of late, And he should sorrow o'er my state And marvel what possess'd my brain;
And I perceived no touch of change, No hint of death in all his frame, But found him all in all the same, I should not feel it to be strange.
XV
To-night the winds begin to rise And roar from yonder dropping day: The last red leaf is whirl'd away, The rooks are blown about the skies;
The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd, The cattle huddled on the lea; And wildly dash'd on tower and tree The sunbeam strikes along the world:
And but for fancies, which aver That all thy motions gently pass Athwart a plane of molten glass, I scarce could brook the strain and stir
That makes the barren branches loud; And but for fear it is not so, The wild unrest that lives in woe Would dote and pore on yonder cloud
That rises upward always higher, And onward drags a labouring breast, And topples round the dreary west, A looming bastion fringed with fire.
XVI
What words are these have falle'n from me? Can calm despair and wild unrest Be tenants of a single breast, Or sorrow such a changeling be?
Or cloth she only seem to take The touch of change in calm or storm; But knows no more of transient form In her deep self, than some dead lake
That holds the shadow of a lark Hung in the shadow of a heaven? Or has the shock, so harshly given, Confused me like the unhappy bark
That strikes by night a craggy shelf, And staggers blindly ere she sink? And stunn'd me from my power to think And all my knowledge of myself;
And made me that delirious man Whose fancy fuses old and new, And flashes into false and true, And mingles all without a plan?
XVII
Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze Compell'd thy canvas, and my prayer Was as the whisper of an air To breathe thee over lonely seas.
For I in spirit saw thee move Thro' circles of the bounding sky, Week after week: the days go by: Come quick, thou bringest all I love.
Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, My blessing, like a line of light, Is on the waters day and night, And like a beacon guards thee home.
So may whatever tempest mars Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark; And balmy drops in summer dark Slide from the bosom of the stars.
So kind an office hath been done, Such precious relics brought by thee; The dust of him I shall not see Till all my widow'd race be run.
XVIII
'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand Where he in English earth is laid, And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land.
'Tis little; but it looks in truth As if the quiet bones were blest Among familiar names to rest And in the places of his youth.
Come then, pure hands, and bear the head That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, And come, whatever loves to weep, And hear the ritual of the dead.
Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, I, falling on his faithful heart, Would breathing thro' his lips impart The life that almost dies in me;
That dies not, but endures with pain, And slowly forms the firmer mind, Treasuring the look it cannot find, The words that are not heard again.
XIX
The Danube to the Severn gave The darken'd heart that beat no more; They laid him by the pleasant shore, And in the hearing of the wave.
There twice a day the Severn fills; The salt sea-water passes by, And hushes half the babbling Wye, And makes a silence in the hills.
The Wye is hush'd nor moved along, And hush'd my deepest grief of all, When fill'd with tears that cannot fall, I brim with sorrow drowning song.
The tide flows down, the wave again Is vocal in its wooded walls; My deeper anguish also falls, And I can speak a little then.
XX
The lesser griefs that may be said, That breathe a thousand tender vows, Are but as servants in a house Where lies the master newly dead;
Who speak their feeling as it is, And weep the fulness from the mind: `It will be hard,' they say, `to find Another service such as this.'
My lighter moods are like to these, That out of words a comfort win; But there are other griefs within, And tears that at their fountain freeze;
For by the hearth the children sit Cold in that atmosphere of Death, And scarce endure to draw the breath, Or like to noiseless phantoms flit;
But open converse is there none, So much the vital spirits sink To see the vacant chair, and think, 'How good! how kind! and he is gone.'
XXI
I sing to him that rests below, And, since the grasses round me wave, I take the grasses of the grave, And make them pipes whereon to blow.
The traveller hears me now and then, And sometimes harshly will he speak: `This fellow would make weakness weak, And melt the waxen hearts of men.'
Another answers, `Let him be, He loves to make parade of pain That with his piping he may gain The praise that comes to constancy.'
A third is wroth: `Is this an hour For private sorrow's barren song, When more and more the people throng The chairs and thrones of civil power?
'A time to sicken and to swoon, When Science reaches forth her arms To feel from world to world, and charms Her secret from the latest moon?'
Behold, ye speak an idle thing: Ye never knew the sacred dust: I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing:
And one is glad; her note is gay, For now her little ones have ranged; And one is sad; her note is changed, Because her brood is stol'n away.
XXII
The path by which we twain did go, Which led by tracts that pleased us well, Thro' four sweet years arose and fell, From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
And we with singing cheer'd the way, And, crown'd with all the season lent, From April on to April went, And glad at heart from May to May:
But where the path we walk'd began To slant the fifth autumnal slope, As we descended following Hope, There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;
Who broke our fair companionship, And spread his mantle dark and cold, And wrapt thee formless in the fold, And dull'd the murmur on thy lip,
And bore thee where I could not see Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste, And think, that somewhere in the waste The Shadow sits and waits for me.
XXIII
Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, Or breaking into song by fits, Alone, alone, to where he sits, The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot,
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, I wander, often falling lame, And looking back to whence I came, Or on to where the pathway leads;
And crying, How changed from where it ran Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb; But all the lavish hills would hum The murmur of a happy Pan:
When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy light from Fancy caught, And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;
And all we met was fair and good, And all was good that Time could bring, And all the secret of the Spring Moved in the chambers of the blood;
And many an old philosophy On Argive heights divinely sang, And round us all the thicket rang To many a flute of Arcady.
XXIV
And was the day of my delight As pure and perfect as I say? The very source and fount of Day Is dash'd with wandering isles of night.
If all was good and fair we met, This earth had been the Paradise It never look'd to human eyes Since our first Sun arose and set.
And is it that the haze of grief Makes former gladness loom so great? The lowness of the present state, That sets the past in this relief?
Or that the past will always win A glory from its being far; And orb into the perfect star We saw not, when we moved therein?
XXV
I know that this was Life,—the track Whereon with equal feet we fared; And then, as now, the day prepared The daily burden for the back.
But this it was that made me move As light as carrier-birds in air; I loved the weight I had to bear, Because it needed help of Love:
Nor could I weary, heart or limb, When mighty Love would cleave in twain The lading of a single pain, And part it, giving half to him.
XXVI
Still onward winds the dreary way; I with it; for I long to prove No lapse of moons can canker Love, Whatever fickle tongues may say.
And if that eye which watches guilt And goodness, and hath power to see Within the green the moulder'd tree, And towers fall'n as soon as built—
Oh, if indeed that eye foresee Or see (in Him is no before) In more of life true life no more And Love the indifference to be,
Then might I find, ere yet the morn Breaks hither over Indian seas, That Shadow waiting with the keys, To shroud me from my proper scorn.
XXVII
I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods:
I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time, Unfetter'd by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest.
I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.
1. In the household of God, I have stumbled in recitation, and in my mind I have wandered. I have interrupted worship with discussion. Once I extinguished the Gospel candle after all the others. But never held the cup to my mouth lagging in gratitude. 2. The Lord forgives many things, so I have heard. 3. The deer came into the field. I saw her peaceful face and heard the shuffle of her breath. She was sweetened by merriment and not afraid, but bold to say whose field she was crossing: spoke the tap of her foot: "It is God's, and mine." But only that she was born into the poem that God made, and called the world. 4. And the goldfinch too And the black pond I named my little sister, since otherwise I had none. And the muskrat with his shy hands. And the tiny life of the single pine needle, which nevertheless shines. And the priest in her beautiful vestments, her hand over the chalice. And the clouds moving, over the valleys of Truro. 5. All day I watch the sky changing from blue to blue. For You are forever and I am like a single day that passes. All day I think thanks for this world, for the rocks and the tips of the waves, for the tupelos and the fading roses. For the wind. For You are forever while I am a single day that passes. You are the heart of the cedars of Lebanon and the fir called Douglas, the bristlecone, and the willow. 6. It's close to hopeless, for what I want to say the red-bird has said already, and better, in a thousand trees. The white bear, lifting one enormous paw, has said it better. You cannot cross one hummock or furrow but it is His holy ground. 7. I had such a longing for virtue, for company. I wanted Christ to be as close as the cross I wear. I wanted to read and serve, to touch the altar linen. Instead I went back to the woods where not a single tree turns its face away. Instead I prayed, oh Lord, let me be something useful and unpretentious. Even the chimney swift sings. Even the cobblestones have a task to do, and do it well. Lord, let me be a flower, even a tare; or a sparrow. Or the smallest bright stone in a ring worn by someone brave and kind, whose name I will never know. Lord, when I sleep I feel you near. When I wake, and you are already wiping the stars away, I rise quickly, hoping to be like your wild child the rose, the honey-maker the honey-vine; a bird shouting its joy as it floats through the gift you have given us: another day. -- Mary Oliver (1935-2019) American poet and author, who passed away today, from Thirst: Poems, 2006
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