Afterwards

When the Present has slashed its postern behind my tremulous stay,
   And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
   ‘He was a man who used to notice such things’?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink,
   The dew-fall hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
   ‘To him this must have been a familiar sight.’

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
   When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, ‘He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
   But he could do little for them; And now he is gone.’

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
   Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
   ‘He was the one who had an eye for such mysteries’?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,
   And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom,
   ‘He hears it not now, but used to notice such things’?

--Thomas Hardy (1840-1924), English novelist and poet

Echoes

1.

Once I could imagine my soul
I could imagine my death.
When I imagined my death
my soul died. This
I remember clearly.

My body persisted.
Not thrived, but persisted.
Why I do not know.

2.

When I was still very young
my parents moved to a small valley surrounded by mountains
in what was called the lake country.
From our kitchen garden
you could see the mountains,
snow covered, even in summer.

I remember peace of a kind
I never knew again.

Somewhat later, I took it upon myself
to become an artist,
to give voice to these impressions.

3.

The rest I have told you already.
A few years of fluency, and then
the long silence, like the silence in the valley
before the mountains send back
your own voice changed to the voice of nature.

This silence is my companion now.
I ask: of what did my soul die?
and the silence answers

if your soul died, whose life
are you living and
when did you become that person?




--Louise Gluck (1943- ), American poet, and teacher, US Poet Laureate 2003, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2020

Ash Wednesday, Unshowered

My hair’s pulled back to disguise the grime,

though maybe it’s well that I’m unclean,
since from dust you came, to dust you will return,
the priest recites, smearing my forehead.
Once, twice, and I’m marked, a lintel in plague years.
I’m invited to kneel and read the fifty-first Psalm,
recalling how David watched Bathsheba bathe.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Merciful one, save me from slight repentance.
I pierced the center of the white orchid, Lord,
and it was mud, blood’s cry, my body’s blighted tender.


-- Anya Krugovoy Silver (1968-2018, from Image Journal

Statues in the Park

I thought of you today
when I stopped before an equestrian statue
in the middle of a public square, 

you who had once instructed me 

in the code of these noble poses. 

A horse rearing up with two legs raised, 

you told me, meant the rider had died in battle. 

If only one leg was lifted, 

the man had elsewhere succumbed to his wounds; 

and if four legs were touching the ground, 

as they were in this case— 

bronze hooves affixed to a stone base— 

it meant that the man on the horse, 

this one staring intently 

over the closed movie theater across the street,
had died of a cause other than war. 

In the shadow of the statue, 

I wondered about the others 

who had simply walked through life 

without a horse, a saddle, or a sword— 

pedestrians who could no longer 

place one foot in front of the other. 

I pictured statues of the sickly 

recumbent on their cold stone beds, 

the suicides toeing the marble edge, 

statues of accident victims covering their eyes, 

the murdered covering their wounds, 

the drowned silently treading the air. 

And there was I, 

up on a rosy-gray block of granite 

near a cluster of shade trees in the local park, 

my name and dates pressed into a plaque, 

down on my knees, eyes lifted, 

praying to the passing clouds, 

forever begging for just one more day.

--Billy Collins (1941- ), US Poet laureate 2001-2003, from The Trouble with Poetry, 2006.

Image: Equestrian statue of George Washington, Richmond Virginia, erected 1858.

The Wish to Be Generous

All that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

--Wendell Berry (1934- ), America poet, farmer, agrarian, essayist, and philosopher

Lectionary scripture: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15, Proper 8B

Man's Short Life and Foolish Ambition

In gardens sweet each flower mark did I,
How they did spring, bud, blow, wither and die.

With that, contemplating of man's short stay,
Saw man like to those flowers pass away.

Yet built he houses, thick and strong and high,
As if he'd live to all Eternity.

Hoards up a mass of wealth, yet cannot fill
His empty mind, but covet will he still.

To gain or keep, such falsehood will he use!
Wrong, right or truth—no base ways will refuse.

I would not blame him could he death out keep,
Or ease his pains or be secure of sleep:

Or buy Heaven's mansions—like the gods become,
And with his gold rule stars and moon and sun:

Command the winds to blow, seas to obey,
Level their waves and make their breezes stay.

But he no power hath unless to die,
And care in life is only misery.

This care is but a word, an empty sound,
Wherein there is no soul nor substance found;

Yet as his heir he makes it to inherit,
And all he has he leaves unto this spirit.

To get this Child of Fame and this bare word,
He fears no dangers, neither fire nor sword:

All horrid pains and death he will endure,
Or any thing can he but fame procure.

O man, O man, what high ambition grows
Within his brain, and yet how low he goes!

To be contented only with a sound,
Wherein is neither peace nor life nor body found.

--Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish (1623-1653), Elizabethan poet, from The Cavalier and His Lady

Vespers ["In your extended absence, you permit me"]

In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.

--Louise Gluck (1943- ), American poet,  and teacher, US Poet Laureate 2003,  awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2020 announced today, the first American so honored since Toni Morrison in 1993. Poem from The Wild Iris, 1992.

Hymn in Contemplation of Sudden Death

God, if this day my journey end,
I thank You first for many a friend,
The sturdy and unquestioned piers
That run beneath my bridge of years.
Next, for the power You’ve given me
To view the whole world mirthfully,
For laughter, paraclete of pain,
Like April suns across the rain.
Also that, being not too wise
To do things foolish in folks’ eyes,
I gained experience by this,
And saw life somewhat as it is.
Next for the joy of labor done
And burdens shouldered in the sun;
Not less, for shame of labor lost,
And meekness born of a barren boast.
For every fair and useless thing
That bids us pause from laboring
To look and find the larkspur blue
And marigolds of a different hue;
For eyes to see and ears to hear,
For tongue to speak and thews to bear,
For hands to handle, feet to go,
For life, I give You thanks also.
For all things merry, quaint and strange,
For sound and silence, strength, and change,
At last, for death, which only gives
Value to everything that lives;
For these, good God, who still makes me,
I praise Your name; since, verily,
I of my joy have had no dearth,
Though this day were my last on earth.

-- Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), English author

The Ninetieth Psalm

O Lord, thou art our home, to whom we fly,

   And so hast always been from age to age:

Before the hills did intercept the eye,

   Or that the frame was up to earthly stage,

          One God thou were, and art, and still shall be;

          The line of time, it doth not measure thee.

Both death and life obey thy holy lore,

   And visit in their turns, as they are sent:

I thousand years with the they are no more

   Then yesterday, which, ere it is, is spent:

           Or as a watch by night, that course doth keep,

          And goes, and comes, unaware as to them that sleep.

Thou carriest man away as with a tide:

   Then down swim all his thoughts that mounted high;

Much like a mocking dream, that will not bide,

   But flies before the sight of waking eye;

          Or ask the grass, that cannot term obtain

          To see the summer come about again.

At morning, fair it musters on the ground;

   At even, it is cut down and laid along:

And so it spared were and favor found,

   The weather would perform the mower’s wrong:

           Thus hast thou hanged our life on brittle pins,

          To let us know it will not bear our sins.

Thou buriest not within oblivion’s tomb

   Our trespasses, but enterest them aright;

Even those that are conceived in darkness’ womb,

   To thee appear as done at broad daylight.

          As a tale told, which sometimes men attend,

          And sometimes not, our life steals to an end.

The life of man is threescore years and ten,

   Or, that if he be strong, perhaps fourscore;

Yet all things are bit labor to him then,

   New sorrows still come on, pleasures no more.

          Why should there be such turmoil and such strife,

          To spin in length this feeble line of life?

But who considers duly of thine ire?

   Or doth the thoughts thereof wisely embrace?

For thou, O God, art a consuming fire:

   Frail man, how can he stand before thy face?

          If thy displeasure thou dost not refrain,

          A moment brings all back to dust again.

Teach us, O Lord, to number well our days,

   Thereby our hearts to wisdom to apply;

For that which guides man best in all his ways,

   In meditation of mortality.

          This bubble light, this vapor of our breath,

          Teach us to consecrate to hour of death.

Return unto us, Lord, and balance now

   With the days of joy our days of misery;

Help us right soon, our knees to thee we bow,

   Depending wholly on thy clemency;

         Then shall thy servants both with heart and voice,

         All the days of their life in thee rejoice.

Begin by work, O Lord, in this our age,

   Show it unto thy  servants that now live;

But to our children raise it many a stage,

   That all the world to thee may glory give.

          Our handiwork likewise, as fruitful tree,

          Let it, O Lord, blessed, not blasted be.

--Francis Bacon (1561-1626), from The Poets’ Book of Psalms (edited by Laurance Wieder)    

Life

I made a posie, while the day ran by:
Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band.
But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And withered in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart:
I took, without more thinking, in good part
Time’s gentle admonition;
Who did so sweetly death’s sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day;
Yet sugaring the suspicion.

Farewell dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,
And after death for cures,
I follow straight without complaints or grief,
Since if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours.

--George Herbert (1593-1633), English priest and poet

Endymion (A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever)

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

--John Keats (1795-1821)

The First Spring Day

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
Sing, robin, sing:
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

I wonder if the springtide of this year
Will bring another Spring both lost and dear;
If heart and spirit will find out their Spring,
Or if the world alone will bud and sing:
Sing, hope, to me;
Sweet notes, my hope, soft notes for memory.

The sap will surely quicken soon or late,
The tardiest bird will twitter to a mate;
So Spring must dawn again with warmth and bloom,
Or in this world, or in the world to come:
Sing, voice of Spring,
Till I too blossom and rejoice and sing.

--Christina Rosetti (1830-1894)

Our Revels Now Are Ended

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

--William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1