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
When we are weary and in need of strength When we are lost and sick at heart, We remember him.
When we have a joy we crave to share When we have decisions that are difficult to make When we have achievements that are based on his We remember him.
At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring, We remember him.
At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn, We remember him.
At the rising of the sun and at its setting We remember him.
As long as we live, he too will live For he is now a part of us, As we remember him.
"Out of the Blue," a poem-video on the 5th Anniversary of 9/11, read by Rufus Sewell. This is the first of four sections of the video.
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.
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.
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
The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world. Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good For such as cannot use one bed too long, But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done, An' go observin' matters till they die.
What do it matter where or 'ow we die, So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all— The different ways that different things are done, An' men an' women lovin' in this world— Takin' our chances as they come along, An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good?
In cash or credit—no, it aren't no good; You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die, Unless you lived your life but one day long, Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all, But drew your tucker some'ow from the world, An' never bothered what you might ha' done.
But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done? I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good, In various situations round the world— For 'im that doth not work must surely die; But that's no reason man should labour all 'Is life on one same shift; life's none so long.
Therefore, from job to job I've moved along. Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done, For something in my 'ead upset me all, Till I 'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good, An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-lights die, An' met my mate—the wind that tramps the world!
It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world, Which you can read and care for just so long, But presently you feel that you will die Unless you get the page you're readin' done, An' turn another—likely not so good; But what you're after is to turn 'em all.
Gawd bless this world! Whatever she 'ath done— Excep' when awful long—I've found it good. So write, before I die, "'E liked it all!"
--Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), English poet, novelist, journalist, and short-story writer
Not again in this flesh will I see the old trees stand here as they did, weighty creatures made of light, delight of their making straight in them and well, whatever blight our blindness was or made, however thought or act might fail.
The burden of absence grows, and I pay daily the grief I owe to love for women and men, days and trees I will not know again. Pray for the world's light thus borne away. Pray for the little songs that wake and move.
For comfort as these lights depart, recall again the angels of the thicket, columbine aerial in the whelming tangle, song drifting down, light rain, day returning in song, the lordly Art piercing out its humble way.
Though blindness may yet detonate in light, running all, after all the years, great right subsumed at last in paltry wrong, what do we know? Still the Presence that we come into with song is here, shaping the seasons of His wild will.
-- Wendell Berry (1934-2026), American poet, farmer, agrarian, and essayist, from A Timbered Choir: the Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
November pierces with its bleak remembrance Of all the bitterness and waste of war. Our silence tries but fails to make a semblance Of that lost peace they thought worth fighting for. Our silence seethes instead with wraiths and whispers, And all the restless rumour of new wars, The shells are singing as we sing our vespers, No moment is unscarred, there is no pause, In every instant bloodied innocence Falls to the weary earth, and whilst we stand Quiescence ends again in acquiescence, And Abel’s blood still cries in every land One silence only might redeem that blood Only the silence of a dying God. -- Malcolm Guite (1957- ), Anglican priest, poet, singer-songwriter, theologian, and teacher, from
Though Satan breaks our dark glass into shards Each shard still shines with Christ’s reflected light, It glances from the eyes, kindles the words Of all his unknown saints. The dark is bright With quiet lives and steady lights undimmed, The witness of the ones we shunned and shamed. Plain in our sight and far beyond our seeing He weaves them with us in the web of being They stand beside us even as we grieve, The lone and left behind whom no one claimed, Unnumbered multitudes, he lifts above The shadow of the gibbet and the grave, To triumph where all saints are known and named; The gathered glories of His wounded love. --Malcolm Guite (1957- ), Anglican priest, poet, singer-songwriter, and philosopher, from Sounding the Seasons, 2012
The first time Percy came back he was not sailing on a cloud. He was loping along the sand as though he had come a great way. "Percy," I cried out, and reached to him-- those white curls-- but he was unreachable. As music is present yet you can't touch it. "Yes, it's all different," he said. "You're going to be very surprised." But I wasn't thinking of that. I only wanted to hold him. "Listen," he said, "I miss that too. And now you'll be telling stories of my coming back and they won't be false, and they won't be true, but they'll be real." And then, as he used to, he said, "Let's go!" And we walked down the beach together. --Mary Oliver (1935- ), from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, 2017, originally published in Dog Songs, 2013 Rest in peace, Tyco Scoopmire, the best of boys, April 10, 2006-August 1, 2018.
Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star’s stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers. Remember your father. He is your life, also. Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth. Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems. Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe. Remember you are all people and all people are you. Remember you are this universe and this universe is you. Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you. Remember language comes from this. Remember the dance language is, that life is. Remember. --Joy Harjo (1951- ), current US poet laureate 2019- , member of the Muskogee (Creek) Nation, from She Had Some Horses, 1983.
The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones. Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Whatever it is you are struggling to remember it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle. No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart. --Billy Collins (1941- ), US poet laureate 2001-2003
There are three conditions which often look alike Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow: Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference Which resembles the others as death resembles life, Being between two lives - unflowering, between The live and the dead nettle. This is the use of memory: For liberation - not less of love but expanding Of love beyond desire, and so liberation From the future as well as the past. Thus, love of a country Begins as an attachment to our own field of action And comes to find that action of little importance Though never indifferent. History may be servitude, History may be freedom. See, now they vanish, The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them, To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern. Sin is Behovely, but
All shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well. If I think, again, of this place, And of people, not wholly commendable, Of not immediate kin or kindness, But of some peculiar genius, All touched by a common genius, United in the strife which divided them; If I think of a king at nightfall, Of three men, and more, on the scaffold And a few who died forgotten In other places, here and abroad, And of one who died blind and quiet, Why should we celebrate These dead men more than the dying? It is not to ring the bell backward Nor is it an incantation To summon the spectre of a Rose. We cannot revive old factions We cannot restore old policies Or follow an antique drum. These men, and those who opposed them And those whom they opposed Accept the constitution of silence And are folded in a single party. Whatever we inherit from the fortunate We have taken from the defeated What they had to leave us - a symbol: A symbol perfected in death. And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well By the purification of the motive In the ground of our beseeching.
--T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) from Four Quartets, 1943 Photos: Detail of statue of Dame Julian on the facade of Norwich Cathedral; icon of Dame Julian by Brother Robert Lenz
my father moved through dooms of love through sames of am through haves of give, singing each morning out of each night my father moved through depths of height this motionless forgetful where turned at his glance to shining here; that if (so timid air is firm) under his eyes would stir and squirm newly as from unburied which floats the first who, his april touch drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates woke dreamers to their ghostly roots and should some why completely weep my father’s fingers brought her sleep: vainly no smallest voice might cry for he could feel the mountains grow. Lifting the valleys of the sea my father moved through griefs of joy; praising a forehead called the moon singing desire into begin joy was his song and joy so pure a heart of star by him could steer and pure so now and now so yes the wrists of twilight would rejoice keen as midsummer’s keen beyond conceiving mind of sun will stand, so strictly (over utmost him so hugely) stood my father’s dream his flesh was flesh his blood was blood: no hungry man but wished him food; no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile uphill to only see him smile. Scorning the Pomp of must and shall my father moved through dooms of feel; his anger was as right as rain his pity was as green as grain septembering arms of year extend less humbly wealth to foe and friend than he to foolish and to wise offered immeasurable is proudly and (by octobering flame beckoned) as earth will downward climb, so naked for immortal work his shoulders marched against the dark his sorrow was as true as bread: no liar looked him in the head; if every friend became his foe he’d laugh and build a world with snow. My father moved through theys of we, singing each new leaf out of each tree (and every child was sure that spring danced when she heard my father sing) then let men kill which cannot share, let blood and flesh be mud and mire, scheming imagine, passion willed, freedom a drug that’s bought and sold giving to steal and cruel kind a heart to fear, to doubt a mind, to differ a disease of same, conform the pinnacle of am though dull we all we taste as bright bitter all things utterly sweet, maggotty minus and dumb death all we inherit, all bequeath and nothing quite to least as truth -- i say though hater were why men breathe-- because my father lived his soul love is the whole and more than all --e. e cummings (1894-1962) from The Complete Poems: 1904-1962 Photo: My father (4th fro left on the back row), his twin, and his cousin and the rest of their classmates in school on southwestern Oklahoma in the 1930s. Today would have been his 95th birthday.
