Whether the rain comes down
or there be sunny days
the sleets of January or the haze
of autumn afternoons, when
we dream of our youth our gaze
grows mellow, wise man or fool,
we were young, the future
beckoned us.
Now we grow old and grey
and all we knew is forgotten
there comes alive in
the ash of today, memory! a god
who revives us! the apple trees
we climbed as a boy
the caress on our necks of
a summer breeze.
Come back and give us
those days when passion drove us
to break every rule.
We weren't bad, but good!
May our preachers find us
the courage still to sin so
and win so! and win so!
a life everlasting.
_______________________________________________________________
Spring and All
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast -- a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines --
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches --
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind --
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined --
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance -- Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted they
grip down and begin to awaken
____________
* “We sit and talk quietly,
with long lapses of silence,
and I am aware of the stream that has no language,
coursing beneath the quiet heaven of your eyes, which has no speech.”
*“It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”
*“As the rain falls
so does
your love
bathe every
open
object of the world”
*“Time is a storm in which we are all lost.”
*“Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of angels.”
*“As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.”
*“Imagination though it cannot wipe out the sting of remorse can instruct the mind in its proper uses.”
*“It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.”
*“The only realism in art is of the imagination.”
*“At our age the imagination
across the sorry facts
lifts us
to make roses
stand before thorns.
Sure
love is cruel
and selfish
and totally obtuse—
at least, blinded by the light,
young love is.
But we are older,
I to love
and you to be loved,
we have,
no matter how,
by our wills survived
to keep
the jeweled prize
always
at our finger tips.
We will it so
and so it is
past all accident.”
*“There is no thing that with a twist of the imagination cannot be something else. Porpoises risen in a green sea, the wind at nightfall bending the rose- red grasses and you- in your apron hurrying to catch- say it seems to you to be your son. How ridiculous! You will pass up into a cloud and look back at me, not count the scribbling foolish that put wings at your heels, at your knees.”
or there be sunny days
the sleets of January or the haze
of autumn afternoons, when
we dream of our youth our gaze
grows mellow, wise man or fool,
we were young, the future
beckoned us.
Now we grow old and grey
and all we knew is forgotten
there comes alive in
the ash of today, memory! a god
who revives us! the apple trees
we climbed as a boy
the caress on our necks of
a summer breeze.
Come back and give us
those days when passion drove us
to break every rule.
We weren't bad, but good!
May our preachers find us
the courage still to sin so
and win so! and win so!
a life everlasting.
_______________________________________________________________
Spring and All
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast -- a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines --
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches --
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind --
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined --
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance -- Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted they
grip down and begin to awaken
____________
* “We sit and talk quietly,
with long lapses of silence,
and I am aware of the stream that has no language,
coursing beneath the quiet heaven of your eyes, which has no speech.”
*“It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”
*“As the rain falls
so does
your love
bathe every
open
object of the world”
*“Time is a storm in which we are all lost.”
*“Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of angels.”
*“As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.”
*“Imagination though it cannot wipe out the sting of remorse can instruct the mind in its proper uses.”
*“It is not fair to be old, to put on a brown sweater.”
*“The only realism in art is of the imagination.”
*“At our age the imagination
across the sorry facts
lifts us
to make roses
stand before thorns.
Sure
love is cruel
and selfish
and totally obtuse—
at least, blinded by the light,
young love is.
But we are older,
I to love
and you to be loved,
we have,
no matter how,
by our wills survived
to keep
the jeweled prize
always
at our finger tips.
We will it so
and so it is
past all accident.”
*“There is no thing that with a twist of the imagination cannot be something else. Porpoises risen in a green sea, the wind at nightfall bending the rose- red grasses and you- in your apron hurrying to catch- say it seems to you to be your son. How ridiculous! You will pass up into a cloud and look back at me, not count the scribbling foolish that put wings at your heels, at your knees.”
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