Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Sunday, September 29, 2013

Sunday Night Poetry




WHO WALKS ALL NIGHT IN THE NEXT ROOM

 

One solid day of rain made by a hole
in a scarf of clouds,
my father comes to the old clapboard

house, he climbs the stairs. 
Bridegroom looking for
his waning bride; gowned, she

asks him in, to see tapestries
hung on
her heart's ruined walls,

and the blurring that time
gave her
ends in her singular bed.

She speaks to him in a brief madness
without science
Under the roof's cavern, a rested dread.

The aunts sit in black, two by two
in candled room
and laced up shoes, the keening

hour shades my father's eyes
looking past
a linened window to garden

chair and table, the leaning grass.

                                         ---S.K.

4 comments:

FreeThinke said...

How beautifully sad! Evocative of the depths of grief one feels at the passing of a beloved, cherished, most essential part of one's life, and simultaneously of the customary, outward signs of mourning tradition and common decency expect and demand on such occasions.

Your poem, Ms Shaw, immediately reminded me of this one:

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading –– treading –– till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through ––

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum ––
Kept beating –– beating –– till I thought
My mind was going numb ––

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space –– began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here ––

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down ––
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing –– then ––


~ emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

KP said...

Powerful stuff. I have to read several times to see what you mean; and what FT seems to absorb almost effortlessly. Don't stop. Please don't stop.

KP said...

"Baby, you're a song, and make me want to roll my window down and cruise".

"Florida Georgia Line" from their song "CRUISE".

Shaw Kenawe said...

F.T. and K.P.,

Thanks for reading and commenting.