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.
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.
ReplyDeleteYour 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)
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.
ReplyDelete"Baby, you're a song, and make me want to roll my window down and cruise".
ReplyDelete"Florida Georgia Line" from their song "CRUISE".
F.T. and K.P.,
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and commenting.