Tag Archives: life

If you live long enough

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If you live long enough, you will see them die.
Longer still, and they fall like spring snow.
There are those who say grief is all second-hand,
That we grieve for ourselves alone
When those too like us prove mortal.

I suppose, for the first fierce blow,
That’s true: we stumble forward, gut-shot,
All death and bewilderment;
But after that? After the long parade begins in earnest?

True, a kind of acceptance sinks in,
A not-quite numbness, a sedation,
A shaking of the head, “Why,
Just yesterday…”

But there are ghosts.
They follow us everywhere,
And in some unguarded moment, a grief descends
Pure and sweet, almost holy,
And wholly devoid of self.

In these moments
We cradle our memories like children,
And all we long for
Is one more touch.

Drake’s drum, by Henry Newbolt

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Poetic lineages: in honor of the D-Day landing, for all those 10,000 mile stares since time immemorial.

Drake he’s in his hammock an’ a thousand mile away,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?)
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An’ dreamin’ arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe.
Yarnder lumes the island, yarnder lie the ships,
Wi’ sailor lads a-dancin’ heel-an’-toe,
An’ the shore-lights flashin’, an’ the night-tide dashin’
He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.

Drake he was a Devon man, an’ ruled the Devon seas,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?),
Rovin’ tho’ his death fell, he went wi’ heart at ease,
An’ dreamin’ arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe,
“Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder’s runnin’ low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll quit the port o’ Heaven,
An’ drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.”

Drake he’s in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?),
Slung atween the round shot, listenin’ for the drum,
An’ dreamin’ arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe.
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
Where the old trade’s plyin’ an’ the old flag flyin’,
They shall find him, ware an’ wakin’, as they found him long ago.

So long

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…and the sad gypsy sang for his bottle of wine, and I sang along for mine.
-Jose Feliciano

Those days, we were dangerously close to dying,
To the end of all the longing we mistook
For grand poesie.
Lost on the road to anywhere,
We stepped toward no paradise,
Discarded all loving touch
But for human companionship,
Asking too much of the world, unable to grasp
The small treasures.

If there’s something missed, something lost,
It’s only the wide-open sky we saw
Through vinegar eyes,
Our salted wounds as yet unburied.

Come back to me, my own true self,
Come back, and we’ll slip away
To some long, true corner
And watch the setting sun.

My life story

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The cardinal chases
Sparrows and finches
Bounding ‘round the feeder
A lively dance of perfect timing

In swoops the red-bellied woodpecker
Feeder all a-sway
Husks and birds flying off
Red-belly looks around in wonderment

“Where’d everybody go?”

Copper kettle

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I realized that, if the Poetic Lineages I post here are mine in some poetically ancestral sense, I have to include things like this folk song:

Get you a copper kettle
Get you a copper coil
Cover with new made corn mash
And never more you’ll toil

Chorus:
You just lay there by the juniper
While the moon is bright
Watch them jugs a-fillin’
In the pale moonlight

Build your fires of hickory
Hickory or ash or oak
Don’t use no green or rotten wood
They’ll catch you by the smoke

(Chorus)

My daddy he made whiskey
My granddaddy did too
We ain’t paid no whiskey tax
Since Seventeen Ninety Two

(Chorus)