When my Sorrow was born I nursed it with care, and watched over it with loving tenderness.
And my Sorrow grew like all living things, strong and beautiful and full of wondrous delights.
And we loved one another, my Sorrow and I, and we loved the world about us; for Sorrow had a kindly heart and mine was kindly with Sorrow.
And when we conversed, my Sorrow and I, our days were winged and our nights were girdled with dreams; for Sorrow had an eloquent tongue, and mine was eloquent with Sorrow.
And when we sang together, my Sorrow and I, our neighbors sat at their windows and listened; for our songs were deep as the sea and our melodies were full of strange memories.
And when we walked together, my Sorrow and I, people gazed at us with gentle eyes and whispered in words of exceeding sweetness. And there were those who looked with envy upon us, for Sorrow was a noble thing and I was proud with Sorrow.
But my Sorrow died, like all living things, and alone I am left to muse and ponder.
And now when I speak my words fall heavily upon my ears.
And when I sing my songs my neighbours come not to listen.
And when I walk the streets no one looks at me.
Only in my sleep I hear voices saying in pity, “See, there lies the man whose Sorrow is dead.”
When the river rose that year, we were beside it and ourselves with fear; not that it would do anything to us, mind you—our hopes were much too high for that— but there was always that remote, unacknowledged possibility that we had thrown one stone too many, by the handful, and that by some force of nature, as they called it, it might rain and rain for days, as it had been, with nothing to hold it and the structure back,
Tired with dull grief, grown old before my day, I sit in solitude and only hear Long silent laughters, murmurings of dismay, The lost intensities of hope and fear; In those old marshes yet the rifles lie, On the thin breastwork flutter the grey rags, The very books I read are there—and I Dead as the men I loved, wait while life drags
Its wounded length from those sad streets of war Into green places here, that were my own; But now what once was mine is mine no more, I seek such neighbours here and I find none. With such strong gentleness and tireless will Those ruined houses seared themselves in me,
After you left me forever, I was broken into pieces, and all the pieces flung into the river. Then the legs crawled ashore and aimlessly wandered the dusty cow-track. They became, for a while, a simple roadside shrine: A tiny table set up between the thighs held a dusty candle, weed-and-fieldflower chains
1 Thank goodness we were able to wipe the Neanderthals out, beastly things, from our mountains, our tundra—that way we had all the meat we might need.
Thus the butcher can display under our very eyes his hands on the block, and never refer to the rooms hidden behind where dissections are effected,
where flesh is reduced to its shivering atoms and remade for our delectation as cubes, cylinders, barely material puddles of admixtured horror and blood.
Rembrandt knew of all this—isn’t his flayed beef carcass really a caveman? It’s Christ also, of course, but much more a troglodyte such as we no longer are.
We have memorized America, how it was born and who we have been and where. In ceremonies and silence we say the words, telling the stories, singing the old songs. We like the places they take us. Mostly we do. The great and all the anonymous dead are there. We know the sound of all the sounds we brought. The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
In the groves of Africa from their natural wonder the wildebeest, zebra, the okapi, the elephant, have enterd the marvelous. No greater marvelous know I than the mind’s natural jungle. The wives of the Congo distil there their red and the husbands hunt lion with spear and paint Death-spore on their shields, wear his teeth, claws and hair
The angel — three years we waited for him, attention riveted, closely scanning the pines the shore the stars. One with the blade of the plough or the ship’s keel we were searching to find once more the first seed so that the age-old drama could begin again.
We passed old farmer Boothby in the field. Rugged and straight he stood; his body steeled With stubbornness and age. We met his eyes That never flinched or turned to compromise, And “Luck,” he cried, “good luck!”—and waved an arm, Knotted and sailor-like, such as no farm In all of Maine could boast of; and away He turned again to pitch his new-cut hay...
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