Affinities
When someone was there first, and said it all...
I wrote the first poem this afternoon. Later I showed it to an acquaintance, a brilliant poet and scholar of Italian and English language poetry of all periods, and he immediately pulled out and read the second, superb poem (from his collection of over one thousand books), by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
SPRING
Hope springs eternal, mine lies dead.
Spring stabbed it through the heart, spring shot it in the head.
I spoke to hope, I begged it, I screamed at the wall,
I shot bullets of words, I watched them fall.
I watched as they ricocheted, I watched as they bounced,
Capsules of meaning never announced.
So fragile in your parts, so ineluctable the whole
Arrogant and absolute, you must take your toll.
Spring births eternal, it grips us by the throat
And mocks this bleeding cradle and blooms only to gloat.
Oh couldn’t you have waited, held your buds in pity’s grasp?
Left your seeds to sleep awhile and your bulbs in winter’s clasp?
Spring is the cruellest time, it seeps through the cracks,
Insinuates and permeates, unstoppable its wax.
Promising and comforting, an enormous cosmic lie –
How dare you offer apple blossom and leave this child to die?
I live in dismal autumn, cold, damp, dull.
Watching and waiting for the last leaf to fall.
Bring me bleak midwinter and water like a stone,
Don’t torture me with hope, don’t paint with pain my home.
Turn down your colours spring, your scents are too loud,
Your beauty is agony, a suffocating shroud,
Stop the earth on its axis, have the sun put out its fire,
Off with spring’s head, for spring is a liar.
Your presence here should bless this child and ease its every breath,
A rattle in a baby’s bed should not be that of death.
Hope springs eternal, and spring must have its way –
For God’s sake just shut the door, just leave, just go away.
Bhuidhe, per un amico e la sua famiglia, con preghiere, 8 luglio 2008
Bhuidhe, for a friend and his family, with prayers, 8th July, 2008
SPRING
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
in the collection Second April, 1921
I wrote the first poem this afternoon. Later I showed it to an acquaintance, a brilliant poet and scholar of Italian and English language poetry of all periods, and he immediately pulled out and read the second, superb poem (from his collection of over one thousand books), by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
SPRING
Hope springs eternal, mine lies dead.
Spring stabbed it through the heart, spring shot it in the head.
I spoke to hope, I begged it, I screamed at the wall,
I shot bullets of words, I watched them fall.
I watched as they ricocheted, I watched as they bounced,
Capsules of meaning never announced.
So fragile in your parts, so ineluctable the whole
Arrogant and absolute, you must take your toll.
Spring births eternal, it grips us by the throat
And mocks this bleeding cradle and blooms only to gloat.
Oh couldn’t you have waited, held your buds in pity’s grasp?
Left your seeds to sleep awhile and your bulbs in winter’s clasp?
Spring is the cruellest time, it seeps through the cracks,
Insinuates and permeates, unstoppable its wax.
Promising and comforting, an enormous cosmic lie –
How dare you offer apple blossom and leave this child to die?
I live in dismal autumn, cold, damp, dull.
Watching and waiting for the last leaf to fall.
Bring me bleak midwinter and water like a stone,
Don’t torture me with hope, don’t paint with pain my home.
Turn down your colours spring, your scents are too loud,
Your beauty is agony, a suffocating shroud,
Stop the earth on its axis, have the sun put out its fire,
Off with spring’s head, for spring is a liar.
Your presence here should bless this child and ease its every breath,
A rattle in a baby’s bed should not be that of death.
Hope springs eternal, and spring must have its way –
For God’s sake just shut the door, just leave, just go away.
Bhuidhe, per un amico e la sua famiglia, con preghiere, 8 luglio 2008
Bhuidhe, for a friend and his family, with prayers, 8th July, 2008
SPRING
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
in the collection Second April, 1921
posted by Bhuidhe at
11:07 pm
0 Comments
