Listen: there are those of us from somewhere else, the names of birthplaces, of hometowns, under our skin, tattoos always felt, never seen. We live here now, though we always meant to leave.
And there are those of us who were born here, passing the landmarks of our lives so often we don’t think about them. We never meant to stay. This place was marked as just for now, as stepping stone, as temporary on our well-drawn maps. But for one reason or another, years pass and we find ourselves hot-stepping with jobs and kids and this and that and a million little possessions.
Now, the kids say they want to move away. They point their faces the same directions our faces used to point. We’ll let them go, of course, knowing more of them than they think will come back, and that various wayfarers too will stop for lunch and find themselves staying for years’ worth of dinners. They will all find themselves here with the earth spreading out around them, whispering a welcome they will be more than a little surprised to hear.
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of Heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow'd.
What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a Poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and
fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aëreal hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embower'd In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflower'd, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:
Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awaken'd flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, Sprite or Bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus Hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Match'd with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Aug 6, 2023 - 7:07am
INCIPIT
Billy Collins
Too bad this poem wasn’t written in a 12th-century monastic scriptorium because it would have begun with a much bigger T, which would loom over the smaller letters, their tiny serifs fluttering in the breeze.
The big letter might even be inside an illuminated scene, perhaps showing in gold two monkeys, or six younger ones, hanging from the crossbar of the T with vines and flowers growing all around.
More likely, you’d be treated to the reminder of a skull, a sheep and shepherd combo, or the Cross itself, empty now, with a long winding shroud draped over its outstretched arms.
But I’d hate to spend my days hidden under a brown cowl, writing with a bony, arthritic hand at a long table of other hooded figures, then washing down a crust of bread with medieval water from a dented goblet.
I’d miss my silver car and my stereo and my wife, who cooks us Cajun shrimp, so never mind—the plain letter T will do. Plus, I love being stuck here in the science fiction of my 21st-century life even with all the dying around me,
the planet now barely able to spin, and my pen slithering off into oblivion.
While the remnants of cake
and half-empty champagne glasses
lay on the lawn like sunbathers lingering
in the slanting light, we left the house guests
and drove to Antonelliâs pond.
On a log by the bank I sat in my flowered dress and cried.
A lone fisherman drifted by, casting his ribbon of light.
âDo you feel like youâve given her away?â you asked.
But no, it was that she made it
to here, that she didnât
drown in a well or die
of pneumonia or take the pills.
She wasnât crushed
under the mammoth wheels of a semi
on highway 17, wasnât found
lying in the alley
that night after rehearsal
when I got the time wrong.
Itâs animal. The egg
not eaten by a weasel. Turtles
crossing the beach, exposed
in the moonlight. And we
have so few to start with.
And that long gestationâ
like carrying your soul out in front of you.
All those years of feeding
and watching. The vulnerable hollow
at the back of the neck. Never knowing
what could pick them offâa seagull
swooping down for a clam.
Our most basic imperative:
for them to survive.
And thereâs never been a moment
we could count on it.
While the remnants of cake and half-empty champagne glasses lay on the lawn like sunbathers lingering in the slanting light, we left the house guests and drove to Antonelli’s pond. On a log by the bank I sat in my flowered dress and cried. A lone fisherman drifted by, casting his ribbon of light. “Do you feel like you’ve given her away?” you asked. But no, it was that she made it to here, that she didn’t drown in a well or die of pneumonia or take the pills. She wasn’t crushed under the mammoth wheels of a semi on highway 17, wasn’t found lying in the alley that night after rehearsal when I got the time wrong. It’s animal. The egg not eaten by a weasel. Turtles crossing the beach, exposed in the moonlight. And we have so few to start with. And that long gestation— like carrying your soul out in front of you. All those years of feeding and watching. The vulnerable hollow at the back of the neck. Never knowing what could pick them off—a seagull swooping down for a clam. Our most basic imperative: for them to survive. And there’s never been a moment we could count on it.
I thought of happiness, how it is woven Out of the silence in the empty house each day And how it is not sudden and it is not given But is creation itself like the growth of a tree. No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark Another circle is growing in the expanding ring. No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark, But the tree is lifted by this inward work And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.
So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours And strikes its roots deep in the house alone: The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors, White curtains softly and continually blown As the free air moves quietly about the room; A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall — These are the dear familiar gods of home, And here the work of faith can best be done, The growing tree is green and musical.
For what is happiness but growth in peace, The timeless sense of time when furniture Has stood a life’s span in a single place, And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir The shining leaves of present happiness? No one has heard thought or listened to a mind, But where people have lived in inwardness The air is charged with blessing and does bless; Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.
You wake wanting the dream you left behind in sleep, water washing through everything, clearing away sediment of years, uncovering the lost and forgotten. You hear the sun breaking on cold grass, on eaves, on stone steps outside. You see light igniting sparks of dust in the air. You feel for the first time in years the world electrified with morning.
You know something has changed in the night, something you thought gone from the world has come back: shooting stars in the pasture, sleeping beneath a field of daisies, wisteria climbing over fences, houses, trees.
This is a place that smells like childhood and old age. It is a limb you swung from, a field you go back to. It is a part of whatever you do.
There comes the strangest moment in your life, when everything you thought before breaks free— what you relied upon, as ground-rule and as rite looks upside down from how it used to be.
Skin’s gone pale, your brain is shedding cells; you question every tenet you set down; obedient thoughts have turned to infidels and every verb desires to be a noun.
I want—my want. I love—my love. I’ll stay with you. I thought transitions were the best, but I want what’s here to never go away. I’ll make my peace, my bed, and kiss this breast…
Your heart’s in retrograde. You simply have no choice. Things people told you turn out to be true. You have to hold that body, hear that voice. You’d have sworn no one knew you more than you.
How many people thought you’d never change? But here you have. It’s beautiful. It’s strange.
My father doesn’t say ghost, though I know he’s haunted. Instead he says, When they let Uncle Marion out of that hospital, he didn’t even move the same. He said they tried to take his stories. He loves his fifteen uncles fiercely. Nearly all of them drank, did time in prison or mental hospitals, died before forty.
When Marion was twenty; a judge offered him the navy or prison. He couldn’t swim, so he ran away. Then, prison or the army. Marching hurt his feet. The third time, he picked prison and was out in six months. I never liked to hear folks call him crazy, my father says. He couldn’t help how he was.
What I know about my father tells me why he loves these men—the troubles they ran from and to, stories they lived without learning what they meant—and why he mourns. Each time my father had a choice, he chose the world he already knew, holding still till what he wanted looked like what he had.
Out walking in the swamp picking cowslip, marsh marigold, this sweet first green of spring. Now sautéed in a pan melting to a deeper green than ever they were alive, this green, this life,
harbinger of things to come. Now we sit at the table munching on this message from the dawn which says we and the world are alive again today, and this is the world’s birthday. And
even though we know we are growing old, we are dying, we will never be young again, we also know we’re still right here now, today, and, my oh my! don’t these greens taste good.
Could I from this valley drear, Where the mist hangs heavily, Soar to some more blissful sphere, Ah! how happy should I be! Distant hills enchant my sight, Ever young and ever fair; To those hills I'd take my flight Had I wings to scale the air.
Harmonies mine ear assail, Tunes that breathe a heavenly calm; And the gently-sighing gale Greets me with its fragrant balm. Peeping through the shady bowers, Golden fruits their charms display. And those sweetly-blooming flowers Ne'er become cold winter's prey.
In you endless sunshine bright, Oh! what bliss 'twould be to dwell! How the breeze on yonder height Must the heart with rapture swell! Yet the stream that hems my path Checks me with its angry frown, While its waves, in rising wrath, Weigh my weary spirit down.
See—a bark is drawing near, But, alas, the pilot fails! Enter boldly—wherefore fear? Inspiration fills its sails, Faith and courage make thine own,— Gods ne'er lend a helping-hand; 'Tis by magic power alone Thou canst reach the magic land!
