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Showing posts from March, 2010

Sonnet 8

I live, I die,. I burn myself and drown. I am extremely hot in suffering cold: my life is soft and hardness uncontrolled. When I am happy, then I ache and frown. Suddenly I am laughing while I cry and in my pleasure I endure deep grief: my joy remains and slips out like a thief. Suddenly I am blooming and turn dry. So Love inconstantly leads me in vain and when I think my sorrow has no end unthinkingly I find I have no pain. But when it seems that joy is in my reign and an ecstatic hour is mine to spend, He comes and I, in ancient grief, descend.

To...

I recollect that wondrous meeting, That instant I encountered you, When like an apparition fleeting, Like beauty's spirit, past you flew. Long since, when hopeless grief distressed me, When noise and turmoil vexed, it seemed Your voice still tenderly caressed me, Your dear face sought me as I dreamed. Years passed; their stormy gusts confounded And swept away old dreams apace. I had forgotten how you sounded, Forgot the heaven of your face. In exiled gloom and isolation My quiet days meandered on, The thrill of awe and inspiration, And life, and tears, and love, were gone. My soul awoke from inanition, And I encountered you anew, And like a fleeting apparition, Like beauty's spirit, past you flew. My pulses bound in exaltation, And in my heart once more unfold The sense of aw and inspiration, The life, the tears, the love of old.

Simile

What did we say to each other that now we are as the deer who walk in single file with heads high with ears forward with eyes watchful with hooves always placed on firm ground in whose limbs there is latent flight.

The Bluest Eye

It was a productive pain. If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy. The desirability that escaped me. What experience would you like on Christmas? over What gift would you like on Christmas? Pain was not only endurable, it was sweet. It would involve, I supposed, "my man," who before leaving, would love me. "How do you do that? I mean, how would you get someone to love you?" Dealing with it each according to his way. The muted sound of flesh on unsurprised flesh. To have something as wonderful as that to happen would take a long, long time. She would see only what there was to see: the eyes of other people. Don't worry about my bandy legs. That's the 1st thing they push aside. She was cut out for better things and could make the right man happy. Eyes that questioned nothing and asked everything. He was a simple Presence, an all embracing tenderness with strength and promise of rest. Having a baby is more than a bowel movement. Her process o