Tuesday, October 17, 2017

"I feel that the universe is full of glorious energy..." Richard Wilbur

For C.

After the clash of elevator gates
And the long sinking, she emerges where,
A slight thing in the morning’s crosstown glare,
She looks up toward the window where he waits,
Then in a fleeting taxi joins the rest
Of the huge traffic bound forever west.

On such grand scale do lovers say good-bye—
Even this other pair whose high romance
Had only the duration of a dance,
And who, now taking leave with stricken eye,
See each in each a whole new life forgone.
For them, above the darkling clubhouse lawn,

Bright Perseids flash and crumble; while for these
Who part now on the dock, weighed down by grief
And baggage, yet with something like relief,
It takes three thousand miles of knitting seas
To cancel out their crossing, and unmake
The amorous rough and tumble of their wake.


We are denied, my love, their fine tristesse
And bittersweet regrets, and cannot share
The frequent vistas of their large despair,
Where love and all are swept to nothingness;
Still, there’s a certain scope in that long love
Which constant spirits are the keepers of,

And which, though taken to be tame and staid,
Is a wild sostenuto of the heart,
A passion joined to courtesy and art
Which has the quality of something made,
Like a good fiddle, like the rose’s scent,
Like a rose window or the firmament.

1921-2017

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Joyful Harvest Full Moon!

In Harvest

Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat; 
I linger, for the hay is sweet, 
New-cut and curing in the sun. 
Like furrows, straight, the windrows run, 
Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent 
When, yesterday, the west wind went 
A-rioting through grass and grain. 
To-day no least breath stirs the plain; 
Only the hot air, quivering, yields 
Illusive motion to the fields 
Where not the slenderest tassel swings. 
Across the wheat flash sky-blue wings; 
A goldfinch dangles from a tall, 
Full-flowered yellow mullein; all 
The world seems turning blue and gold. 
Unstartled, since, even from of old, 
Beauty has brought keen sense of her, 
I feel the withering grasses stir; 
Along the edges of the wheat, 
I hear the rustle of her feet: 
And yet I know the whole sea lies, 
And half the earth, between our eyes. 

SophIe Jewett
1861-1909