*
Some of Us Are Too Young
Here in the North
Questions We Ought to Have Asked
*
Some of Us Are Too Young
Some of us are too young
to dream of drifts
as high as the eaves
or the way we were required
to run water for weeks
so the pipes would not burst.
Now the snow comes
as a temporary guest
from the past
we want to make it welcome
but it goes too soon
for us to have that conversation
meanwhile the smallest birds
get fat at the feeders
and a quick little kestrel
nabs its meal from the sky.
The waters rarely freeze.
It is not troubling enough
these great changes
because many of us
are too young;
we cluster in wonder around
great icebergs let loose
from withering polar fields
and far shorelines succumb.
Collapse. Alarmed, the elders are
discounted while yet another war
adds immeasurably
to the building heat and great tides
of refugees are fenced in
.
unsuccessfully. Yes, everything
is a miracle until memory fails us
and our homes and forests
burn. Oh little birds
you seem so unconcerned
hungry as you are.
Here in the North (a poem after Han Yu) Here in the North we are far from the blasts where our sons are sent to die. I traveled this far but now the snows stop me like swans that lift and settle over every nest. Plumes of wind mutter gently gently they fall and light horses in my dreams cast shadows of reeds over the bluest places where deep springs run soundless under the thick layers of ice. We have seen the hills. We witness changes in the seasons, how the constant trust of the sun wavers and rains break open the egg of our forests and our homes. Soldiers along the eastern fronts know none of this hired out of their own poverty they cheer the torture of those who are twins to them in every way but the lands across imaginary rivers where they were born. I am too old to take up the fight except with my broadfork and letters to my children and their children. My sandals break the icy snow, my garden is deep and safe under the blizzards. Will I have seed next season? Tomatoes and beets? Here in the North waters shrink from their shores. We have many worries and the wealthiest among us require more and more tribute, more of the harvest, more of what little industry we can muster from these cold rooms and our blistered fingers. My wife's sleep is profound, we both hold secret dread deep in the heart.
Questions We Ought to Have Asked
Over the bay
a new storm arrives,
dusts the grey ground
in the dim winter light.
What can my flickering candle mean?
How many songs remind us
of every song we rose to
in or out of dreams?
I am caught in the reverie
of the emperors of the fiction
of time. Nothing ends,
everything begins.
Is there a chance I might be alive?
And what purpose under
the scrim of the storm
betrays itself to my heart?
I cry in the sound of our longing,
as if a flower has risen from the Styx.
What am I then, to you
or to anyone?
*
All of these are beautiful poems, but the power and truth of Some of Us are Too Young really touched me. Brilliant!
Fantastic!