437 Death poems

In sun the sunburned skin sloughs off the sunburned shoulder. Most folks believe this is the body’s slow mend. Most folks believe in the good yolk of the soul. I believe in autopsy lingo of natural causes should be replaced with of long-term exposure to the dim, unwavering radiation of the morning star. The evening they burn your body, I step into the garden and arrange a crooked line of birdbaths to skip stones across until a bell tower tolls its eight arguments against daylight and the skyline illuminates, ragged and unmended like a poem turned on its side. The evening they burn your body, I believe I’ll step into the living room and be greeted by you or by someone who could play you in a movie. The curtains are an aurora of earthly proportion. You don’t exist. A flash igniting the paned glass is the silent lightning outrunning its noise. You’re on fire.

I saw you fall to the ground. I saw the oaks fall.  The clouds collapsed. I saw a wildness twist through your limbs and fly off.  The river fell, the grasses fell. The backs of six drowned cattle rose to the surface ice—nothing moved. But a wind touched my ankles when the snow began. You left that night and we stayed, our arms braced with weight.  What power there was was over.  But I switched on the light by the porch to see if anything was falling— and it fell, a few glints in the air, catching sun although there was no sun, and the long descent over hours, all night, seemed like years, and we buried our faces in what came to rest on the ground or moved our feet over it, effortless, as nothing was in our lives, or ever will be.

Krakatau split with a blinding noise and raised from gutted, steaming rock a pulverized black sky, over water walls that swiftly fell on Java and Sumatra. Fifteen days before, in its cage in Amsterdam, the last known member of Equus quagga, the southernmost subspecies of zebra, died. Most of the wild ones, not wild enough, grazing near the Cape of Good Hope, had been shot and skinned and roasted by white hunters. When a spider walked on cooling Krakatau's skin, no quagga walked anywhere. While seeds pitched by long winds onto newborn fields burst open and rooted, perhaps some thistle flourished on the quagga's discarded innards. The fractured island greened and hummed again; handsome zebras tossed their heads in zoos, on hired safari plains. Who needs to hear a quagga's voice? Or see the warm hide twitch away a fly, see the neck turn, curving its cream and chestnut stripes that run down to plain dark haunches and plain white legs? A kind of horse. Less picturesque than a dodo. Still, we mourn what we mourn. Even if, when it sank to its irreplaceable knees, when its unique throat closed behind a sigh, no dust rose to redden a whole year's sunsets, no one unwittingly busy two thousand miles away jumped at the sound, no ashes rained on ships in the merciless sea.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r, Molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death? Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse, The place of fame and elegy supply: And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove, Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; "The next with dirges due in sad array Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heav'n did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose) The bosom of his Father and his God.

You’ll need a corpse, your own or someone else’s. You’ll need a certain distance; the less you care about your corpse the better. Light should be unforgiving, so as to lend a literal aspect to your project. Flesh should be putty, each hair of the brows, each lash, a pencil mark. If the skeleton is intact, its shape may suggest beginnings of a structure, though even here modification might occur; heavier tools are waiting in the drawer, as well as wire, varied lengths and thicknesses of doweling. Odd hollows may be filled with bundled towel. As for the fluids, arrange them on the cart in a pleasing manner. I prefer we speak of ointments. This notion of one’s anointing will help distract you from a simpler story of your handiwork. Those people in the parlor made requests, remember? Don’t be concerned. Whatever this was to them, it is all yours now. The clay of your creation lies before you, invites your hand. Becoming anxious? That’s good. You should be a little anxious. You’re ready. Hold the knife as you would a quill, hardly at all. See that first line before you cross it, and draw.

I believed death was a flat plain spectacular endlessly Can you distort my voice when I say this? My scared ghost peeling off me Distortion, she says, as if she has just made it up And then she is quoting a line from a poem Or is it a whole poem, I wish I could remember My voice opens and calls you in I don’t know if you can hear me I said, I carry inside me the trace of a threat that I cannot discharge I said, I want to ask you things you can’t ask a person who doesn’t exist She said, Why can’t you ask them If we can’t have everything what is the closest amount to everything we can have? She said, Why can’t you have everything Well, you know, when you’re looking for a person, sometimes they appear And a light goes on and off in the opposite window, twice Yes, you say, that was a sign Strange love for the living, strange love for the dead Listen. I don’t know who you are but you remind me of — I wish you would put some kind of distortion on my voice, I tell her So people don’t know it’s me They know what they know, she said I told a story about my shame It got cold when the air touched it Then it got hot, throbbed, wept, attracted fragments with which it eventually glittered Till I couldn’t stop looking at it Exactly, she says And then she is quoting a line from a poem, I don’t know which one In my dream she reached out to touch me as if to say, It’s all right How I began to believe in something Are you there? The wind called to the trees And then it happened And they said, How do you feel? And I said, Like a fountain Night falls from my neck like silver arrows Very gently

Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end, Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end, Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back. When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat, When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead. When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight, Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.

On her Son H.P. at St. Syth’s Church where her body also lies interred What on Earth deserves our trust? Youth and Beauty both are dust. Long we gathering are with pain, What one moment calls again. Seven years childless marriage past, A Son, a son is born at last: So exactly lim’d and fair, Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air, As a long life promised, Yet, in less than six weeks dead. Too promising, too great a mind In so small room to be confined: Therefore, as fit in Heaven to dwell, He quickly broke the Prison shell. So the subtle Alchemist, Can’t with Hermes Seal resist The powerful spirit’s subtler flight, But t’will bid him long good night. And so the Sun if it arise Half so glorious as his Eyes, Like this Infant, takes a shrowd, Buried in a morning Cloud.

For this she starred her eyes with salt And scooped her temples thin, Until her face shone pure of fault From the forehead to the chin. In coldest crucibles of pain Her shrinking flesh was fired And smoothed into a finer grain To make it more desired. Pain left her lips more clear than glass; It colored and cooled her hand. She lay a field of scented grass Yielded as pasture land. For this her loveliness was curved And carved as silver is: For this she was brave: but she deserved A better grave than this.

She has attained the permanence She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning. Untended stalks blow over her Even and swift, like young men running. Always in the heart she loved Others had lived,—she heard their laughter. She lies where none has lain before, Where certainly none will follow after.