153 Sorrow and grieving poems

Weep you no more, sad fountains; What need you flow so fast? Look how the snowy mountains Heaven’s sun doth gently waste. But my sun’s heavenly eyes View not your weeping, That now lie sleeping Softly, now softly lies Sleeping. Sleep is a reconciling, A rest that peace begets. Doth not the sun rise smiling When fair at even he sets? Rest you then, rest, sad eyes, Melt not in weeping While she lies sleeping Softly, now softly lies Sleeping.

The slate black sky. The middle step of the back porch. And long ago my mother’s necklace, the beads rolling north and south. Broken the rose stem, water into drops, glass knobs on the bedroom door. Last summer’s pot of parsley and mint, white roots shooting like streamers through the cracks. Years ago the cat’s tail, the bird bath, the car hood’s rusted latch. Broken little finger on my right hand at birth— I was pulled out too fast. What hasn’t been rent, divided, split? Broken the days into nights, the night sky into stars, the stars into patterns I make up as I trace them with a broken-off blade of grass. Possible, unthinkable, the cricket’s tiny back as I lie on the lawn in the dark, my heart a blue cup fallen from someone’s hands.

When the very last grief deadens all our pain, I will follow you there on the very next train, not because I lack strength to ponder the end result, but maybe you forgot to bring pills, a necktie, razor blades

what about those nosegays?! If you were to return I would give you more, for all you have given us, for your going first. Those posies might have a peony, a freesia, a tulip — an eye snack and nostril snack, I could not get enough of giving you coronation bundles, handing them and almost bowing, tongue-tied with respectful adoring, with gobbling the sight of you the sound, the bouquets saying mother- — we would not be here, without your song, your eye.

Having been blown away by a book I am in the gutter at the end of the street in little pieces like the alphabet (mother do not worry letters are not flesh though there’s meaning in them but not when they are mean my letters to you were mean I found them after you died and read them and tore them up and fed them to the wind thank you for intruding I love you now leave) Also at the end of the street there is a magnolia tree the white kind that tatters after it blooms so the tree winds up in the street Our naked shivering bodies must be at some distance missing us    come back come back they cry come home put down that book whenever you read you drift away on a raft you like your parrot more than you like me and stuff like that (dear father you always were a bore but I loved you more than interesting things and in your honor I’ve felt the same about myself and everyone I’ve ever met) I like to read in tree houses whenever I can    which is seldom and sometimes never The book that blew me away held all the problems of the world and those of being alive under my nose but I felt far away from them at the same time reading is like that (I am sorry I did not go to your funeral but like you said on the phone an insect cannot crawl to China) Here at the end of the street the insects go on living under the dome of the pacific sky If Mary and Joseph had walked the sixty miles to Bethlehem vertically they would have found themselves floating in the outer pitch of space it would have been cold no inns a long night in the dark endless and when they began to cry the whole world would think something had just been born I like to read into things as I am continually borne forward in time by the winds like the snow (dear sister you were perfect in every way like a baby please tell brother the only reason we never spoke was out of our great love for each other which made a big wind that blew us apart) I think I am coming back I feel shoulders where a parrot could land though a tree would be as good a place as any You cannot teach a tree to talk Trees can say    it is spring but not    though bright sunlight can also be very sad have you noticed?

[ At Bethlehem, Pennsylvania ] What of this house with massive walls And small-paned windows, gay with blooms? A quaint and ancient aspect falls Like pallid sunshine through the rooms. Not this new country’s rush and haste Could breed, one thinks, so still a life; Here is the old Moravian home, A placid foe of worldly strife. For this roof covers, night and day, The widowed women poor and old, The mated without mates, who say Their light is out, their story told. To these the many mansions seem Dear household fires that cannot die; They wait through separation dark An endless union by and by. Each window has its watcher wan To fit the autumn afternoon, The dropping poplar leaves, the dream Of spring that faded all too soon. Upon the highest window-ledge A glowing scarlet flower shines down. Oh, wistful sisterhood, whose home Has sanctified this quiet town! Oh, hapless household, gather in The tired-hearted and the lone! What broken homes, what sundered love, What disappointment you have known! They count their little wealth of hope And spend their waiting days in peace, What comfort their poor loneliness Must find in every soul’s release! And when the wailing trombones go Along the street before the dead In that Moravian custom quaint, They smile because a soul has fled.

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations Let me pour forth My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here Whilst I stay here This poem is a valediction, meaning that it is an act of saying goodbye to someone. Donne wrote other poems with “Valediction” in the title, including “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” “A Valediction of My Name,” and “Valediction to his Book.” , For thy face coins coins Makes, as a mint foundry stamps/makes coins. Compare this line with “As Kings do coynes, to which their stamps impart” from Donne’s poem, “Image of her whom I love, more then she.” them, and thy stamp they bear, And by this mintage they are something worth, For thus they be Pregnant Pregnant Also meaning: filled with emotion or significance, rich in meaning or implication of thee; Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more, When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore, So thou and I are nothing then, when on a diverse shore diverse shore On different lands . On a round ball round ball That is, the Earth A workman that hath copies by, can lay An Europe, Afric Afric Archaic reference to Africa, used here as two syllables to fit the fixed meter of the line , and an Asia Asia Pronounced ‘Ay-zee-ay’, rhyming with “lay” , And quickly make that, which was nothing nothing Both the “round ball” and later “each tear” are likened to a zero (“0”) , all; So doth each tear Which thee doth wear, A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, Till thy tears mix'd with mine do overflow This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so. O more than moon, Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere, Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear forbear When used as a verb, to avoid or refrain from doing something To teach the sea what it may do too soon; Let not the wind Example find, To do me more harm than it purposeth; Since thou and I sigh one another's breath, Whoe'er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other's death Whoe’er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other’s death Compare to the lines “When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st not wind, / But sigh’st my soul away” from Donne’s poem, “ Song: Sweetest love, I do not go ” (lines 25-26) .

I A boy was covered in pigeons. He put birdseed in his hair and crotch so the ghostbird would descend and devour him. I saw the brown bird with the yellow breast smoking Lucky Strikes. Thought she might be the Holy Spirit. There are no birds only what this typewriter flushes out. The cliffs are made from stone doves. And the boys had beautiful lips. II The Outside suggests a tunnel to ride what he says through a tunnel. Geography, animal life, the eventual human being. Anatomy on the page is sexier, my ghost. The page of real thigh, my mister, opens at the top to be eaten like the sun you can recognize eats her rays. Greasy misery covers my hands. It bothers me to touch a carcass. Dead branches. Bothers me. III God's big eye is a pink cubicle. God's big eye stretches around me, a great balled gown. I look for him in the roots of the roofless space. Mons pubis corresponds to the real bird. The lung. The wing. IV I demand the air beat. The birds scared up into motion and I expect revelation. I have my lusty knife. Left cigarettes on your grave and chant. J is for Jerusalem. Returns the poet to an invisible homeland. Resurrects the liver. Saying goodbye to a ghost is a hoax. The birds are still in flight. Unhook the birds. V Sick orange sky I hate I shall see it opened, the sunny aftertomb and a real poem at the gate. The erratic footprints of birds upon the sand or lacerations. No limbs at our disposal, only the desire of limbs to reflesh. The ghost gestures. I am filling your borders with letters. This is the new word—get up and live.

The bend in the river followed us for days and above us the sun doubled and redoubled its claims Now we are in a house with forty-four walls and nothing but doors Outside the trees, chokecherries, mulberries and oaks are cracking like limbs We can do nothing but listen or so someone claims, the Ice Man perhaps, all enclosed in ice though the light has been shortening our days and coloring nights the yellow of hay, scarlet of trillium, blue of block ice Words appear, the texture of ice, with messages etched on their shells: Minna 1892, Big Max and Little Sarah, This hour ago everyone watched as the statues fell Enough of such phrases and we’ll have a book Enough of such books and we’ll have mountains of ice enough to balance our days with nights enough at last to close our eyes

Heavy hangs the raindrop From the burdened spray; Heavy broods the damp mist On uplands far away; Heavy looms the dull sky, Heavy rolls the sea— And heavy beats the young heart Beneath that lonely tree. Never has a blue streak Cleft the clouds since morn— Never has his grim Fate Smiled since he was born. Frowning on the infant, Shadowing childhood’s joy, Guardian angel knows not That melancholy boy. Day is passing swiftly Its sad and sombre prime; Youth is fast invading Sterner manhood’s time. All the flowers are praying For sun before they close, And he prays too, unknowing, That sunless human rose! Blossoms, that the west wind Has never wooed to blow, Scentless are your petals, Your dew as cold as snow. Soul, where kindred kindness No early promise woke, Barren is your beauty As weed upon the rock. Wither, Brothers, wither, You were vainly given— Earth reserves no blessing For the unblessed of Heaven! Child of Delight! with sunbright hair, And seablue, seadeep eyes; Spirit of Bliss, what brings thee here, Beneath these sullen skies? Thou shouldst live in eternal spring, Where endless day is never dim; Why, seraph, has thy erring wing Borne thee down to weep with him? “Ah, not from heaven am I descended, And I do not come to mingle tears; But sweet is day, though with shadows blended; And, though clouded, sweet are youthful years. “I, the image of light and gladness, Saw and pitied that mournful boy, And I swore to take his gloomy sadness, And give to him my beamy joy. “Heavy and dark the night is closing; Heavy and dark may its biding be: Better for all from grief reposing, And better for all who watch like me. “Guardian angel, he lacks no longer; Evil fortune he need not fear: Fate is strong, but Love is stronger; And more unsleeping than angel’s care.”