For sometimes, when our world is not our home
Nor we any home elsewhere, but all
Things look to leave us naked, hungry, cold
We suddenly may seem in paradise
Again, in ignorance and emptiness
Blessed beyond what we thought to know:
Then on sweet waters echoes the loon's cry.
Howard Nemerov, "The Loon's Cry"
Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (University of Chicago Press, 1981).
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Emily Dickinson on Pain
#1049
Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death --
Each one unto the other
Society enough.
Pain is the Junior Party
By just a Second's right --
Death tenderly assists Him
And then absconds from Sight.
-------------------------------------------
#650
Pain - has an Elements of Blank -
It cannot recollect
When it begun - or if there were
A time when it was not -
It has no Future - but itself -
Its Infinite contain
Its Past - enlightenment to perceive
New Periods - of Pain.
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Thomas H. Johnson Edition
Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death --
Each one unto the other
Society enough.
Pain is the Junior Party
By just a Second's right --
Death tenderly assists Him
And then absconds from Sight.
-------------------------------------------
#650
Pain - has an Elements of Blank -
It cannot recollect
When it begun - or if there were
A time when it was not -
It has no Future - but itself -
Its Infinite contain
Its Past - enlightenment to perceive
New Periods - of Pain.
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Thomas H. Johnson Edition
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)