The shadows of things
start closing in when day falls
growing like weed reaching out
longer and longer
about to touch the horizon,
and burst from their own length;
but no: they dissolve themselves sideways; into the black of night; bursting of breadth instead.
The shadows of people aging
also grow longer and longer;
losing contrast with the ground
until it seems to absorb them;
but just then: they intersect the horizon; surround the globe; complete the circle; live in tomorrow.
(by Emily Dickinson)
The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth, –
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.
You know you’re destined to make love with death, So
will you be raped by a violent stranger
a camouflaged hunter of implacable cunning
an eye-averting soul-stealing chaser?
or will you choose the tender mutual all-giving
of that ever-promised, ever-faithful
veil-faced truly virginal bride?
(so may pains in the heart
never made it stop until now)
as life rudely flees from me
as my legs give way
to the abrupt weight of the body
which starts to fall helplessly
impolitely with noise to the ground
(and in a few days it will break through
the ground, silently, politely)
and my falling brain spins slightly
on top of a carelessly relaxed neck
(in a few days resolutely stiff,
and then disintegrated)
and my eyes roll up to show me
that shelf I must fix some day
(but there’s so much on my mind,
and so little time)
as my knees hit the floor
sideways, painlessly,
(there is only one pain now,
only one problem)
I realise there will be no return
from this inopportune descent
(I had never noticed it,
but my life is complete)
(by Peter Viereck)
when both are strong with tenderness, too wild
with oneness to be severance-reconciled;
when even the touch of fingertips can shock
both to such seesaw mutuality
of hot-pressed opposites as smelts a tree
tighter to its dryad than to its own tight bark;
when neither jokes or mopes or hates alone
or wakes untangled from the other; when
more-warm-than-soul, more-deep-than-flesh are one
in marriage of very skeleton:
when, then, soil peels mere flesh off half this love
and locks it from the unstripped half above,
who’s ever sure which side of soil he’s on?
have I lain seconds here, or years like this?
I’m sure of nothing else but loneliness
and darkness, here’s such black as stuffs a tomb,
or merely midnight in an unshared room.
holding my breath for fear my breath is gone,
unmoving and afraid to try to move,
knowing only you have somehow left my side,
I lie here, wondering, which of us has died.
