misquoting virgil
accompanies you
since that one night or evening lost
in time now, on which your restless
eyes first deciphered her forever
in a garden or patio turned to dust
now they are paolo, francesca,
not two friends who are sharing
the savour of a fable no occupation either, but something given
and taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
ardour and selflessness and self-surrender
but that which is only living
can only die
the dry salvages - presumably les trois sauvages - is a small
group of rocks, with a beacon, off the n
they have found one another
you'll not be seen to visit that well
under white sun or yellow moon
that soon
we may touch, love, explain
that their merely being there
means something
and he a face still forming
yet the words sufficed
to compel the recognition they preceded
not as making a trip that will be unpayable
for a haul that will not bear examination
no wind, but pentecostal fire
in the dark time of the year
and always will be, some of them especially
whether on the shores of asia, or in the edgware road,
men's curiosity searches past and future
and clings to that dimension
release omens
by sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitable
with playing cards, fiddle with pentagrams
or barbituric acids, or dissect
the recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors-
to explore the womb, or tomb, or dreams
all these are usual
pastimes and drugs, and features of the press
a dignified and commodious sacrament
a symbol perfected in death
the communication
of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living
and never know that we are gone
they'll long outlast our oblivion humility is endless
let them be
whether, or not, due to misunderstanding,
having hoped for the wrong things or dreaded the wrong things,
is not in question
are likewise permanent
with such permanence as time has
i gaze but don't understand
it's as if they were strangers
the wonder that i feel is easy,
yet ease is cause of wonder there is a time for building
and a time for living and for generation
and a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
and to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
and to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto
dying is a habit
that's well-known to many on the money'
not admiration or victory
but simply to be accepted
as part of an undeniable reality,
like stones and trees
when christ has judged me
who knows what they'll see
human kind
cannot bear very much reality
although we were not
a silence already filled with noises,
a canvas on which emerges
a chorus of smiles, a winter morning
to die is to have been born
thus said the wise merlin
we had the experience but missed the meaning,
and approach to the meaning restores the experience
in a different form, beyond any meaning
we can assign to happiness see, they return, and bring us with them
tendril and spray
clutch and cling?
neither from nor towards
at the still point, there the dance is,
but neither arrest nor movement
but this is the nearest, in place and time,
now and in england
and those who saw them off have left the platform
their faces relax from grief into relief,
to the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours