To Die Before One Wakes Must be Glad
Alice Walker
to die before one
wakes
must be glad
(to the same extent
maybe
that it is also
sad)
a slipping away
in glee
unobserved and
free
in the wide—
to die before one
wakes
must be glad
(to the same extent
maybe
that it is also
sad)
a slipping away
in glee
unobserved and
free
in the wide—
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old—
This knight so bold—
And o’er his heart a shadow—
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
for Moremi, 1963
Earth will not share the rafter’s envy; dung floors
Break, not the gecko’s slight skin, but its fall
Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life
As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber
To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs
As roots of baobab, as the hearth.
The air will not deny you. Like
It has been called the last place on Earth
this equatorial wonderland,
land of roaring rivers and majestic mountains
beautiful, but so fragile – as a spider’s web.
Here elusive species gather together
on beaches, in forest depths and glades
as if they have something to say to each other –
and to us – about the risk of ecological ruin.
In
The wind howls, the trees sway,
The loose house-top sheets clatter and clang,
The open window shuts with a bang,
And the sky makes night of the day.
Helter-skelter the parents run,
Pressed with a thousand minor cares:
‘Hey, you there! pack the house-wares!
And where on earth’s my son?
Barely a breath of air tonight,
skies clouded over unmoving,
releasing a torrent of tears
to the clap of thunder
as we gather thoughts
and wrestle with emotions.
A rainbow over Windsor
fades into darkening sky.
The sun has set on
the passing of a Queen.
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
There will the river whispering run
Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the sun;
And there the ‘enamour’d fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.
When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each
O Lord my God
I have been too silly on you
Walked away when I need you most
Deceiving myself that I don’t need you
When did I become childish
And bent to remain childish
When you have not created me childish?
O Lord I am very sorry
Fare thee well! forever!—ever!
‘Twere vain my anguish now to tell;
A truer heart will love thee never,
But fare thee well!
In distant climes, and scenes of danger,
‘Twill soon be mine unknown to dwell;
I go, a homeless, hopeless ranger,
Oh! fare thee well!
Another form may bow before thee,
Another voice thy praises tell:
None, none, like me, can
COME away, come away, death,
And in sad cypres let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there
A wall is like a knife
It slices a city in half
One half is on the east
The other half is on the west
How tall is this wall?
How thick is it?
How long is it?
Even if it were taller, thicker and longer
It couldn’t be as tall, as thick and as long
1.
Spirit here that reignest!
Spirit here that painest!
Spirit here that burneth!
Spirit here that mourneth!
Spirit! I bow
My forehead low,
Enshaded with thy pinions!
Spirit! I look
All passion struck,
Into thy pale dominions!
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
I had a dove, and the sweet dove died;
And I have thought it died of grieving:
O, what could it grieve for? its feet were tied
With a single thread of my own hand’s weaving;
Sweet little red feet, why should you die–
Why should you leave me, sweet bird, why?
You lived alone in the forest tree,
Why,
OF A MOTHER FOR THE DEATH OF HER CHILD .
A dew-drop on a wither’d leaf,
As bright, as lovely, and as brief,
Thy being was—thou camest from heaven,
Like dew-drops on the car of even;
Where blush’d the morning’s early ray,
Thou, beauteous one, wert pass’d away!
If thou hadst liv’d, thou fragile flower,
To soothe me in mine hour
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace—reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion,
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow
(This—all this—was in the olden
Time long ago)
The child and the old man sat alone
In the quiet, peaceful shade
Of the old green boughs, that had richly grown
In the deep, thick forest glade.
It was a soft and pleasant sound,
That rustling of the oak;
And the gentle breeze played lightly round
As thus the fair boy spoke:-
‘Dear father, what can honor be,
Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves, when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast,
The black one is squatting-the red one is licking
his bottom.
(Cooking-pot and fire)
Two tiny birds jump over two hundred trees.
(Eyes)
The mourner has stopped weeping.
The pitying friend is still crying.
(Rain and the dripping leaves after rain)