"Thanks" by W.S. Merwin

 

W.S. Merwin

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

taking our feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

thank you we are saying and waving

dark though it is

"Bound for Hell" by Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941)

 

Marina Tsvetaïeva en 1925.

Hell, my ardent sisters, be assured,

Is where we’re bound; we’ll drink the pitch of hell—

We, who have sung the praises of the lord

With every fiber in us, every cell.

We, who did not manage to devote

Our nights to spinning, did not bend and sway

Above a cradle—in a flimsy boat,

Wrapped in a mantle, we’re now borne away.

Every morning, every day, we’d rise

And have the finest Chinese silks to wear;

And we’d strike up the songs of paradise

Around the campfire of a robbers’ lair,

We, careless seamstresses (our seams all ran,

Whether we sewed or not)—yet we have been

Such dancers, we have played the pipes of Pan:

The world was ours, each one of us a queen.

First, scarcely draped in tatters, and disheveled,

Then plaited with a starry diadem;

We’ve been in jails, at banquets we have reveled:

But the rewards of heaven, we’re lost to them,

Lost in nights of starlight, in the garden

Where apple trees from paradise are found.

No, be assured, my gentle girls, my ardent

And lovely sisters, hell is where we’re bound.

"Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906

 

Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
      When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
      When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass
And the river flows like a stream of glass
      When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
      Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
      For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
      And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And the pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
      When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
      When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
      But a prayer he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea that upward to Heaven he flings--
I know why the caged bird sings!

"The Ship and Her Makers" by John Masefield

John Masefield, 1878-1967

                                 THE ORE

 

Before Man’s labouring wisdom gave me birth

I had not even seen the light of day;

Down in the central darkness of the earth,

Crushed by the weight of continents I lay,

Ground by the weight to heat, not knowing then

The air, the light, the noise, the world of men.

 

                                  THE TREES

We grew on mountains where the glaciers cry,

Infinite sombre armies of us stood

Below the snow-peaks which defy the sky;

A song like the gods moaning filled our wood;

We knew no men—our life was to stand staunch,

Singing our song, against the avalanche.

 

                         THE HEMP AND FLAX

 

We were a million grasses on the hill,

A million herbs which bowed as the wind blew,

Trembling in every fibre, never still;

Out of the summer earth sweet life we drew.

Little blue-flowered grasses up the glen,

Glad of the sun, what did we know of men?

 

                               THE WORKERS

 

We tore the iron from the mountain’s hold,

By blasting fires we smithied it to steel;

Out of the shapeless stone we learned to mould

The sweeping bow, the rectilinear keel;

We hewed the pine to plank, we split the fir,

We pulled the myriad flax to fashion her.

 

Out of a million lives our knowledge came,

A million subtle craftsmen forged the means;

Steam was our handmaid and our servant flame,

Water our strength, all bowed to our machines.

Out of the rock, the tree, the springing herb

We built this wandering beauty so superb.

  

                                 THE SAILORS

 

We, who were born on earth and live by air,

Make this thing pass across the fatal floor,

The speechless sea; alone we commune there

Jesting with death, that ever open door.

Sun, moon and stars are signs by which we drive

This wind-blown iron like a thing alive.

 

                                      THE SHIP

 

I march across great waters like a queen,

I whom so many wisdoms helped to make;

Over the uncruddled billows of seas green

I blanch the bubbled highway of my wake.

By me my wandering tenants clasp the hands,

And know the thoughts of men in other lands.

Thinking of Keitha K. MacIntosh

Eleven years ago I heard of the passing of Keitha K. MacIntosh; she was a poet, author of short stories, a publisher, a professor of English at Vanier College, and someone who encouraged Montreal writers, including myself. She was also a good friend; we first met at Sir George Williams University around 1972 when we were enrolled in Richard Sommer's creative writing class; later, I did poetry readings for her class at Vanier College and visited her when she lived in a trailer adjacent to her future home in a 200 year old log cabin. We corresponded for years, and in 1979 I bought property near Trout River not far from Keitha's home in Dewettville. Here (below) is a photograph of her headstone in the Ormstown cemetery, courtesy of the "find a grave" website. 

Last night, watching the Antique Roadshow on PBS, I was reminded of Keitha who was an avid collector of antiques, mainly antique bottles. She told me that she used to find these bottles in the ruins of houses and other buildings that had been abandoned. She and her family and friends explored many of these homesteads in South Western Quebec until the supply of bottles ran out. This reminds me that Artie Gold also collected antique bottles, some of which I inherited after Artie died in 2007; Keitha also published, in her poetry magazine Montreal Poems, some of Artie's early poems. And then I thought of the weeks preceding hearing the news of Keitha's death; I hadn't thought of Keitha for years but I had a curious experience, just before I heard of her death I was filled with memories of Keitha, not just one or two memories but a flood of memories, mostly of things she said about her mother and father, and her husband Archie. Even I was surprised by how much I remembered!

It was at this time, in 2012,  when I was "rampant with memory" about Keitha, a phrase Margaret Laurence uses in one of her books, that I received news of her passing. I have always remembered the past, perhaps more than most people, and, of course, I have written about it, the early death of a parent does that to a person, grief does that, every memory is precious because it is all that we have left of the person, so close to us, that died. Memory is a part of our DNA, years ago I read Henry Miller's Remember to Remember, C.G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections, and Jack Kerouac's novels and poetry, "Memory Babe" said Jack Kerouac. 

Before hearing of Keitha's passing, I must have spent ten years trying to write "A Poet's Journey", an essay based on remembering the past and on becoming a poet; and it was Keitha who I was thinking of when I began that essay but it developed into a life of its own and became a personal memoir; writing, editing, remembering, and then it's ten years later but the essay has found its own voice and content. 

Keitha had a Celtic background as I do, and for the Celts memory, the ancestors, family history, and spirit are all important. You might not set out to record the lives of your ancestors, you just do it, as you breathe or have lunch or sleep. It's what we do, it's a natural thing to do, one foot is always in the past and the ancestors are never far from thought. It was a natural event to remember Keitha in the time preceding her death; it was as though she was paying me a last visit before moving to the great unknown.   

Memory is like a dream or a poem, what you remember is subjective and may say more about you than you realize. Two people have the same experience and remember it in different ways, one positive, one negative. Sometimes the memories of siblings conflict, and at those times siblings seem to come from different families. And then, after remembering Keitha in 2012, I thought of Louis Dudek and, again, long forgotten memories returned to me, riding a city bus with him, sitting with him in his office, that particular memory changed my life and I have written about it elsewhere; and I thought of another old friend, George Johnston, what a kind and generous person he was.  

But how much can memory be trusted? I stand behind the veracity of all of my memories but when other people who shared experiences with me give their version of certain events, sometimes they contradict what I remember, sometimes I don't recognize anything they remember, sometimes they add to and enlarge my memories, sometimes we have false memories. But even a false memory has some truth about it, just don't base your life on a false memory; sometimes memories are like poems or dreams. Without memory everyone would be immediately forgotten after they die, as though they never existed, this is something all poets know and our books and poems are a pause in the inevitable act of forgetting.