| From the book The Wild Rose | Legends and Fantasies
(1976 - 1978) |  |
| The Old Poet | He walks round the room and freezes.
But it’s strange to think how his coat feels the icy cold.
The freezing cold outside is reminiscent
of wine, which no one remembers now.
A swallow, and wondrous things begin:
the cage will open, and the bird of the rain
will look into the room like a human being,
as though the candles had wept on the page,
as though people nod their heads as they go away in tears.
Then he remembers who is a friend and who is the perpetrator,
and his guest and his host and his grief,
and who cried, plucking the wild rose within,
and asked for everything and took nothing.
What a sad business this is!
Not a word, not a word, not a thousand words,
but the fact that the soul as now has gone cold
when the flower of the coldnesses has opened.
Forgive and remember, forgive and confess:
nothing is ever worthy of itself.
In the cloud of pain, in the darkness of constancy
I will smile again and nod my head as I go away.
But you must repeat: this is the same, the same,
that was and will be, and overflows the rim.
But I am already there where no one can help.
But you must repeat,
repeat,
repeat... | | Richard McKane | |
 |
|
