04 June 2017

Memory.

Homer, Hurricane, Bahamas, 1898


RIVERS of REPOSE

The willows carried a slow sound, 
A sarabande the wind mowed on the mead. 
I could never remember 
That seething, steady leveling of the marshes 
Till age had brought me to the sea. 

Flags, weeds. And remembrance of steep alcoves 
Where cypresses shared the noon’s 
Tyranny; they drew me into hades almost. 
And mammoth turtles climbing sulphur dreams 
Yielded, while sun-silt rippled them 
Asunder ... 

How much I would have bartered! the black gorge 
And all the singular nestings in the hills 
Where beavers learn stitch and tooth. 
The pond I entered once and quickly fled— 
I remember now its singing willow rim. 

And finally, in that memory all things nurse; 
After the city that I finally passed 
With scalding unguents spread and smoking darts 
The monsoon cut across the delta 
At gulf gates ... There, beyond the dykes 

I heard wind flaking sapphire, like this summer, 
And willows could not hold more steady sound. 

Hart Crane

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