Instinct

Although he's apparently the youngest (his little rasta-beard is barely down and feathers),
most casually cornered (he hardly glances at the girl he's with, though she might be his wife),
half-sloshed (or more than half) on picnic-whiskey teen-aged father, when his little son,
two or so, tumbles from the slide, hard enough to scare
himself, hard enough to make him cry,
really cry, not partly cry, not pretend the fright for what must be some scarce attention,
but really let it out, let loudly be revealed the fear of having been so close to real fear,
he, the father, knows just how quickly he should pick the child up, then how firmly hold it,
fit its head into the muscled socket of his shoulder, rub its back, croon and whisper to it,
and finally pull away a little, about a head's length, looking, still concerned, into its eyes,
then smiling, broadly, brightly, as though something had been shared, something of importance,
not dreadful, or not very, not at least now that it's past, but rather something... funny,
funny, yes, it was funny, wasn't it, to fall and cry like that,
though one can certainly understand,
we've all had glimpses of a premonition of the anguish out there, you're better now, though,
aren't you, why don't you go back and try again, I'll watch you, maybe have another drink,
yes, my on, my love, I'll go back and be myself now, you go be the person you are, too.

-- C. K. Williams

Lapis Lazuli

I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow,
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out,
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or On shipboard,
Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instmment.

Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

-- W. B. Yeats

Talking in Bed

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.

Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,

And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.

--Philip Larkin