#27

Aubade by Philip Larkin

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
-- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused -- nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear -- no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realization of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

This poem is pretty long but well worth reading. At first,
I was trying to figure out how this is an aubade but after
reading through a second time I realized that it is possible
that he is a lover of life and that he speaks of his inevitable
departure.  Any one else have comments on what this piece may be
about?

#26

Elegy for My Angel

Her eyes dimmed as though the
Kerosene in her had lessened
and then the light left.

It was fall of 1994, the world was full of
change. The foliage was slowly losing its color;
The world, losing its Saint.

I had foreseen her departing, her wings in sight.
They had always been there, tucked away
by the teal of her housecoat.
They were not covered in feathers,
but by the selfless deeds she had completed.
Gracious smiles and tears of gratitude
glistened amongst her back.

I would see the pain leave her face, her genuine smile returning.
The pain that had always been there, tucked away
by the lightheartedness of her laughter.
Her truth, eventually exposed by the deterioration of her own
gritted smile.
Without pain her smile would return to
its brilliant innocence.

But it didn't seem fair.

She would have given the world everything
she had. She would have given the blue of her own eyes.
She was beautiful in blue.
She was beautiful in anything.

The same world that she loved so much, expelled her love.

She loved her Gardenias, planted there near the porch.
She loved Jesus and the hymns that were sung on Wednesday.
She loved sweet tea.
She loved me, and I her.

But now she flies.

This is the elegy that I wrote this week. As always any suggestions are wanted and appreciated. :)