"Horse Latitudes": A Poem for Belated Blessings

 

 

BE in me as the eternal moods

of the bleak wind, and not

As transient things are—gaiety of flowers.

Have me in the strong loneliness

of sunless cliffs

And of gray waters.

Let the gods speak softly of us

In days hereafter,

the shadowy flowers of Orcus

Remember thee.

 

Ezra Pound 

HORSE LATITUDES

 

If only, when harbored among debris,

among littered confusion

we throw angry words like stones

at each other, 

or walk away,  the last

snapshot for memory 

a defiant, sullen back

or a careless kiss dockside,

hurried and heedless: 

if only, if only

at such partings,

we could know them

for what they are: 

Goodbyes that last a lifetime. 

 

I would have asked you

to set me adrift with  nameless love. 

To fill my yellow sails

with your blessing

as I blow mine into yours.

 

(2009)