"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him--
A stone for him?" she said.
Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead--
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of a warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired--
......
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day
For half his flock were in their beds
Or under green sods lay.
Once, while he nodded in a chair
At the moth-hour of the eve
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.
......
I
We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die,
We Poets of the proud old lineage
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why, -
What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales
Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest,
Where nevermore the rose of sunset pales,
And winds and shadows fall towards the West:
......
'Does the blackened ruin, situated in the stony ground between Durraj and Mutathallam, which did not speak to me, when addressed, belong to the abode of Ummi Awfa?
'And is it her dwelling at the two stony meadows, seeming as though they were the renewed tattoo marks in the sinews of the wrist?
'The wild cows and the white deer are wandering about there, one herd behind the other, while their young are springing up from every lying-down place.
'I stood again near it, (the encampment of the tribe of Awfa,) after an absence of twenty years, and with some efforts, I know her abode again after thinking awhile.
'I recognized the three stones blackened by fire at the place where the kettle used to be placed at night, and the trench round the encampment, which had not burst, like the source of a pool.
......
Absent from thee I languish still;
Then ask me not, when I return?
The straying fool 'twill plainly kill
To wish all day, all night to mourn.
Dear! from thine arms then let me fly,
That my fantastic mind may prove
The torments it deserves to try
That tears my fixed heart from my love.
......
The wind moves through the trees
like a thought that never settles.
Clouds shift,
not with urgency,
but with the patience of time
that knows it cannot be rushed.
A single birds lifts
from the fencepost,
its wings silent
......
GLIMPSE
My heart a pouch of rich wine overlays yours
A drop of blood spilled over an arum lily
It waits with longing intense, retains no tears
As it remembers its cringes of final fear when it
Jumped into your chest of steel
Your smell of fruit juice, water and old leather all around
My soul lays naked in a room of light
......
Saying my piece sometimes isn’t as important as keeping the peace
But saying your peace is as important as keeping a piece of you
Die Stille kommt nicht plötzlich.
Sie wächst
zwischen den Sätzen,
in den Pausen,
in dem,was nicht gesagt wird.
Sie liegt im Morgenlicht,
das durch das Fenster fällt,
im Atem,
der sich langsam senkt.
......
Schaduwen krullen zich
rond gedachten
die geen daglicht willen.
De stilte wiegt
wat onuitgesproken bleef.
Daar
vindt het hart
zijn vleugels
......