And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely--
I'll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
......
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
......
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
......
The brown enormous odor he lived by
was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,
for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty
was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.
Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,
the pigs' eyes followed him, a cheerful stare--
even to the sow that always ate her young--
till, sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.
But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts
(he hid the pints behind the two-by-fours),
......
Veiling, barely, his dread
Beauty and its blaze,
An angel sets warm bread
and cool milk at my place.
His eyelids make the sign
Of prayer; I lower mine,
Words interleaving vision:
--Calm, calm, be ever calm!
Feel the whole weight a palm
Bears upright in profusion.
......
Amid the vestiges of indigo nocturne,
The sky reverberates with anticipation.
The gradual rhythm of light
Breathes order and motion
Under the receding cloak
Of the once reigning night.
A solar sliver slips:
Belly to the horizon,
......
The sun is hot
The birds all flock
The boats convene
Revelers serene
The drinks are cool
They make you drool
The wind blows soft
......
“Jessamyn’s Song” was inspired by Claude Monet’s oil painting “The Walk, Woman with a Parasol,” which I first saw around age 14 and interpreted as a walk in a meadow or heather. The woman’s dress and captivating loveliness made me think of an impending wedding, with dances and festivities. The boy made me think of a family. I gave the woman a name, Jessamyn, and wrote her story, thinking along these lines, while in high school. The opening lines were influenced by “Fern Hill” by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, one of my boyhood favorites and still a favorite today. “Jessamyn’s Song” was substantially complete by age 16, my first long poem, although I was not happy with the poem, overall. I have touched it up here and there over the last half century, but it remains substantially the same as the original poem.
Jessamyn's Song (circa age 14-16)
by Michael R. Burch
16
There are meadows heathered with thoughts of you,
where the honeysuckle winds
in fragrant, tangled vines
......
Sun, a fiery orb of day,
Blazes kisses on the land,
Waking life with golden ray,
Guiding creatures by his hand.
Moon, a pearl in velvet night,
Watches as the sun descends,
Silvery beams with gentle light,
Guiding dreamers as it ascends.
Though they dance in separate spheres,
Never meeting, ever near,
......
Masses of creamy clouds give me pause, in sweetest summer,
as they drift away like honey dreams, in lazy days of slumber.
Radiant, world class travelers, changing colors like sun jewels,
sharing secrets, like winking stars, in mystic, creeping rituals.
Here today, gone tomorrow, like pink dragonfly, gilded by sun.
Maybe faces will soon be imagined, in forms, so like gold, spun.
Always they seem very near, from green mountaintop so lofty,
letting one have a glimpse of heaven, while enjoying a coffee.
Lavender and lace is oft seen at even, floating off to nowhere,
or perhaps to rest in mysterious, gemmed bedrooms in the air.
......