“My darkness, are you lonely?”
- James Agee, A Death In The Family
Of the sidewalk, the tapping arcs of his cane
Testing the silent falling away of the curb
To the soft ticking of his stick on the street,
Listening for the ending of where he is
And the beginning of where he must go
To arrive again at where he has been.
And I wonder if he has always been blind
Or perhaps remembers even now the colors
And contrasts and shapes of another life;
Not always but sometimes, as when the sun
Warms his face or he feels his breath on it
And the snow that silences his tapping,
His second-sight blinded, all the edges
Erased that he now must hear by heart.
He makes his way across the silent street
And I think of how he will climb the stairs
To a room, everything in its familiar place,
No need to reach out in tentative steps,
Where no one and nothing ever enters but the light
At his window on the shades of dark always drawn.
I wait at the corner, blinded by sunlight on the snow.
Poetry by countryfog
Read 469 times
Written on 2010-12-29 at 14:06
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- James Agee, A Death In The Family
Old Man, Winter Park
Leaving the park, he pauses at the edgeOf the sidewalk, the tapping arcs of his cane
Testing the silent falling away of the curb
To the soft ticking of his stick on the street,
Listening for the ending of where he is
And the beginning of where he must go
To arrive again at where he has been.
And I wonder if he has always been blind
Or perhaps remembers even now the colors
And contrasts and shapes of another life;
Not always but sometimes, as when the sun
Warms his face or he feels his breath on it
And the snow that silences his tapping,
His second-sight blinded, all the edges
Erased that he now must hear by heart.
He makes his way across the silent street
And I think of how he will climb the stairs
To a room, everything in its familiar place,
No need to reach out in tentative steps,
Where no one and nothing ever enters but the light
At his window on the shades of dark always drawn.
I wait at the corner, blinded by sunlight on the snow.
Poetry by countryfog
Read 469 times
Written on 2010-12-29 at 14:06
Save as a bookmark (requires login) Write a comment (requires login) Send as email (requires login) Print text
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Lawrence Beck |
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vladimir todor turmanev |
