thanks, Sheila -
I do feel the first four verses don't balance with the later ones.
(I'm haunted by numerous Larkin poems that start low and then try to lift, in this case 'Sad Steps', which begins
Groping back to bed after a piss
!
may as well copy it in here below)
best from Max
Sad Steps
BY PHILIP LARKIN
Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.
Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There’s something laughable about this,
The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)
High and preposterous and separate—
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,
One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare
Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can’t come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.
On 10/04/2013, at 9:57 AM, Sheila Murphy wrote:
> Hi, Max,
>
> I find myself wanting this poem to begin with "It was the light . . ."
> (fifth stanza) and then going forward. Eliminating the first four.
>
> So much to like in this poem. Sheila
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Autumn Night
>>
>> At an uncertain
>> well-past-midnight hour,
>> body stirred, person
>>
>> in it, of long
>> association,
>> stumbled from
>>
>> warm bed and carpet
>> to cool-under-foot
>> tiles of a moist bathroom.
>>
>> Face, avoid the mirror.
>> Feet, shamble
>> past the window.
>>
>> It was the light
>> from the night sky,
>> lacking moon,
>>
>> lacking cloud,
>> lacking wind,
>> gentle, steady,
>>
>> circumambient -
>> foreshadowing
>> lawn-wide dew
>>
>> or a first frost,
>> that redeemed
>> the occasion.
>>
>> Out there, down there,
>> morning would show
>> more new mushrooms
>>
>> sturdy of stalk,
>> fragile of canopy,
>> keeping old promises
>>
>> made last year,
>> as the earth turned -
>> shyly pleased to be seen.
>>
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