Thanks, Doug. The new silence all right.
Bill
On Sun, 5 Apr 2020 at 7:40 am, Sheila Murphy <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> So powerful, Doug. Thank you for this grace. Sheila
>
> On Sat, Apr 4, 2020, 11:36 AM Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > I’m pretty sure I’ve posted this one some time ago, but it seems rather
> > fitting these days…
> >
> > Doug
> >
> >
> > September 1961 - by Denise Levertov
> >
> > This is the year the old ones,
> > the old great ones
> > leave us alone on the road.
> >
> > The road leads to the sea.
> > We have the words in our pockets,
> > obscure directions. The old ones
> >
> > have taken away the light of their presence,
> > we see it moving away over a hill
> > off to one side.
> >
> > They are not dying,
> > they are withdrawn
> > into a painful privacy
> >
> > learning to live without words.
> > E. P. "It looks like dying"-Williams: "I can't
> > describe to you what has been
> >
> > happening to me"-
> > H. D. "unable to speak."
> > The darkness
> >
> > twists itself in the wind, the stars
> > are small, the horizon
> > ringed with confused urban light-haze.
> >
> > They have told us
> > the road leads to the sea,
> > and given
> >
> > the language into our hands.
> > We hear
> > our footsteps each time a truck
> >
> > has dazzled past us and gone
> > leaving us new silence.
> > One can't reach
> >
> > the sea on this endless
> > road to the sea unless
> > one turns aside at the end, it seems,
> >
> > follows
> > the owl that silently glides above it
> > aslant, back and forth,
> >
> > and away into deep woods.
> >
> > But for us the road
> > unfurls itself, we count the
> > words in our pockets, we wonder
> >
> > how it will be without them, we don't
> > stop walking, we know
> > there is far to go, sometimes
> >
> > we think the night wind carries
> > a smell of the sea…
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Douglas Barbour
> > [log in to unmask]
> > https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
> >
> > Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations
> > 2 (UofAPress).
> > Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
> > Listen. If (UofAPress):
> >
> >
> > Done in by creation itself.
> >
> > I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
> > The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
> > We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
> >
> > Robert Kroetsch
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
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