Thursday, June 25, 2015

Promissory Valentine

Isn’t this what summer promises
that we can all be lifted up
into distant lofty places
deep blue and silvery spaces
where great intelligences reach
if we would only lie down on a beach
somewhere and let the gold of the sun
flow through us into the sand
and feel our bones root down
into the lines and forms of the earth
as when our mothers held us
and our fathers gave us birth
one who just wanted us to live
and one who knew we would die
but how can those who bring life out of life
birth one who brings life out of death
except the earthly be taken up
and heaven come down to die 

2 comments:

erin said...

peter, you will learn that i am plagued with a tragically short memory. however, it was just last night in reading about czeslaw milozs (and his "Three Talks On Civilization") that i came upon this about simone weil, "Our plight however does not impugn the goodness of God but rather proves it: He withdrew from his creation out of love for his creatures; to make way for them. Weil called reality the veil of God."

i feel this in your poem. is it from you? or do i bring that feeling?

we're always meeting poems somewhere between intention and accident.

Peter said...

Yes, that resonates, between intent and accident/covert intent. The next poem is also a response to what you say.

Also, attention.

Weil had such an intense (scary) asceticism, almost a re-incarnated Cathar, but such courage and, since courage is fire, burned herself out too soon.