Thursday, August 25

all is not well

                                   I have been wondering
              What you are thinking about, and by now suppose
                                   It is certainly not me.
              But the crocus is up, and the lark, and the blundering
                                   Blood knows what it knows.
It talks to itself all night, like a sliding moonlit sea.

                                   Of course, it is talking of you.
              At dawn, where the ocean has netted its catch of lights,
                                   The sun plants one lithe foot
              On that spill of mirrors, but the blood goes worming
                    through
                                   Its warm Arabian nights,
Naming your pounding name again in the dark heart-root.

                                   Who shall, of course, be nameless.
              Anyway, I should want you to know I have done my
                    best,
                                   As I'm sure you have, too.
              Others are bound to us, the gentle and blameless
                                   Whose names are not confessed
In the ceaseless palaver. My dearest, the clear unquarried blue

                                   Of those depths is all but blinding.
              You may remember that once you brought my boys
                                   Two little woolly birds.
              Yesterday the older one asked for you upon finding
                                   Your thrush among his toys.
And the tides welled about me, and I could find no words.

                                   There is not much else to tell.
              One tries one's best to continue as before,
                                   Doing some little good.
              But I would have you know that all is not well
                                   With a man dead set to ignore
The endless repetitions of his own murmurous blood.

Anthony Hecht, "A Letter"

Saturday, August 6

Oh my dear, my dear

Perhaps your casual glance
will settle from time to time
on the sea's travelling muscles
that flex and roll their strength
under its rain-pocked skin.
And will see where the salt winds
have blown bare the seaward side
of the berry bushes,
and will notice
the faint, fresh
smell of iodine.

Anthony Hecht, "Message from the City"