Life and Existence

Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.

I take the word Europe Or the word death And tear them into tiny pieces; I scatter them at your feet.

I’d like to die like this… with the dark fingers of the water closing and unclosing over these sleepy lights and a sad bell somewhere murmuring good night.

Do I not deal with angels When her lips I touch.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

May the gentle mountains and the bells of the flocks Remind us of everything we have lost, For we have seen on our way and fallen in love With the world that will pass in a twinkling.

Life and the memory of it cramped, dim, on a piece of Bristol board.

Life and the memory of it cramped, dim, on a piece of Bristol board.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

—And Friday, my dear Friday, died of measles seventeen years ago come March.

—And Friday, my dear Friday, died of measles seventeen years ago come March.

Home-made, home-made! But aren’t we all?

Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house.

I have had to learn the simplest things last. Which made for difficulties.

As the dead prey upon us, they are the dead in ourselves, awake, my sleeping ones, I cry out to you, disentangle the nets of being!

As the dead prey upon us, they are the dead in ourselves, awake, my sleeping ones, I cry out to you, disentangle the nets of being!

Lord, hear me out, and hear me out this day: From me to Thee’s a long and terrible way.

Now I adore my life With the Bird, the abiding Leaf, With the Fish, the questing Snail, And the Eye altering all; And I dance with William Blake For love, for Love’s sake.

The soul has many motions, body one.

Brooding on God, I may become a man. Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire; What burns me now? Desire, desire, desire.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

I long for the imperishable quiet at the heart of form.

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain!

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go.