Saturday 4 May 2013

FAITHLESS

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm...
W. H. Auden

This I can see:
cherry blossom tumbling free
blackbird on mossy green;
Red tulip marrying
blue forget-me-not
in a wedding of wind 
and peace.

Hold still the moment
to etch the memory,
but there will be none;
We are as faithless 
as each other
and by nightfall, 
will both be gone.

- Shaista Tayabali, 2013
Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell...
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreadful cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but not from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost...
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head... 
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

If I may be morbid for a moment, I think I'd quite like to have this poem by Auden recited in my dying hour as I'm drifting away like the Lady of Shalott downstream to Camelot. Mind you, I might be so swept up by the beauty of the poem that I refuse to die... "Bring me a pen! Quick!" I'll command, (in a croaky voice), "I've a last poem in me..."
Meanwhile the blossom is being driven away by rain, and meanwhile my major eye operation has been temporarily set aside for a gentler approach; one last gasp before the surgeon decides whether the second tube is necessary after all. I should be ecstatic at the reprieve, but truthfully, my left eye is a torment to me anyway. Some days the little hot nerve centre of pain is so bad I want to be sick, but I try not be faithless. Everything is bright and glorious and green and lit around me. I am trying not to be faithless.

statue above:  'Youth' by Kathleen Scott

3 comments:

Cloudia said...

Contact with your lovely soul charmed a kindred on a far off island....

Aloha:-)

Shaista said...

Always a delight to charm a kindred spirit, near or far Cloudia xxxx

Ruth said...

I'm sorry to hear of the delay.

Your poems, flowers, all your feminine sweepings call to me today. I am wishing you peace and health, my friend.

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