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THE FLIGHT

The Beloved

It is enough of honor for one lifetime To have known you better than the rest have known, The shadows and the colors of your voice, Your will, immutable and still as stone.

The shy heart, so lonely and so gay, The sad laughter and the pride of pride, The tenderness, the depth of tenderness Rich as the earth, and wide as heaven is wide.

“When I Am Not With You”

When I am not with you I am alone, For there is no one else And there is nothing That comforts me but you. When you are gone Suddenly I am sick, Blackness is round me, There is nothing left. I have tried many things, Music and cities, Stars in their constellations And the sea, But there is nothing That comforts me but you; And my poor pride bows down Like grass in a rain-storm Drenched with my longing. The night is unbearable, Oh let me go to you For there is no one, There is nothing To comfort me but you.

Dedication

At least I have loved you; Though much went wrong, This was good, This was strong.

Unshaken In spite of the going of years, Too sure to retract, Too proud for tears.

Let my love be the pillow Under your head, On your lips like a song, To your hunger, bread.

On a March Day

Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind That shakes the naked shadows on the ground, Making a key-board of the earth to strike From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound,

Bear witness for me that I loved my life, All things that hurt me and all things that healed, And that I swore to it this day in March, Here at the edge of this new-broken field.

You only knew me, tell them I was glad For every hour since my hour of birth, And that I ceased to fear, as once I feared, The last complete reunion with the earth.

Let It Be You

Let it be you who lean above me On my last day, Let it be you who shut my eyelids Forever and aye.

Say a “Good-night” as you have said it All of these years, With the old look, with the old whisper And without tears.

You will know then all that in silence You always knew, Though I have loved, I loved no other As I love you.

The Flight

We are two eagles Flying together Under the heavens, Over the mountains, Stretched on the wind. Sunlight heartens us, Blind snow baffles us, Clouds wheel after us Ravelled and thinned.

We are like eagles, But when Death harries us, Human and humbled When one of us goes, Let the other follow, Let the flight be ended, Let the fire blacken, Let the book close.