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Friday, March 9, 2012

Anthony Hecht ~ A Letter


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 unquaried 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.

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