Some Lovely Poetry

I met the philosophy teacher again at the museum for a coffee. I was less nervous and greatly enjoyed our conversation.

I found this beautiful and accurate poem by James Fenton.


For Andrew Wood

What would the dead want from us
Watching from their cave?
Would they have us forever howling?
Would they have us rave
Or disfigure ourselves, or be strangled
Like some ancient emperors slave?

None of my dead friends were emperors
With such exorbitant tastes
And none of them were so vengeful
As to have all their friends
Waste quiet away in sorrow
Disfigured and defaced.

I think the dead would want us
To weep for what they have lost.
I think that our luck in continuing
Is what would affect them most.
But time would find them generous
And less self-engrossed.

And would time find them generous
As they used to be
And what else would they want from us
But an honoured place in our memory
A favourite poem, a hallowed chair,
Privilege and celebrity?
And so the dead might cease to grieve
And we might make amends
And there might be a pact between
Dead friends and living friends.
What our dead friends would want from us
Would be such living friends. .

This haiku is by Chiyojo:

My little dragonfly hunter
I wonder where he is
off to today

Her son died young and after writing this haiku she wrote no more and left the literary world in which she was celebrated and became a nun. I find it so heartbreaking because of the weight of the answer she was forced to provide herself after posing such a buoyant question she had no doubt asked herself hundreds of times when her son was alive.

And this too:

Not Waving but Drowning
by Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way
they said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.