No One Can Stem the Tide. Jane Tyson Clement
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the monotone of mist and rain;
the heavy leaf
hangs in the still wind, in the weight of sun;
beyond belief
the days of rain, of blurred and mingled air.
But wait – remember!
There in the shadow of the leaf on grass –
be still – remember.
The shadow is the symbol of the dark,
the undefined;
I will be lost and merged and cold again,
I will be blind
lacking your light, your positive demand
casting the shadows sharp on all my land.
23
(TO R.A.C.)
We are tomorrow’s past. O love, beware
lest lightly do we build what soon will fall,
and take too freely what is given us,
outstay our welcome with felicity,
and cast our doom on unsuspecting years.
Tomorrow this will be a yesterday;
a circle inwards from the outer tree,
a bit of rain that now has fed the flower.
Therefore, O love, beware lest lightly we
take our brief divinity and fail
and see no further than each other’s eye
and then consume and turn to dust and die.
24
Between us lie the waters, dark and still;
for all our love, the sea will lie between;
for all our passion, which will surge and fill
the heart to breaking; and for all the clean-
stripped honest words of truth we speak;
still will those level depths, unchanged, serene,
deny us the last union which we seek;
and in the end we must accept despair,
knowing that what we breathe is mortal air.
25
O stars, yield me a portion of your still
vast reaches that the lovely wind has known;
O hall of night, where quiet walks in peace,
where bright flowers of a slumberous dark have grown,
speak to my heart of patience and release.
Single I stand upon the unsheltered hill.
If love will fail and all my faith must be
unbuttressed and unchampioned; if my soul
must hold itself its own security
and seek alone the hard and perilous goal,
give me – O earth that knows its destiny
unquestioning – the wisdom that the flower
finds when it dies, the knowledge that the hour
gains when the last clear minute ticks away;
yield me admittance, so with secret power,
though lone, I may go downward into day.
26
BIRDS IN THE ORCHARD
Now that it is over, I can see
why it has gone and why it could not last.
In autumn we can pick the laden tree
and know the purpose of the sunwild past.
Now that it is over, I have found
the twisted gourds, yellow along the vine;
the hard green apples scattered on the ground.
The clustered purple grapes, midwinter wine,
are sweet upon the air. This much I know:
as surely as the dusky plums will fall
our love was destined from the first to go.
Yet keep this trace of sweetness in the gall:
the waxwing and the oriole forgot
the ripened silver fruits that were our lot.
27
FRAGMENT
The lonely gull that beats with timeless wing
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