Post by Sherry Thrasher on Jan 4, 2009 0:02:54 GMT -5
Third Draft-
"A full winter sun lights the hills
and I have come on stage
among the silent of my own time.
A tinkle of music, laughter from the next block
turn human roads away from you;
I owe you my blackest silence.
I talk to you in fables and parables.
You howl, you weep, you swallow.
How vain the centuries of death
before your hands can sketch
the wheel of time.
You have fallen from the nest
with foolish reverence—
a hope chest of words, of gestures, brought back, used, used up
with signals of despair.
Under winter suns
a dream dies every day
and slowly the glance loses hold."
Second Draft
"A full winter sun lights the hills
and I have come on stage
among the silent of my own time.
A tinkle of music, laughter from the next block
turn human roads away from you;
I owe you my blackest silence.
I talk to you in fables and parables.
You howl, you weep, you swallow.
How vain the centuries of death before your hands
can sketch the wheel of time.
You have fallen from the nest
with foolish reverence—
a hope chest of words, of gestures, brought back, used, used up
with signals of despair.
Under winter suns
a dream dies every day
and slowly the glance loses hold."
First Draft
"A full winter sun lights the hills
and I have come on stage
among the silent of my own time.
A tinkle of music, laughter from the next block
turn human roads away from you;
I owe you my blackest silence.
Your laugh unlocks doors for me.
I talk to you in fables and parables,
read you the soft verses of antiquity—
you howl, you weep, you swallow.
How vain the centuries of death before your hands
can sketch the wheel of time.
You have fallen from the nest
with foolish reverence—
a hope chest of words, of gestures, brought back, used, used up
with signals of despair.
Under winter suns
a dream dies every day
and slowly the glance loses hold
on the frame of our captive condition."
A Cento taken from Against Forgetting Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness Edited by Carolyn Forché
"A full winter sun lights the hills
and I have come on stage
among the silent of my own time.
A tinkle of music, laughter from the next block
turn human roads away from you;
I owe you my blackest silence.
I talk to you in fables and parables.
You howl, you weep, you swallow.
How vain the centuries of death
before your hands can sketch
the wheel of time.
You have fallen from the nest
with foolish reverence—
a hope chest of words, of gestures, brought back, used, used up
with signals of despair.
Under winter suns
a dream dies every day
and slowly the glance loses hold."
Second Draft
"A full winter sun lights the hills
and I have come on stage
among the silent of my own time.
A tinkle of music, laughter from the next block
turn human roads away from you;
I owe you my blackest silence.
I talk to you in fables and parables.
You howl, you weep, you swallow.
How vain the centuries of death before your hands
can sketch the wheel of time.
You have fallen from the nest
with foolish reverence—
a hope chest of words, of gestures, brought back, used, used up
with signals of despair.
Under winter suns
a dream dies every day
and slowly the glance loses hold."
First Draft
"A full winter sun lights the hills
and I have come on stage
among the silent of my own time.
A tinkle of music, laughter from the next block
turn human roads away from you;
I owe you my blackest silence.
Your laugh unlocks doors for me.
I talk to you in fables and parables,
read you the soft verses of antiquity—
you howl, you weep, you swallow.
How vain the centuries of death before your hands
can sketch the wheel of time.
You have fallen from the nest
with foolish reverence—
a hope chest of words, of gestures, brought back, used, used up
with signals of despair.
Under winter suns
a dream dies every day
and slowly the glance loses hold
on the frame of our captive condition."
A Cento taken from Against Forgetting Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness Edited by Carolyn Forché
