Better Angels
Now when I went mad and Nathalie got cancer,
our love was not blessed. And the day we met,
in my insanity, that hurt a lot.
What good came of this? I don’t have an answer.
I still remember how our two hands wed:
that April of the soul. I still recall
how I was cut to pieces after all –
our letters and our parting. How I bled.
Edited:
Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and my TV
was showing Charlton Heston in Ben Hur.
Though he has won – though he has overcome –
the man is bitter till he is made new.
A vision at the end of this long film
calls to those better angels Lincoln knew –
though they could not protect him. And we mourn,
but that is how it is. Yet there are those
who wish to yield their turning heart to love.
They drift unmoored, but with fixed stars above,
like better angels swimming into view.
I still remember how our two hands wed:
that April of the soul. I still recall
our letters and our parting. How I bled.
It crushed my heart to pieces after all.
The perfect chord that stops time: harmony
to rope the spinning world. I sing Amein,
to end a prayer made straight amid the sea
of life on Earth. I hear it in the rain.
Better Angels
Hi John
It's the third and fourth stanza.
For me this is when the poem starts, and ends. Get it out there. It's authentic and grief-stricken.
Don't bother with the preamble.
Tony
It's the third and fourth stanza.
For me this is when the poem starts, and ends. Get it out there. It's authentic and grief-stricken.
Don't bother with the preamble.
Tony
Counting the beats,
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Robert Graves
Counting the slow heart beats,
The bleeding to death of time in slow heart beats,
Wakeful they lie.
Robert Graves