National Poetry Month #6

 Rain, and were it not for the wisdom of experience, our Moonlit Campfire would be a cold gathering tonight. Instead, a few hardy souls huddle together beneath an old tarpaulin, white exhalations between sips of red, listen to plomps of raindrops on canvas, watch raindrop thorns rise on the nearby fishpond and listen to the hiss of raindrops on flaming wood. Thighs press against the thighs of near-strangers in ways that would raise eyebrows elsewhere. A couple who only met this evening, share a cup - either through an intimacy borne of ambiance, or because neither wants to lose their warmth by venturing away from the fire to find a cup of their own. The bottle of red feels icy, though the wine is strong and comforting.

By request, love poems that are not like last night's offering. However, you all know me, so don't be surprised...

The first poem, I love for its rhythm and gentle half-rhymes. When you read it (aloud, of course, and unhurriedly) from the words will emerge the image of woman walking and of gazelle. Peake loved Maeve and their tragic story makes this quite simple poem even more significant.

You walk unaware by Mervyn Peake

You walk unaware 
Of the slender gazelle
That moves as you move
And is one with the limbs
That you have.

You live unaware
Of the faint, the unearthly
Echo of hooves
That throughout your white streams
Of clear clay that I love

Are in flight as you turn
As you stand, as you move,
As you sleep, for the tender
Gazelle never rests
In your ivory grove.

..................................................

And these two brief poems. The first, for one here who would tease me for my love of Larkin. (See? he can be positive.) The other for its deeply personal significance; I think, prayerfully, it each night as we go to bed.

1952 - 1977 by Philip Larkin

In times when nothing stood

but worsened, or grew strange,

there was one constant good:

    she did not change.

from Simplicities of Summer by Randolf Stow

My peace is in this:

    that each nightfall must bring you back,

and the lamplight, under my eyes, die warm on your face,

that your voice must be the last sound I hear before sleeping,

and your breath, asleep, be what I hear if I wake.