Time and the Poetries of Loss

I spent a good chunk of yesterday pondering the the coincidental nearness to me of a number of those who, seven years ago, perished when Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.  Those include a colleague, the brother of another colleague, and members of the flight crew whom I recognized from having flown to LA on that same flight several weeks earlier.  I also remembered a feeling I had on that terrible day in 2001 that no poetry could adequately express that loss.  To distract myself, I began to list all the poems I could think of that would contradict that overwhelming sense of poetry’s inadequacy, poems that I happened to encounter at singularly sad “points in time” whose enduring significance for me carries a particularly strong temporal charge.  I planned to post the list here.

Between then and now, I encountered a deeply moving example of such “coincidental” relationships to poems.  So I’ll pass on today’s planned post and refer you directly to  J.J. Cohen’s post for this 9/11.

H.D.: “Sea Rose”

SEA ROSE
Rose, harsh rose,
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf,

more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem–
you are caught in the drift.

Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.

can the spice rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?

–H.D. (b. 10 September 1886)

Siegfried Sassoon: “They”

THEY

The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back
‘They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought
‘In a just cause: they lead the last attack
‘On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought
‘New right to breed an honourable race,
‘They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.’

‘We’re none of us the same!’ the boys reply.
‘For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind;
‘Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die;
‘And Bert’s gone syphilitic: you’ll not find
‘A chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change.’
And the Bishop said: ‘The ways of God are strange!’

–Siegfried Sassoon (8 September 1886)

Image: Ruinas (Xul Solar, 1950) courtesy of Museo Xul Solar

A. R. Ammons: from “Ommateum”

from OMMATEUM
In the wind my rescue is
in whorls of it
      like winged tufts of dreams
bearing
   through the forms of nothingness
   the gyres and hurricane eyes
the seed safety
      of multiple origins

–A.R. Ammons

(from Canto 26)

Photo: Wind-blown shores by p medved

John Betjeman: “Back from Australia”

BACK FROM AUSTRALIA

Cocooned in Time, at this inhuman height,
The packaged food tastes neutrally of clay,
We never seem to catch the running day
But travel on in everlasting night
With all the chic accoutrements of flight:
Lotions and essences in neat array
And yet another plastic cup and tray.
“Thank you so much. Oh no, I’m quite all right”.

At home in Cornwall hurrying autumn skies
Leave Bray Hill barren, Stepper jutting bare,
And hold the moon above the sea-wet sand.
The very last of late September dies
In frosty silence and the hills declare
How vast the sky is, looked at from the land.

–John Betjeman (b. 28 August 1906)