Friday, February 20, 2009

Poem for Rexroth's Daughter (please comment)



 
I'd been talking to Rexroth's daughter;
she's a friend of a friend of mine.
-
She said she saw me
way out in the far north west
reciting poems to the sea
where poems find their rest.
-
She saw a stormy headland
only a few stones high
but far it reached into the storm,
big waves playing with the sky.
-
From ancient graves the wind it blew
voices of sailors gone
and women screamed like gulls
an endless magic song…….
-
Above the clouds the snowy peaks
gave ‘Psyche!’ as the toast
and kneeling at her crystal font
uisge fuar  slaked our throats.
 
 
 
  
So from that empty corrie
was birthed a trickling song
which breathless through the forest
danced with me along.
-
She asked, ‘What were your poems,
intoned to the waves?’
But all that I could answer was,
‘Completely blown away.’
 
Gaelic:  uisge fuar  - water cold  uisge beatha - water of life - whisky
Greg Brown’s Rexroth’s Daughter poem  http://ag.arizona.edu/~steidl/GB/RexrothsDaughter.txt