I like it when we get to syntax. I believe that all poets sooner or later recognize syntax as one of the true friends or enemies:
How much do I have left of the loyalty to earth
Galway Kinnell
How much do I have left of the loyalty to earth,
which human shame, and dislike of our own lives,
and others' deaths that take part of us with them,
when we find out how we die: clinging and pleading,
or secretly relieved that it is all over,
or despising ourselves, knowing that death
is a punishment we deserve, or like an old dog,
off his feed, who suddenly is ravenous,
and eats the bowl clean, and the next day is a carcass.
There is an unfillableness in us--in some of us,
a longing for that blue-shaded black night
where the beloved dead, and all those others
who suffered and sang and were not defeated--
the one who hushed them by singing "Going Home"
when they lynched him on Bald Mountain,
the klezmer violinists who pressed bows
across strings until eyes, by near-starvation
enlarged, grew wet and sparkled--have gone.
Yet I know more than ever that here is the true place,
here where we sit together, out of the wind,
with a loaf of country bread, and tomatoes still warm
from the distant sun, and wine in glasses that are,
one for each of us, the upper bell of the glass
that will hold the last hour we have to live.
One could easily have done this:
How much do I have left of the loyalty to earth,
which human shame, and dislike of our own lives,
and others' deaths that take part of us with them,
wear out of us, as we go toward that moment
when we find out how we die: clinging and pleading,
or secretly relieved that it is all over,
or despising ourselves, knowing that death
is a punishment we deserve, or like an old dog,
off his feed, who suddenly is ravenous,
and eats the bowl clean, and the next day is a carcass.
There is an unfillableness in us--in some of us,
a longing for that blue-shaded black night
where the beloved dead, and all those others
who suffered and sang and were not defeated--
the one who hushed them by singing "Going Home"
when they lynched him on Bald Mountain,
the klezmer violinists who pressed bows
across strings until eyes, by near-starvation
enlarged, grew wet and sparkled--have gone.
Yet I know more than ever that here is the true place,
here where we sit together, out of the wind,
with a loaf of country bread, and tomatoes still warm
from the distant sun, and wine in glasses that are,
one for each of us, the upper bell of the glass
that will hold the last hour we have to live.
I did not realize it at the time I first read this, but a wineglass only truly becomes a bell the emptier it gets.
I am just a newcomer, but if I had some authority or clout, I would require each one of you to tell me how this poem should be cut. Of course the answer is how GK intended it to be cut. And years from now his disciples may be arguing how "right" was the way he chose to cut it. But for those of us in the fall or winter of life know, it doesn't matter how this poem was cut. The "conceit" will stand as a softly spoken monologue or dialogue, poet to poet or poet to everyman or everywoman.
For those who are not familiar with the original format of the poem, I will tell you if you will guess without trickery (ie, without already knowing the answer).
Roy
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