I'd like to add one more poem to Rhina's thread. This one may not be as well known as some of the others, and it's one of my favorites. It appears in The Muse Strikes Back as a “reply” to George Herbert (currently my favorite male poet.) I think not many of us would venture to converse with Herbert in his own medium.
DIALOGUE
My friend George Herbert has been chiding me,
wielding his blend of wit and humor. He
who could have summoned patience to abide
a sword piercing his side
nevertheless
rebukes my thanklessness.
“Give thanks? To whom? For what?” I bridle, knowing
there have been cries like mine forever, going
backward through all our days. I find him still
in that small room pure will
keeps clean of doubt,
sweeping the world's dust out.
“Why, Love, who is our Father,” says my friend,
“whose word is our beginning and our end.
Such thanks are what we owe; Love's debt was paid
by covenant once made
there, on the cross.
Love found, all else is loss.”
Oh, to believe him right! But wrestling with
the difference between history and myth,
our short view down the barrel and the long
perspective of his song,
“Help me to go,”
I beg, “past what I know:
If I, who have three sons, shoot two, will one
on whimsy's lucky side kiss the warm gun
that spared him? I have brothers everywhere
beyond both luck and prayer.
Now for their sake
teach me what sense to make
of such a random love, such fatherhood.”
“Picture a grub who measures every good
by the half inch of soil he curls in. Now
picture, with man's eyes, how
acre by acre
Earth surrounds him. Maker
to creature of his making – grub or man
or angel – is so infinite a span!
Will the grub teach the farmer husbandry?
It is enough to be,
to tend this nest
and trust Love for the rest.”
“For your song's sake – not what you sing to prove -
I will give thanks.” The clock chimes, my hands move,
the books slips from my lap: alone, at night,
unanswered – but not quite,
who at sleep's edge
enjoy such privilege.
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Hybrid Mode
