3.24.2022

impossible to think of you as past

But I do grieve, grieve still; 
a continent, an 
ocean and a year 
removed from you, I still 
find it impossible 
to think of you as past, 
 
and I know too well 
by now there'll never 
be anything like 
a persuasive 
reconciliation 
for your having gone. 
 
What there is instead 
is knowing that at least 
we had you for a time, 
and that we still have 
evidence of you, in 
your work and in the love 
 
which eternally 
informs the work, that 
one love which never ends. 
And to be able 
to tell oneself that once 
one knew a man wholly 
 
unsusceptible 
to triviality, 
bitterness or rancor, 
who'd fashioned himself 
with such dedication 
and integrity 
 
that he'd been released 
from those resentments 
and envies that can make 
the fullest life seem mean: 
your life was never mean, 
never not inspiring. 
            
A year, summer again, 
warm, my window open 
on the courtyard where 
for a good half hour 
an oboe has been 
practicing scales. Above 
 
the tangle of voices, 
clanging pans, a plumber's 
compressor hectically 
intensifying, 
it goes on and on, 
single-minded, patient 
 
and implacable, 
its tempo never 
faltering, always 
resolutely focused 
on the turn above, 
the turn below, 
 
goes on as the world 
goes on, and beauty, 
and the passion for it. 
Much of knowing you 
was knowing that, knowing 
that our consolations, 
 
if there are such things, 
dwell in our conviction 
that always somewhere 
painters will concoct 
their colors, poets sing, 
and a single oboe 
 
dutifully repeat 
its lesson, then repeat 
it again, serenely 
mounting and descending 
the stairway it itself 
unfurls before itself. 
 
[C.K. Williams {1936-2015} "4. Still (A year)", in 'Elegy for an Artist', in The Singing]

No comments:

Post a Comment