Why do I linger in places like this? Perhaps this is why…
‘Teach me mortality, frighten me
into the present. Help me to find
the heft of these days.’
-Jack Gilbert
Another place that you can find mental and spiritual space for peace and reflection is the old Jewish cemetery, and so here I returned this morning.
…two great gods in a vault of starlight
Play ponderingly at chess; and at the game’s end
One of the pieces, shaken, falls to the floor
And runs to the darkest corner; and that piece
Forgotten there, left motionless, is I….
Say that I have no name, no gifts, no power,
Am only one of millions, mostly silent;
One who came with lips and hands and a heart,
Looked on beauty, and loved it, and then left it.
Say that the fates of time and space obscured me,
Led me a thousand ways to pain, bemused me,
Wrapped me in ugliness; and like great spiders
Dispatched me at their leisure…. Well, what then?
Should I not hear, as I lie down in dust,
The horns of glory blowing above my burial?
-Conrad Aiken from Tetelestai
…nothing human remains. You are
the earth and air; you are in the beauty of the ocean
And the great streaming triumphs of sundown; you are alive
and well in the tender grass rejoicing
When soft rain falls all night…
-Robinson Jeffers from Hungerfield