Monday 24 March 2008

henry reed

The Door and the Window

My love, you are timely come, let me lie by your heart.
For waking in the dark this morning, I woke to that mystery,
Which we can all wake to, at some dark time or another:
Waking to find the room not as I thought it was,
But the window further away, and the door in another direction.

This was not home, and you were far away,
And I woke sick, and held by another passion,
In the icy grip of a dead, tormenting flame,
Consumed by night, watched by the door and the window,
On a bed of stone, waiting for the day to bring you.

The window is sunlit now, the spring day sparkles beyond it,
The door has opened: and can you, at last beside me,
Drive under the day that frozen and faithless darkness
With its unseen torments flickering, which neither
The dearest look nor the longest kiss assuages?

3 comments:

Kubla Khan said...

Hi...I liked this poem.
ok....it is a great poem.
cheers

Marion McCready said...

I like this, esp the first stanza, the first line has a song of solomon feel about it and I like the disorientation of the door being in another direction.

can't get Kenneth White's Ballad of Kali Road out of my head, he read it so wonderfully!

swiss said...

more reed here
http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/home.html

t is also still in the thick of reading white and we'e keping an eye out towards the festival in case he's back