Adlestrop

by Edward Thomas

Yes, I remember Adlestrop --

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop -- only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire

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Spelling

-Margaret Atwood

My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.

I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.

A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
there is no either/or.
However.

I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.

Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.

A word after a word
after a word is power.

At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.

This is a metaphor.

How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word.

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The Power of Suicide

by Muriel Rukeyser, 1968
(on the departure of Sylvia Plath)

"The potflower on the windowsill says to me
In words that are green-edged red leaves:
Flower flower flower flower
Today for the sake of all the dead Burst into flower."

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Vexed

If I be vexed

Let my soul sing all the more,

Lost in a place of unknowing

When the stage around

Looses voice.

copyright melanie faith 2008

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Reflections of Eternity

In breezy thought I remember—

Remember that you are gone

But will remain,

Though seasons call you hence,

Our spirits stay the same.

In love’s ardor glance,

A silent glimpse is seen—

A view from heaven,

Passions filled,

A glimpse of cries sustained.

Knowledge sweeps over me then—

That in the spring of heaven’s

Kiss comes ageless wonder—

The freedom of innocent days

Long since taken somehow

Regained.

No remorse then,

Or even pain.

In such loss comes heavenly gain—

And I know it will not be

Long standing—

No, eternity is at our feet

And reality in our hearts.

This time, this place,

This sight

Is nothing but seeking air,

For upon that day we shall rise

And greet the dawn.

copyright melanie faith 2008

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