Ninety-Four
I look
to see if she's
still in there —
but nothing doing.
What will it take
to bring us both
to life again?
Poems on the topic: grief
Poems on the topic “grief” on Poets.by.
84 Fujiwara no Kiyosuke Ason
If I long should live,
Then may present days
Be dear to me —
Just as past times, though filled with grief,
Gently return to mind.
One
Sleeves dripping
from my hike
through heavy
autumnal rains,
I find shelter
amid tall books:
drying my hands,
I find one, lifting it
down with care from
that high shelf:
prints, depicting
with love, hard
country lives —
sudden tears.
How to Read the Wind
My mother did not die of old age,
nor did any illness lay her low in bed.
Her worries for us, the fugitives,
broke her heart,
and one day she decided
to not breathe anymore.
Her last breath became wind,
and it’s blowing wild
on this November day,
whistling and singing to my ears,
sometimes as a lullaby,
other times a lament.
And very often the wind
says to me:
‘Why so late my son?’
Request
Hey, come out of death
and follow me, father,
back to my childhood,
where you must work
and hunt and drink
less and spend
time next to me,
being there a father,
talking to me kindly,
listening to my words,
being there a father.
Sympathy
While all of you are bringing milk and bread
And stroking me and saying I must rest,
Remembrance beats like black wings in my head,
And wolfish grief is clawing in my breast.
I know that you are kind, that you mean well,
And thanking you so quietly I seem
So comforted that you could never tell
I'm wondering why it is I do not scream.
Oh crucify me! Nail my hands and feet!
Strike in and turn the torture of a knife
Heart-deep to loose my blood and take my breath
Pain would be good and suffering seem sweet.
But keep your love for those who still love life.
And do not feed me who am starved to death.
The Unfaithful April
I saw a robin last year,
I heard him fill his throat
High in the trembling elm tree
With note on gallant note.
So splendidly his red breast
Went flashing in the dew,
I thought beneath his glad wings
His heart had broken through.
I hear the robin this year,
His voice is sweet and strong,
But I can not give him welcome
Nor listen to his song.
How can he bear the new leaves
Around his last year's nest?
How can he sing with old wounds
Still red upon his breast?
Threnody
I never have known anyone so proud,
So fierce for faith, so strong for nobleness.
I never heard you whine nor cry distress,
Nor saw you kneel nor knew your bright head bowed.
Dreams, Love and Laughter were a swift, white crowd
Of wings flashed upward from your loveliness,
You carried Truth, wore Honor as a dress
And wound yourself in Beauty like a cloud.
Surely this is not you who lies so low,
Smitten as others, yielding as they must
With abject hands and smooth, submissive head,
All fire and glory crumpled by one blow.
Bewildered and beaten and brought to dust,
This is not you, oh pitiful and dead!
For All the Grief
For all the grief I have given with words
May now a few clear flowers blow,
In the dust, and the heat, and the silence of birds,
Where the lonely go.
For the thing unsaid that heart asked of me
Be a dark, cool water calling--calling
To the footsore, benighted, solitary,
When the shadows are falling.
O, be beauty for all my blindness,
A moon in the air where the weary wend,
And dews burdened with loving-kindness
In the dark of the end.
Spring in War Time
I FEEL the Spring far off, far off,
The faint far scent of bud and leaf--
Oh how can Spring take heart to come
To a world in grief,
Deep grief?
The sun turns north, the days grow long,
Later the evening star grows bright--
How can the daylight linger on
For men to fight,
Still fight?
The grass is waking in the ground,
Soon it will rise and blow in waves--
How can it have the heart to sway
Over the graves,
New graves?
Under the boughs where lovers walked
Lessons
Unless I learn to ask no help
From any other soul but mine,
To seek no strength in waving reeds
Nor shade beneath a straggling pine;
Unless I learn to look at Grief
Unshrinking from her tear-blind eyes,
And take from Pleasure fearlessly
Whatever gifts will make me wise--
Unless I learn these things on earth,
Why was I ever given birth?
Never Again
Never again the music blown as brightly
Off of my heart as foam blown off a wave;
Never again the melody that lightly
Caressed my grief and healed the wounds it gave.
Never again--I hear my dark thoughts clashing
Sullen and blind as waves that beat a wall--
Age that is coming, summer that is going,
All I have lost or never found at all.
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
Or try: