Let It Be Read

Let it be read, be told, be sounded

Let the sound of your voice control my nerves and heartbeats

Let your face and lips absorb everything my eyes could see and follow

Let the story carry me to the land where I fear not to be jerked back to the life I have but own

Let there be darkness with a bit of shade of light  that you have become

Then the the selfish child in me — pardon me for the expression — should rest

In the vacancy that has been  cracked by the vibrating words of yours

Feeling the released gravity of my body, now you do cure

And falling into sleep that I can’t feel anymore

 

p.s. I needed to write this down immediately at the expense of a pause from The Book of Disquiet.

Filed under: poetry, night, reading, sleep

Up-Hill by Christina Rossetti

Since my previous poem is about traveling, naturally I can’t pretend it wasn’t inspired by one of my old-time favorites, Up-Hill by Christina Rossetti, which has this sort of unknown magic within that it makes me reread it over and over. In this poem, Rossetti adopts a simple strategy – conversation – between two men, one is full of doubts and questions, the other is a Mr. Know-It-All. The charm begins with the road winding up-hill all the way, and it ends with beds – the ultimate, universal symbol of comfort and death – that wait for all who seek and come.

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Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

Filed under: poetry, writers, Christina Rossetti, classics, death, peotry, reading, Writer, writing