William Carlos Williams in 1928
Posted on March 17, 2008
Filed Under Poetry |
I’ve always loved these lines from WCW’s “Descent of Winter,” which is a kind of daybook consisting of poems & sections of prose. Williams, a pediatrician, was also an acute observer of old age. Beyond that, I love the audacity of the shift between the two stanzas, leaving the reader to make the connections between the objectively rendered description of a burning rubbish pile & his description (less objective) of the old.
In the dead weeds a rubbish heap
aflame: the orange flames
stream horizontal, windblown
they parallel the ground
waving up and down
the flamepoints alternating
the body streaked with loops
and purple stains while
the pale smoke, above
steadily continues eastward–What chance have the old?
There are no duties for them
no places where they may sit
their knowledge is laughed at
they cannot see, they cannot hear.
A small bundle on the shoulders
weighs them down
one hand is put back under it
to hold it steady.
Their feet hurt, they are weak
they should not have to suffer
as younger people must and do
there should be a truce for them
Comments
2 Responses to “William Carlos Williams in 1928”
thanks for throwing up these williams’ stanzas. ed
i have a piece of mine that touches on some of this. ed
GAMBLING MUSIC FOR GARDEN PYRES
Adult lions, toy coaches, circus clowns wielding weed whackers
–all that plus shapely men and women acrobats in brief costumes–
brush me unconsciously the way I sense plants on a narrow path.
I can tell when a storm is coming because something brushes me
–this and a touch of difference in sound and fragrance in my nose–
disrupting even the low roar of crickets in this greenhouse of earth.
Such times I am a part of everything that lives even across species
as once when I saw a big bonfire of brush, leaves, exhausted plants
I heard the music of death that wind-whipped sang of my own life.
My friend Brad talks of poker’s intricacies as if a violin concerto’s
wild rides. Perhaps hears the nights of exhaustions a loving couple
experiences in the little deaths that soar cuddled as seraphim awing?
EDWARD MYCUE