(After reading Quasimodo, and remembering Tennyson)
I've never heard the sea at night
sound light. Rather
it’s always a roar, a rhythmic
deep wild pulsing
over and over again.
And I remember standing
with you, just inside
our open door to listen,
or out in the starlit garden
(when you were still alive).
But now I live too far
from the sea and do not hear
its reassuring voice at night,
huge like the world’s heart-beat.
Nor, ever again, your voice.
American poet Dobby Gibson suggests that 'poems, like birthdays, are intensely serial'. This one of mine was inspired by, and is partly a reply to, Salvatore Quasimodo's 'The Sea Still Sounds' (from his Selected Poems, translated by A.S. Kline) see below. Quasimodo's piece, in turn, puts me in mind of Tennyson's 'Break, Break, Break' – although I have no evidence that Quasimodo was influenced by that poem, and indeed the thrust of his is rather different, not being elegaic.
The Sea Still Sounds
from Salvatore Quasimodo: Selected Poems, tr. A. S. Kline.
Even more so at night the sea still sounds,
Lightly, up and down, along the smooth sands.
Echo of an enclosed voice in the mind,
that returns in time; and also that
assiduous lament of the gulls; birds
perhaps of the summits that April
drives towards the plain; already
you are near to me in that voice;
and I wish there might yet come to you
from me, an echo of memory,
like this dark murmur of the sea.
I'm sharing this post at Poets and Storytellers United's Friday Writings #15: "After" Another.
"huge like the world’s heart-beat" Tender and wistful... I can relate
ReplyDeleteA beautiful poem of loss and sadness.
ReplyDeleteYour poem stirs so many emotions ~ it is poignant, sad, beautiful … memorable.
ReplyDeleteSo lovely, Rosemary. I think all of us who write literally absorb by osmosis words and phrases we read and savor until they become part of the pool of words that swirls in our brains! I once wrote a poem about a little wayside chapel, and long later found a poem in a vintage book of poetry so similar it stunned me. It was as if I'd channeled that poet of 100 years earlier!
ReplyDeleteSuch happenings make me think there is indeed a collective unconscious that we can all tap into.
DeleteThis poem of longing for things and people that we will never hear or see again touches my heart.
ReplyDeleteThis is heartachingly beautiful. The imagery feels so rich and real, like the most precious of memories.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful wordings, Rosemary.
ReplyDeleteDear Rosemary
ReplyDeleteI hope you are OK. Been watching the unfolding devastation in the Northern Rivers on the tele....Please take care. Thinking of you
Rall
Your style runs parallel to Quasimodo's. This tore at my heart in its beauty and longing.
ReplyDelete