A Death

With one weak word upon the pillow
The beached hull of his life is stranded
And, striking rock, stove in;
And we see from the sorry mast a one
White bird with mourning tips
Fling up into the sky over the sea
And beat for deep water, dwindling into the sun.

So now begins the doing and the undoing.
For now I forget this death; I walk in the park
Among the feet and crocuses
And the red withes whipping February
And the mallards’ armada breasting the cold venture.
Little stirring. My striding shadow is stilted
In a pale low beam slanting from over Belgravia.
He would not have approved of such civilized behavior.

He would have cursed the cause and driven his fist
Deep into Abraham’s bosom and wept and ranted
A full two days had it been I
Whose foot upon that further shore was planted.
I lack generosity, or at least the high
First clamor of feeling—though later slow
Pressures of mounting sorrow grow past bearing
And deep in the well I feel my fibres tearing.

Not now—but mercifully stunned,
Drift from the pleasure ground, and over
The ring-road carefully inspect
The lit aquaria of the gay boutiques:
Fond hats with feathers, emerald glasses,
Pert Meissen milkmaids, redingotes for Pekes
In improbable tartans. So the morning passes,
As I often passed it but never so with him.
These were not tastes for which he found the time.

The fact about death, the fact about death
Is the subtraction of all those tomorrows,
The things I shall think and think to tell him of
Then catch my breath in silence. Sorrows
Are like old scars that grieve in every thunder—
And yet I bear it and go on steady feet
For all the black axe centered in my back.
I am split asunder,
And yet I am hungry and hurry to my hot meat.