Stanley Kunitz

from Night Letter




My dear, is it too late for peace, too late

For men to gather at the wells to drink

The sweet water; too late for fellowship

And laughter at the forge; too late for us

To say, "Let us be good to one another"?

The lamps go singly out; the valley sleeps;

I tend the last light shining on the farms

And keep for you the thought of love alive,

As scholars dungeoned in an ignorant age

Tended the embers of the Trojan fire.

Cities shall suffer siege and some shall fall,

But man's not taken. What the deep heart means,

Its message of the big, round, childish hand,

Its wonder, its simple lonely cry,

The bloodied envelope addressed to you,

Is history, that wide and mortal pang.


- See: Memorium

:: note :: ... this was the first poet introduced to me via the internet ... above words seem like a perfect epitaph ... a wide & mortal pang in a simple lonely cry ...bye