Silet by Ezra Pound | Poems Rethabile Likes
Silet
by Ezra Pound
When I behold how black, immortal ink
Drips from my deathless pen - ah, well-away!
Why should we stop at all for what I think?
There is enough in what I chance to say.
It is enough that we once came together;
What is the use of setting it to rime?
When it is autumn do we get spring weather,
Or gather may of harsh northwindish time?
It is enough that we once came together;
What if the wind have turned against the rain?
It is enough that we once came together;
Time has seen this, and will not turn again;
And who are we, who know that last intent,
To plague to-morrow with a testament!
Drips from my deathless pen - ah, well-away!
Why should we stop at all for what I think?
There is enough in what I chance to say.
It is enough that we once came together;
What is the use of setting it to rime?
When it is autumn do we get spring weather,
Or gather may of harsh northwindish time?
It is enough that we once came together;
What if the wind have turned against the rain?
It is enough that we once came together;
Time has seen this, and will not turn again;
And who are we, who know that last intent,
To plague to-morrow with a testament!
Comments
I love Ezra Pound. I find just so much light in his poems, the tiny breakthroughs of light nourishing the solitary path. It's conscious, it's enlightening. I have taken as a poet, it nourishes the dream of the poem and its intensity, the poem's dense body. He is just so articulate, his thoughts like fireworks. The poem starts in my soul, before my mind, my brain, my heart. Perhaps it was like that for Ezra Pound too.
In the poem, a garden. The souls of the flowers brimming with light. And in the garden, the poet, spoilt for choice. Which flowers will the poet choose to decorate his house, his desk with? In the garden, memory, history, yesterday, today and tomorrow, light, light, maybe not so wordless after all. Maybe, in reality, flowers make poetic speeches all day long in the garden.
"Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!"
Rabindranath Tagore
“We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.”
Leonora Carrington