Leaving you, hills, we were unaware Or only as sleepwalkers are aware Of a key turned in the heart, a letter Posted under the door of an empty house; Now Matapan and her forebodings Became an identity, a trial of conduct, Rolled and unrolled by the surges Like a chart, mapped by a star, With thistle and trefoil blowing, An end of everything known A beginning of water. Here sorrow and beauty shared Like time and place an eternal relation, Matapan … Here we learned that the lover Is contained by love, not containing, Matapan, Matapan: Here the lucky in summer Tied up their boats; a mile from land The cicada’s small machine came like a breath; Touching bottom saw their feet become Webbed and monstrous on the sandy floors. Here wind emptied the snowy caves: the brown Hands about the tiller unbuckled. Day lay like a mirror in the sun’s eye. Olives sleeping, rocks hanging, sea shining And under Arbutus the scriptural music Of a pipe beside a boy beside a bay Soliloquised in seven liquid quibbles.
What do You think about Collected Poems 1931-74 (2012)?
