Well,
well—here we are in April, so you know what’s coming. That’s right—30 days of
poems for National Poetry Month.
This
year, we’re in a strange place. Well, most of us are probably in familiar
places, but we’re here under strange circumstances as we attempt to flatten the
COVID19 curve by social distancing and staying the fuck home. Bandwidth is
straining under multiple streaming applications, home ovens are turning out
loaf after loaf of artisan bread, people are breaking out the silly hats for
video conferences.
And
that’s just my company.
To
start us off this month, I’m giving you “April Dusk”, by Irish poet Patrick
Kavanagh. It kind of sets the tone, I think. I don’t know whether the impending
calamity he’s anticipating in Europe is World War I or World War II; I suspect
the latter. Either way—as with our current situation—everything is uprooted and nothing will be the same
again.
“April
Dusk”
April dusk
It is tragic to be a poet now
And not a lover
Paradised under the mutest bough.
I look through my window and see
The ghost of life flitting bat-winged.
O I am as old as a sage can even be,
O I am as lonely as the first fool kinged.
The horse in his stall turns away
From the hay-filled manger, dreaming of grass
Soft and cool in hollows. Does he neigh
Jealousy-words for John MacGuigan's ass
That never was civilised in stall or trace.
An unmusical ploughboy whistles down the lane
Not worried at all about the fate of Europe.
While I sit here feeling the subtle pain
Of one whose Tree of God has been uprooted.
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