Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SUITE TO FATHERS: 1, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SUITE TO FATHERS: 1, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I think that night's our balance
Last Line: Finding him as the bones of a fish in stone.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; Death; Fables; Fathers; Ghosts; Levertov, Denise (1923-1997); Love; Night; Supernatural; Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens; Dead, The; Allegories; Bedtime


I think that night's our balance,
our counterweight - a blind woman
we turn to for nothing but dark.

̺ ̺ ̺

In Val-Mont I see a slab of parchment,
a black quill pen in stone.
In a sculptor's garden
there was a head made from stone,
large as a room, the eyes neatly hooded
staring out with a crazed somnolence
fond of walled gardens.

̺ ̺ ̺

The countesses arch like cats in chateaux.
They wake up as countesses and usually sleep with counts.
Nevertheless he writes them painful letters,
thinking of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Gaspara Stampa.
With Kappus he calls forth the stone in the rose.

̺ ̺ ̺

In Egypt the dhows sweep the Nile
with ancient sails. I am in Egypt,
he thinks, this Baltic jew - it is hot,
how can I make bricks with no straw?
His own country rich with her food and slaughter,
fit only for sheep and generals.

̺ ̺ ̺

He thinks of the coffin of the East,
of the tiers of dead in Venice,
those countless singulars.
At lunch, the baked apple too sweet with kirsch
becomes the tongues of convent girls at gossip,
under the drum and shadow of pigeons
the girl at promenade has almond in her hair.

̺ ̺ ̺

From Duino, beneath the mist,
the green is so dark and green it cannot bear itself.
In the night, from black paper
I cut the silhouette of this exiled god,
finding him as the bones of a fish in stone.





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