Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LONELINESS, by VIRGINIA LEWIS CARPENTER



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LONELINESS, by                    
First Line: The slight chill sharpens
Last Line: The slow chill sharpens.
Subject(s): Solitude; Loneliness


The slight chill sharpens,
The air is blurred,
Drugged with silence
Numb with thought of the nearing winter;
The afternoon loiters, lingers and dreams
Dully of nothing.

Through the silence
Wires hum faintly;
Idly heeding, the ear
Reluctantly rousing, marks
Far and strange in the air
Blending with the wires yet separate,
A larger humming.

The sound of a distant plane
Driving from east to west
Steadily with neither swerve nor faltering
Above the earth.

And with it men,
Unknown, invisible,
Upheld securely;
The air living against their faces
Cold with strength,
The sun still high;
Men with seeking thoughts that fly ahead
Outstripping the plane.

The sound of the motor,
Disembodied, like air itself made audible
Fades to a pulse-beat,
A singing in the ears,
Ceases.

The wires hum through the silence
In the small vacuum of this close walled space;
The sun sinks,
The light blurs, silently darkening;
In the empty air
The slow chill sharpens.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...



Home: PoetryExplorer.net