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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE WORLD OF THE PERFECT TEAR, by THOMAS MCGRATH Poet's Biography
First Line: Fire from a fixed star
Last Line: To raise the living up
Subject(s): Arks; Brothers; Death; Noah (bible); Stars; Half-brothers; Dead, The
First Line: Fire from a fixed star
Last Line: To raise the living up
Subject(s): Arks; Brothers; Death; Noah (bible); Stars; Half-brothers; Dead, The
Fire from a fixed star
Locates no place you are.
No warmth left in the air
Reminds that you were there.
Everything you were
Is canceled in the earth
And memory's single tear
Drowns all your footprints here.
Yet in that crystal sphere
All is reflected clear --
Though no one can stand tall
Where earth itself is small
And fire is cool and air
Thinner than breath. Still, there,
The elements prevail
Reduced in memory's scale.
Sad joke: to entomb you here
In the damp world of a tear --
Though we navigate that globe
With a Magellan love.
Still, more like the Flood, this drop --
Or dead man's Ark! -- will whirl
And whelm the dying world:
To raise the living up.
Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org
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