Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, KNOWLEDGE OF APRIL, by ALICE MONKS MEARS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

KNOWLEDGE OF APRIL, by                    
First Line: Whatever the delicate ear dissects tonight
Last Line: Knowledge of april.
Subject(s): Farewell; Love; Spring; Parting


Whatever the delicate ear dissects tonight
of April sound, of reeded growth, of water
chiming in narrow tunnels beside the white root,
of small drumming in the marsh,
its register is slight, is protective.
Here at the edge of spring night rocks
with vibrancies untaken by the ear.

The one tone

of the personal farewell releases
that black choir out of the dark: farewell, farewell,
O incomparable voice, face dearest
(farewell recurrent in dream, under prayer);
on all implausible shores, farewell, return to love.
Throbs the unmentionable feared farewell
that would be endless (still is the moment
of going endless) and moan
of the stunned brain wakening to try
the incessant syllables of no return.

And half-voice under is voice
where the word was stifled in earth,
swept off the mouth by flame, sucked into the cylinder
of water whirling, but spoken: farewell,
remember and farewell.
Heart caught in the bell-tower of this grief,
while the ominous change of bells is rung,
turns for escape, filled
with the vibration of each peal: farewell, farewell.

In the years when years were gardens
and seasons green-thumbed but lazy gardeners
letting the roses out of hand,
the lovers held always. No time beat in the pulse.
Through slow afternoons with the shadow
meaninglessly turning on the dial,
through moonlight ages to bird-fluting dawn,
they tried all parts, all costumes
of passion's fame and legend; in the script
quarreled, wept, parted, kissed, shaped
their leisure to a thousand loves.

Now love falls on the mind
as brief in substance as snow crystal on the wrist
to amaze with the intricate vanishing pattern,
and lovers are breathless
to trace of its symmetry a sign upon each other:
oh, quickly, for the moment of its being,
of our being is clipped, by the inevitable word,
fate or the word.
Time is only the wheeling movement
of the incredible wing or blade;
all that we touch is motion, substance is flight.
But look where the crystal fiery fixed its own design
behind the eyes, detailed it on the breastbone
to annul the farewell,
the quick, the sharp farewell, the farewell.

Air, who with sweet drink excel
to fill the invisible
thirst of every cell,
in your familiar presence let this lover
no treacherous element uncover.
Be clean, be fountain of pure space
in the remote or prisoned place.

Earth, farmer extravagant
in seed, in crop, in want,
mark, while you ceaselessly plant,
his rich body yet uncoveted.
Bid him godspeed. You keep the last bed,
dear host — press not your hospitality.
His destination's your locality.

Water, spring from the dry stretched hour
on hand and mouth. Restore.
Hold back your languid lust to deflower
the body, the skeleton to express.
Where you are salt and harborless
do not prevail in hell's intent
against the proud hull and instrument.

Fire, leap from the stone of cold to tend
the muscle's action, mend
with warmth the tattered sleep. Be friend.
Never in vanity of condition
play the genie-armed magician
nor evil surgeon with knife of flame.

The saint called you brother. Take that name.
April has no music to part lovers,
all that is new green turning lyrical
(the rest underfoot veined with delight and printed
with the imagined flower. ...)
even by night ignoring the dark currents of sorrow
to perceive, to urge with a rain-fingered love
growth cellular, minute and marvellous.
In the tenuous music the one phrase insists
that grief must suffice itself,
farewell must suffice itself;
the seed does not inherit grief or farewell
but affirms against the heart,
against the farewell, the grief, the continual farewell
the ear's particular, melodic
knowledge of April.





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