In Provence Gorni's got a lot of enemies who put down my songs as well. Yet I know I am the poet, the only one of my generation. When I sing mountains dance valleys & forests rejoice. I take up my harp & happy Zion's daughters form a circle. If I want I can wake up bones & make stones run like the Jordan. . . . . . . . . . When I die girls will lament me everyday & merchants make big deals in world-markets for bags of dirt from my grave, out of my coffin's planks others will carve amulets -- special for barren women. Someone will string harps & fiddles with my hair & the tunes will come, O lovely tunes sans strum or bow of human hand. Even my clothes -- revered -- anything that's touched my skin. But grind my bones to dust, I won't promote idolatry. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A THOUGHT by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES DESPAIR AND FEAR by EMILY DICKINSON THE MAD MAID'S SONG by ROBERT HERRICK THE LIVING TEMPLE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES SWITZERLAND by JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES POOR [OR, COCK] ROBIN by MOTHER GOOSE AN UNANSWERABLE APOLOGY FOR THE RICH by MARY BARBER |