AND THIS by ELMO RUSS

And this is what my life is: hope without
A reason ever to hope, holding love
Heavy with me, -- watching skies above
To hide my glance, -- seeking ways to rout
Recalling things, yet waiting for the kind
Word, as the fool waits for the fool,
Or wise men for the wise. A tangled spool
Of ugly thread . . . days come to be, nights blind
As bats and angered. This is what my life
Is, -- cold, tired children . . . lame and hungry hopes
Of mine have come to be. No one copes
With being lost so much as one the strife
Of waiting long, has reached. I have tired
And feel that soon no thing will be desired.

I have abandoned on my way so many
Things, and tried not to look back; and sung
The silence in me to a song. Among
My hopes and dreams there were a few that any
Would have dragged along; but I would reach
The highest ladder's final rung . . . a part
Of me had to be left with every start
To higher step. And I went far and each
Thing seemed a little less for giving all
For one. And, when I looked the long road back,
So steep, so dark, -- I found in me a lack
Of power to return. There was a wall
Of silence before each step, and part of me
Was dead there, sepulchred in a moaning tree.

I pierced the dark and saw, because with sight
I must see something, -- ropes of burning stars;
I drank of night's deep cup; I learned the laws
That men know not. I saw, alone, one night
All things must fail in time, and then I knew
Minds going forward burn their bridges after.
Then I felt my tears amidst my laughter.
I saw my life before me. Only few
Of many well-remembered, still, were standing
When I reached the hill-road's base. But I
In coming back had learned the reason why
So many fear their death. At the landing
To the crowd's return, I felt alone, --
I knew that nothing really was my own.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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