I'd like to be the old man I saw along the way: Seated in the sunlight He was crushing white pebbles Between his open knees. Nothing was asked of him But his lonely labor. When noon scorched the fields He ate his bread in the shade. In a ravine Hidden by foliage I know a forgotten quarry Where no path leads. Light enters furtively And the soft rain; Sometimes a single bird Questions the silence. It is an old wound, Narrow, crooked, deep, Forgotten even by the sky: Under the wayfaring tree and the thorns I'd like to live and die. I'd like to be the blindman At the church door: In the sonorous night He sings! He takes to himself The open air, that moves in him Like a pure breeze under vaults. For he is the fortunate jetsam Drawn from the gloomy stream, That no longer can roll him In its mire and its hate. I should like to have been The first soldier fallen On the first day of the war. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PURSUIT OF THE WORD by ROBERT FROST THE SLAVE TRADE: VIEW FROM THE MIDDLE PASSAGE by CLARENCE MAJOR ANCHORED TO THE INFINITE by EDWIN MARKHAM THE HEART'S RETURN by EDWIN MARKHAM JOHN WILKES BOOTH AT THE FARM (JANUARY 12, 1848) by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |