|
SOMEWHAT AFTER EZRA POUND
What if at midnight in the black back yard,
peak of that pine is laced with a moon-snow cap?
And what if at midday,
a red ant’s off to her wars?
Not her forefoot will save you--
not her ruddy foot,
nor daggered helm,
nor click of martial carapace;
nor the night-green shags,
nor finery imported from the moon
will save
you, bent on a human business
that you have badly done
and still must do.
VETERIS VESTIGIA FLAMMAE
This morning’s warbler’s three descending notes
took your attention as they’d once before,
and thirty years were nothing and you fell,
the old pain quite renewed--and the old hate:
chewing itself, it fed you well.
How could
she pain you still?
“She wants to dance with you,” they said, and you,
only the latest project of her pity,
infatuate with hope, thought it was true.
Like a vagrant at a suburb window,
fumbling at the misted glass, you fell.
What did you see? For, neither beautiful
nor wise, she mastered you, not wanting to,
not wanting you.
But surely pain would tell:
she’d feel its weight and warp in you—such pain
on her account, she’d pity you again;
how could she put behind her so much pain?
No more. It is enough you fell.
Why should
she pain you still?
Aaron Evan Baker was born in Chicago, Illinois. He studied Ancient History at the University of Chicago, and has a Ph.D. in Classics from Brown University. He is an attorney and college teacher, and lives in Evanston, Illinois with his wife, Stephanie, and their daughter, Laura.
Email: Aaron Evan Baker
Return to Table of Contents
|
