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Some sections were
published in Leviathan 6, 2002,
the whole sequence - 33
sections - in The Republic of
Letters
(Boston, USA, 2003, ISBN
1-59264-036-2)
All Saints
Elegies
(two sections)
“Loving is good too, for love is hard” -
Rilke
I thought, if I
arrange the musical instruments
in order in the
field
the angels will
come and play them,
and the angels
did come and they
kicked the
instruments and trod them
into the
ground,
and they threw
the instruments
into the bog,
and they snapped the instruments
in pieces as if
they were branches for a fire,
and the fire
almost woke me,
almost brought
me back
to begin
again.
5
I thought, I
will do the work of angels,
I will hold the
pen, they will do the work,
and they came
and stood around
and told loud
obscene jokes and spoke in
whispers
when I most
wanted to hear clearly,
and they ran
around in circles
making fun of
me. I stood my shaking ground,
the pen ready in
my hand.
I
thought,
if I am ready,
they will do the rest,
I told myself
this and if I didn’t believe it
whose fault was
that? I gave the angels so
readily
their
opportunity, I waited with my pen
ready,
and they laughed
at me, they kicked dust
that looked like
words
into my
notebook. I was I knew then
their plaything.
A song was all I'd wanted,
the angels have
so many, they could have (look at
me)
spared me one, I
waited with obvious longing, my
pen
and my voice
ready, I thought readiness
(what it really
means, really)
was what they
wanted of me.
David
Hart
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