Willows were made by emotions
and firs were created by gods,
still white is the starlight of oceans
and a landscape established on nods.
And the willows are dreaming for ever
and the fir-trees are living their fates,
and the willows can never and never
turn into golden gates.
Too much is a dream for the willows,
honey too sweet for a bee,
happy man, you, lying in pillows
made by eternity.
June 1971
Be careful, darling, touch none
of those drunkards and wonderful sales.
Only do they as if sleeping for ever,
By planets, cold stars misled:
When awake they could only never
Know exactly their time-scheduled bed.
And you, old man, try your own childhood
all over once again,
enough you’ve been forest and wildwood,
great task and mammoth and brain.
Senility, I am your business
and your moment at childhood lost
and this second time you shall not miss this
at your life-moving, age-drinking cost.
There are slopes for old men and valleys
and for children hills to ascend
and again and again to all alleys
to remind of their meaning and end.
And the globe gets then running and rivers run,
Thought runs into touching and clinging
And out of the setting sun
Come children burning and singing.
4 February 1976
Once upon a time
an ancient word fell down,
first meant to be a thought,
then merely a nought
in need, in need of rime.
Weep, weep, my cloudy clown!
29 March 1973
Sure, the dream is now over:
was it or ever has been?
The sky falls lower and lower
as life on a grey-growing screen.
My days have now all-all-right ended,
what comes is a marvellous fun.
My heart has been finally mended
by thorns of a heart-touching none.
14 July 1971
and so it is: sincere greeting
and be it close or near or far
time but running darkness fleeting
and far away still lies my star
but never mind, as for tomorrow
and as for me I also pass
so take my faults and take my sorrow
and my parasole and bag and glass
for we must forth, yet flee the sun
don’t laugh, old straw, it’s not for fun
it’s for your sake it’s almost only
for all in swarms and those who lonely
yet heavy light still, heavy run
until gravities but seize and seize
and curve down vast eternities
wherever was it morn or prime
whoever said it horn or chime
or was it rhyme and sound and tune
ten thousand years and once too soon
Willows were made by emotions
and firs were created by gods,
still white is the starlight of oceans
and a landscape established on nods.
And the willows are dreaming for ever
and the fir-trees are living their fates,
and the willows can never and never
turn into golden gates.
Too much is a dream for the willows,
honey too sweet for a bee,
happy man, you, lying in pillows
made by eternity.
June 1971
Be careful, darling, touch none
of those drunkards and wonderful sales.
Only do they as if sleeping for ever,
By planets, cold stars misled:
When awake they could only never
Know exactly their time-scheduled bed.
And you, old man, try your own childhood
all over once again,
enough you’ve been forest and wildwood,
great task and mammoth and brain.
Senility, I am your business
and your moment at childhood lost
and this second time you shall not miss this
at your life-moving, age-drinking cost.
There are slopes for old men and valleys
and for children hills to ascend
and again and again to all alleys
to remind of their meaning and end.
And the globe gets then running and rivers run,
Thought runs into touching and clinging
And out of the setting sun
Come children burning and singing.
4 February 1976
Once upon a time
an ancient word fell down,
first meant to be a thought,
then merely a nought
in need, in need of rime.
Weep, weep, my cloudy clown!
29 March 1973
Sure, the dream is now over:
was it or ever has been?
The sky falls lower and lower
as life on a grey-growing screen.
My days have now all-all-right ended,
what comes is a marvellous fun.
My heart has been finally mended
by thorns of a heart-touching none.
14 July 1971
and so it is: sincere greeting
and be it close or near or far
time but running darkness fleeting
and far away still lies my star
but never mind, as for tomorrow
and as for me I also pass
so take my faults and take my sorrow
and my parasole and bag and glass
for we must forth, yet flee the sun
don’t laugh, old straw, it’s not for fun
it’s for your sake it’s almost only
for all in swarms and those who lonely
yet heavy light still, heavy run
until gravities but seize and seize
and curve down vast eternities
wherever was it morn or prime
whoever said it horn or chime
or was it rhyme and sound and tune
ten thousand years and once too soon