Poetry Selection
IF I HAD KNOWN
If I Had known
If I had known that morning you were born,
when I held you the first time as your mother slept,
that you’d grow so quickly, I’d have held you longer.
If I had known I’d only have a short time walking you to sleep,
your head on my shoulder,
I’d have walked you long past when you were dreaming.
If I had known we’d only have all those pancake Saturday mornings
for just that many years,
I’d have added another pancake day to our week.
If I had known I’d think so often of your Christmas train
that we set up and ran only three or so Christmases,
I would have kept it up all year.
If I had known your school years would fly,
I would have asked you more about your day,
Each night over our quiet dinners.
If I had known your high school would be a flash, then done,
I’d have listened more to you telling me about homeroom and marching band.
Those groceries weren’t that important.
If I had known your empty room now would be so haunted,
I would have sat there with you and read while you worked,
Me putting off grading those long-neglected papers.
If I had known your college years would seem like only a semester,
I’d have been there to visit more often,
Entering your fleeting world even as it flew by.
I can’t tell you how many times my chest tightens
when I think I made you walk the dog alone.
You asked, want to come, and I begged off.
I wish we could walk along with them again now.
The park around the corner without you and the dogs is too lonely.
If I had known you would move so far away,
I would have said things sooner, like how much I love you.
And how proud I am of you.
And how much I miss you.
If I had known half my heart would be in Sweden,
I’d have given you more of my heart to take with you.
If I had known that morning you were born,
when I held you the first time as your mother slept,
that you’d grow so quickly, I’d have held you longer.
If I had known I’d only have a short time walking you to sleep,
your head on my shoulder,
I’d have walked you long past when you were dreaming.
If I had known we’d only have all those pancake Saturday mornings
for just that many years,
I’d have added another pancake day to our week.
If I had known I’d think so often of your Christmas train
that we set up and ran only three or so Christmases,
I would have kept it up all year.
If I had known your school years would fly,
I would have asked you more about your day,
Each night over our quiet dinners.
If I had known your high school would be a flash, then done,
I’d have listened more to you telling me about homeroom and marching band.
Those groceries weren’t that important.
If I had known your empty room now would be so haunted,
I would have sat there with you and read while you worked,
Me putting off grading those long-neglected papers.
If I had known your college years would seem like only a semester,
I’d have been there to visit more often,
Entering your fleeting world even as it flew by.
I can’t tell you how many times my chest tightens
when I think I made you walk the dog alone.
You asked, want to come, and I begged off.
I wish we could walk along with them again now.
The park around the corner without you and the dogs is too lonely.
If I had known you would move so far away,
I would have said things sooner, like how much I love you.
And how proud I am of you.
And how much I miss you.
If I had known half my heart would be in Sweden,
I’d have given you more of my heart to take with you.
"Journey of the Magi" -- T. S. Eliot
"The Journey Of The Magi" by T. S. Eliot
'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kiking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kiking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
"At the Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres, May 2010"
“Never such innocence again”
“MCMXIV” Phillip Larkin
The boys rushed in, a coach load of twenty-odd German teens,
But they might have been American or British, French, or even Japanese.
Not remembering Verdun, the Canal, Shiloh, Waterloo, the Somme,
Believing in the same glory those callow recruits at Langemarck did.
Boys! Excited, giddy at an old machine gun and trench mortar.
Goofing around with the gas mask exhibit. Playing soldier.
Waiting to go over the top. Fingering a bayonet, a Mills bomb,
An empty chlorine cylinder dubbed “the Accessory” by the Royal Engineers.
One sat behind a Krump MG08 and did air-guitar
Actions with the .303 weapon across a pasture
At a line of khaki moving along the horizon,
Crumpling up each young Tommy in his turn.
How like the innocents their great-grandfathers were,
Triumph and victory only a frenzied advance away
Through mud and wire, gas and fire.
Then the tattering-tat-tat of a British Vickers and
The musketry of Enfields with precision drilled
Heard above the whine of a French 75
And down they all fell to become part of
This very spot, this muddy hell.
“MCMXIV” Phillip Larkin
The boys rushed in, a coach load of twenty-odd German teens,
But they might have been American or British, French, or even Japanese.
Not remembering Verdun, the Canal, Shiloh, Waterloo, the Somme,
Believing in the same glory those callow recruits at Langemarck did.
Boys! Excited, giddy at an old machine gun and trench mortar.
Goofing around with the gas mask exhibit. Playing soldier.
Waiting to go over the top. Fingering a bayonet, a Mills bomb,
An empty chlorine cylinder dubbed “the Accessory” by the Royal Engineers.
One sat behind a Krump MG08 and did air-guitar
Actions with the .303 weapon across a pasture
At a line of khaki moving along the horizon,
Crumpling up each young Tommy in his turn.
How like the innocents their great-grandfathers were,
Triumph and victory only a frenzied advance away
Through mud and wire, gas and fire.
Then the tattering-tat-tat of a British Vickers and
The musketry of Enfields with precision drilled
Heard above the whine of a French 75
And down they all fell to become part of
This very spot, this muddy hell.
"Oh, Mortal Columbia"
Oh, Mortal Columbia
“All farewells should be sudden, when forever,
Else they make an eternity of moments.” -Byron
Oh, mortal Columbia,
We stood in sunshine awaiting your astral return,
But downward you came, as a blazing meteor,
A fallen, streaking Mercury, broken, whose message
Was of sudden despair, not inspiring triumph.
We thought of you as Apollo, divine,
Impervious to human flaw.
Humbled, helpless we stood, watching your contrail
Proclaim your frailty that you alone had not forgotten;
Heard, felt, your blasting trumpet blare discordant.
Today, faced now with challenges unknown,
We look heavenward, harking the explorer’s call,
Casting off onto our endeavors necessary, perilous,
Else all your enterprising strides of discovery
Shall become as Atlantis, known only as myth.
Oh, mortal Columbia,
Gemini now as never before
With your ascending sister descended, Challenger,
With her, oh, mortal Columbia, immortal.
-James A. Zarzana
Oh, Mortal Columbia
“All farewells should be sudden, when forever,
Else they make an eternity of moments.” -Byron
Oh, mortal Columbia,
We stood in sunshine awaiting your astral return,
But downward you came, as a blazing meteor,
A fallen, streaking Mercury, broken, whose message
Was of sudden despair, not inspiring triumph.
We thought of you as Apollo, divine,
Impervious to human flaw.
Humbled, helpless we stood, watching your contrail
Proclaim your frailty that you alone had not forgotten;
Heard, felt, your blasting trumpet blare discordant.
Today, faced now with challenges unknown,
We look heavenward, harking the explorer’s call,
Casting off onto our endeavors necessary, perilous,
Else all your enterprising strides of discovery
Shall become as Atlantis, known only as myth.
Oh, mortal Columbia,
Gemini now as never before
With your ascending sister descended, Challenger,
With her, oh, mortal Columbia, immortal.
-James A. Zarzana
