lumpy-pudding: If It Were Not for You Liebe, meine liebe, I had not hoped to be so poor          The night winds reach like the blind breath of the world in a rhythm without mind, gusting and beating as if to destroy us, battering our poverty and all the land’s flat and cold and dark under iron snow           the dog leaps in the wind barking, maddened with winter, and his voice claps again and again down the valley like tatters of revolutionary pennants                                                  birches cry and hemlocks by the brook stand hunched and downcast with their hands in their pockets Liebe, the world is wild and without intention           how far this might be from the night of Christmas if it were not for you. Down the reaching wind shrieks of starlight bear broken messages among mountains where shadows plunge                                          yet our brightness is unwavering               Kennst du das land wo die zitronen blühn, im dunkeln laub die goldorangen … liebe art thou singing It is a question partly of the tree with our stars and partly of your radiance brought from the land where legends flower to this land but more than these our bright poverty is a house in the wind and a light on the mountain Liebe, our light rekindled in this remoteness from the other land, in this dark of the blue mountain where only the winds gather     is what we are for the time that we are     what we know for the time that we know How gravely and sweetly the poor touch in the dark. —Hayden Carruth, from Collected Shorter Poems 1946-1991 (Copper Canyon Press, 1992) Photograph: Jane Singer, n.d.

lumpy-pudding:

If It Were Not for You

Liebe, meine liebe, I had not hoped
to be so poor

          The night winds reach
like the blind breath of the world
in a rhythm without mind, gusting and beating
as if to destroy us, battering our poverty
and all the land’s flat and cold and dark
under iron snow

           the dog leaps in the wind
barking, maddened with winter, and his voice
claps again and again down the valley
like tatters of revolutionary pennants
                                                  birches
cry and hemlocks by the brook
stand hunched and downcast with their hands
in their pockets

Liebe, the world is wild
and without intention

           how far
this might be from the night of Christmas
if it were not for you.

Down the reaching wind
shrieks of starlight bear broken messages
among mountains where shadows plunge
                                          yet our brightness
is unwavering
               Kennst du das land
wo die zitronen blühn, im dunkeln laub
die goldorangen … liebe
art thou singing

It is a question partly
of the tree with our stars and partly
of your radiance brought from the land
where legends flower to this land
but more than these our bright poverty
is a house in the wind and a light
on the mountain

Liebe, our light rekindled
in this remoteness from the other land,
in this dark of the blue mountain where only
the winds gather
     is what we are for the time that we are
     what we know for the time that we know

How gravely and sweetly the poor touch in the dark.

—Hayden Carruth, from Collected Shorter Poems 1946-1991 (Copper Canyon Press, 1992)

Photograph: Jane Singer, n.d.

(via apoetreflects)