Poetry plug: "But How It Came From Earth"

[gorlim]

But How It Came From Earth
by Conrad Aiken

But how it came from earth this little white
this waxen edge this that is sharp and white
this that is mortal and bright the petals bent
and all so curved as if for lovers meant
and why the earth unfolded in its shape
as coldly as words from the warm mouth escape

Or what it is that makes the blood so speak
or what it was it wanted that made this
breath of curled air this hyacinth this word
this that is deeply seen profoundly heard
miracle of quick device
from fire and ice

Or why the snail puts out a horn to see
or the brave heart puts up a hand to take
or why the mind, as if to agonize,
will close, a century ahead, its eyes--
a hundred years put on the clock
its own mortality to mock--

Christ come, Confucius come, and tell us why
the mind delights before its death to die
embracing nothing as a lover might
in a terriffic ecstacy of night--
and tell us why the hyacinth is sprung
from the world's dull tongue.

Did death so dream of life, is this its dream?
Does the rock think of flowers in its sleep?
Then words and flowers are only thoughts of stone
unconscious of the joy it thinks upon;
and we ourselves are only the rock's words
stammered in a dark dream of men and birds.



[Jean Broc, 1801]