For Poetry Month
A neglected name amongst American Bards is Victor H. Anderson. His poetry would be related by scholars to that of George Sterling, Clark Ashton Smith, and other "California Symbolist" writers of the 1920s but Anderson was of a later generation and had a voice whose intimacy, passion, and occasional raw notes came from a life of hard struggle and fierce dedication to the Pagan splendours he witnessed in his visions with a beauty that belied his physical near-blindness.
Last night I received in the mail Anderson's posthumously published collection, Lilith's Garden. And this morning on the train I read this poem which touched me so strangely it felt like a page from my own lived experience:
Mother, Do You Remember?
by Victor H. Anderson
Mother, do you remember long ago,
When I was still your baby, how one night
You bent and whispered, "Dear, I love you so,"
Then suddenly the moon rose huge and white,
And in your face I saw the silver brow
Of Her men loved when Eve was but a dream,
No yesterday, tomorrow, only now--
And you seemed real, transfigured in the gleam?
You knelt and something in the sky gave way
To let the great round pointed truth of love
Lie fragrant on the lips too young to pray,
One timeless moment, then retreat above.
I bless the moonlit memory of you
When Heaven bowed and part of Her fell through.
Happy Full Moon, everybody.
Last night I received in the mail Anderson's posthumously published collection, Lilith's Garden. And this morning on the train I read this poem which touched me so strangely it felt like a page from my own lived experience:
Mother, Do You Remember?
by Victor H. Anderson
Mother, do you remember long ago,
When I was still your baby, how one night
You bent and whispered, "Dear, I love you so,"
Then suddenly the moon rose huge and white,
And in your face I saw the silver brow
Of Her men loved when Eve was but a dream,
No yesterday, tomorrow, only now--
And you seemed real, transfigured in the gleam?
You knelt and something in the sky gave way
To let the great round pointed truth of love
Lie fragrant on the lips too young to pray,
One timeless moment, then retreat above.
I bless the moonlit memory of you
When Heaven bowed and part of Her fell through.
Happy Full Moon, everybody.