A Letter
Lying in bed this morning, just a year
Since our first days, I was trying to assess --
Against my natural caution -- by desire
And how the fact outdid it, my happiness:
And finding the awkwardness of keeping clear
Numberless flamingo thoughts and memories,
My dear and dearest husband, in this kind
Of rambling letter, I'll disburse my mind.
Technical problems have always given me trouble:
A child stiff at the fiddle, my ear had praise
And my intention only; so, as was natural,
Coming to verse, I hid my lack of ease
By writing only as I thought myself able,
Escaped the crash of the bold by salt originalities.
This is one reason for writing far from one's heart;
A better is, that one fears it may be hurt.
By an inadequate style one fears to cheapen
Glory, and that it may be blurred if seen
Through the eye's used centre, not the new margin.
It is the hardest thing with love to burn
And write it down, for what was the real passion
Left to its own words will seem trivial and thin.
We can in making love look face to face:
In poetry, crooked, and with no embrace.
Tolstoy's hero found in his newborn child
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poem by Anne Barbara Ridler
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