Happy Really Really Hot September Saturday!
I was looking for some back-to-school poems, and found instead two poems written during past Septembers about the coming of war.
I was already familiar with W. H. Auden's "September 1, 1939" -- it is often re-printed in the news when nations seem on the verge of hostilities. The poem is widely anthologized and taught, its seriousness a hefty lesson. With its evocative sky scrapers and New York City bars, many people turned to this poem after 9/11.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
But I didn't know Amy Lowell's "September, 1918" -- a small, disarmingly friendly poem evocative of autumn colors and little boys in the park. We have some of those things in Cupertino, where we do not have sky scrapers.
Some day there will be no war,
Then I shall take out this afternoon
And turn it in my fingers,
And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,
And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.
It is the end of Lowell's poem that pierces the heart.
For I have time for nothing
But the endeavour to balance myself
Upon a broken world.
This is not the position of a poet who feels her words, her small expressions of fear or outrage, can sway international events. This is the voice of an artist who fears for her own stability in the midst of chaos and tragedy.
I've written before that poets have a lot to say about war. As we watch, this September, and listen to our government debate what action might be taken in Syria, I hope more people than fewer will remember Auden's challenge, "We must love one another or die."
Next week, back-to-school poems, I promise. Today enjoy football games, crab-feeds, gardening, tennis, walking the dog, the flea market, your air conditioners and pools. Love one another and be well.
