22 September.
Dear Sally and Ian!
So good to hear your dear voices! I really have nothing even remotely about
the present horror too new. I do have a sestina about my nephew Bryan's
murder.
Schuykill Safari, Philadelphia.
To get to the exhibit of swarming butterflies
my brother hurries us through a maze
museum of dinosaur bones. From a diorama lions
crouch near his wife and two daughters whose tears
we come to ease. Beyond plastic curtains, wings
of death's-head moths overshadow
our scared smiles as if shadows
target only sons, butterflies
who dry their wings,
who sip juice from bananas, rotting. Amazed
at how his son's flesh tears
in the lion's
jaws, my brother hums the old song: while the lion
sleeps, warriors cross moonlit shadows
of spears over the village. My brother drinks tears,
counting as he points to us wife, daughters, sister. Butterflies
weave us through a maze,
a morning cloak of scaly wings.
In glass cages, birds' wings
fight evening's betrayal when the lion
springs for the next kill. Amazing,
my brother says, He looks alive. Shadows
like bullets scar midnight, flying
over kids, sister, wife. His trembling hands tear
five ticket stubs in half. With stone tears
the game warden sprinkles wings
over us like feathers of crystal. No flight
here, where death claims the lion's
share of first fruits, and shadows
turn wild indigo into a maze
of missing sons. Canned growls do not amaze
my brother who knows the murder of his son tears
at other families. Caught in a shadowy
storm, hawks flutter to spill air off black wings
swooping over the lion's
back, arched as if he could fly
beyond amazement, beyond my brother tearing
shadows away as we escape the lion's
claws, the winged fragility of butterflies.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun,
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core,
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease
For summer has o’erbrimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies; while thy hook
Spares the next swathe and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook,
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them; thou hast thy music too –
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, norne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with atreble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
John Keats