Praise to the End!

 

I. Praise to the End! (1951)

1. Praise to the End!

(a) It’s dark in this wood, soft mocker. For whom have I swelled like a seed? What a bone-ache I have. Father of tensions, I’m down to my skin at last. It’s a great day for the mice. Prickle-me, tickle-me, close stems. Bumpkin, he can dance alone. Ooh, ooh, I’m a duke of eels.

(b) Arch my back, pretty-bones, I’m glad all over. Softly, softly, you’ll wake the clams. I’ll feed the ghost alone. Father, forgive my hands.

(c) Soothe me, great groans of underneath, I’m still waiting for a foot. The poke of the wind’s close, But I can’t go leaping alone. For you, my pond, Rocking with small fish, I’m another with only one nose: I’m all ready to whistle; I’m more than when I was born; I could say hello to things; I could talk to a snail; I see what sings! What sings?

2. (Untitled Section / Continued)

(a) The air, the air provides. Light fattens the rock. Let’s play before we forget!

(b) A wish! A wish! O lovely think, O white Way to another grace!— I see my heart in the seed; I breathe into a dream; And the ground cries: I’m crazed and graceless, A winter-flapping frog.

II. From "The Waking" (1953)

1. O, Thou Opening, O

(a) I’ll make it; but it may take me. The rat’s my phase. My left side’s tender. Read me the stream.

(b) Dazzle me, dizzy aphorist. Fling me a precept. I’m a draft sleeping by a stick; I’m lost in what I have.

(c) The depth calls to the height —Neither knows it. Those close to the ground —Only stay out of the wind.

(d) Thrum-thrum, who can be equal to ease? I’ve seen my father’s face before. I’ve been asleep in a bower of dead skin. It’s a piece of a prince I ate. This salt can’t warm a stone. These lazy ashes.

III. Individual Poem Excerpts & Stanzas

The Lost Son / The Flight

  • The stones were sharp, the wind came at my back; / Walked along the highway, mincing like a cat.

  • The Sun came out; The lake turned green; / Romped upon the goldy grass, aged thirteen.

  • The sky cracked open; The world I knew; / Lay like the cats do sniffing the dew.

  • I dreamt I was all bones; The dust slept in my sleeve; / Sweet Jesus tossed me back: I woke the sun with care.

Additional Notable Verses

"Deep in the belly of a thing to be. The Devil isn’t dead; he’s just away. Forgive me a minute, nymph. I’ll change the image, and my shoes. A true mole wanders like a worm."

"A fish jumps, shaking out flakes of moonlight. A single wave starts lightly and easily shoreward, wrinkling between reeds in shallower water, lifting a few twigs and floating leaves, then washing up over small stones."


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