Dark August
So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky
of this black August. My sister, the sun,
broods in her yellow room and won’t come out.
Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume
like a kettle, rivers overrun; still,
she will not rise and turn off the rain.
She is in her room, fondling old things,
my poems, turning her album. Even if thunder falls
like a crash of plates from the sky,
she does not come out.
Don’t you know I love you but am hopeless
at fixing the rain ? But I am learning slowly
to love the dark days, the steaming hills,
the air with gossiping mosquitoes,
and to sip the medicine of bitterness,
so that when you emerge, my sister,
parting the beads of the rain,
with your forehead of flowers and eyes of forgiveness,
all will not be as it was, but it will be true
(you see they will not let me love
as I want), because, my sister, then
I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones,
The black rain, the white hills, when once
I loved only my happiness and you.
To be able to write like that! Brilliant.
(in second to last verse “with” should be “will”)
I know, isn’t he amazing?
Also, thanks for the catch on the typo!
Absolutely amazing.
Brilliant. I really like it, whereas normally blank verse simply doesn’t appeal to me.
Yeah, I really dig this one. I just had to share.
I really connected with this! I don’t know whereabouts you live, but down here in Georgia, we’ve been having the wettest, stormiest, mosquito-biting-est summer I’ve ever seen. Just! Stop! Raining! Your poem, however, made me stop and rethink my attitude. Maybe I should learn to love it too. 🙂
I lovelovelove the rain. The poet who wrote this, Derek Walcott was from St. Lucia, I think. But yeah, I really love this poem.