2014년 12월 29일 월요일

Poem of the Day: Absences

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Poetry FoundationPoem of the Day

12 / 29 / 2014

Poem of the Day: Absences

BY DONALD JUSTICE
It's snowing this afternoon and there are no flowers.
There is only this sound of falling, quiet and remote,
Like the memory of scales descending the white keys
Of a childhood piano—outside the window, palms!
And the heavy head of the cereus, inclining,
Soon to let down its white or yellow-white.

Now, only these poor snow-flowers in a heap,
Like the memory of a white dress cast down . . .
So much has fallen.
                                    And I, who have listened for a step
All afternoon, hear it now, but already falling away,
Already in memory. And the terrible scales descending
On the silent piano; the snow; and the absent flowers
      abounding.

Donald Justice, "Absences" from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2006 by Donald Justice. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Source: Collected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006)

DONALD JUSTICE


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