my new year’s message this year is this quaint little ditty. i was writing out the fair copy this morning when i was interrupted not by a man from porlock but a mother-in-law from neuss bearing presents. so i had to finish it on a fresh sheet of paper which i then stuck together so you can see that the interruption came at a pertinent point:
for those who cannot decipher my writing:
endings & beginnings
(in a winter’s garden)
BEGIN with the word that comes first, like light
from a twilit winter’s garden, when soft rainfalls
drop on dewy, leaf-pocked grass, showering bright
like a sudden flow of MOMENTS through the calls
of a goosequilled V tooting past, this starry night…
*
I sometimes try to freeze TIME, so it stops
and in an INSTANT feel and think all blend
and merge within MOMENTS—consciousness drops
like heaven’s rainfall in a winter garden—
inconsummate, unbegun, word without END,
*
but now SOMETIMES I forget such somethings,
and in your love I’ve found SEASONS to care
about the here, NOW, not some perfected place where
there are no more ENDINGS and BEGINNINGS.
freddie o
viersen, 29-31 december 2013