Altarwise by Owl-Light: The wind, one brilliant day, . . .

Where's that title from?

Altarwise by Owl-Light

I.

Altarwise by owl-light in the half-way house
The gentleman lay graveward with his furies;
Abaddon in the hangnail cracked from Adam,
And, from his fork, a dog among the fairies,
The atlas-eater with a jaw for news,
Bit out the mandrake with to-morrow's scream.
Then, penny-eyed, that gentleman of wounds,
Old cock from nowheres and the heaven's egg,
With bones unbuttoned to the half-way winds,
Hatched from the windy salvage on one leg,
Scraped at my cradle in a walking word
That night of time under the Christward shelter:
I am the long world's gentleman, he said,
And share my bed with Capricorn and Cancer.

-- Dylan Thomas

26 August 2008

The wind, one brilliant day, . . .

Here's a cool travel article that is also sort of about poetry--Antonio Machado's, to be specific.

Here's my favorite Machado poem:

The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

"In return for this jasmine odor,
I'd like all the odor of your roses."

"I have no roses; I have no flowers left now
in my garden . . . All are dead."

"Then I'll take the waters of the fountains,
and the yellow leaves and the dried-up petals."

The wind left. . . . I wept. I said to my soul:
"What have you done with the garden entrusted to you?"

(trans. Robert Bly)

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Where's that title from?

26 August 2008

The wind, one brilliant day, . . .

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