Few poems I like.
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.
An abandoned courtyard: an old tree:
A temple bell lying on its side:
The world I live in.
They win and we lose; we lose and they win.
Vines wrap around the rotting bones.
She knows he won’t come back from the army, but patches the clothes he left just in case.
I am about to scream madly in the office,
Especially when they bring more papers to pile higher
on my desk.