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POems for Ann
BE WITH ME, ANN
1964
Be with me, Ann, when yonder birch
Stands shivering in the autumn air.
Be with me when low-angled sun
No longer scatters morning dew,
When icy needles stab the grass.
Be with me yet when gray days darken
Sorrowing under snow-filled skies,
When I shall want for spark to keep
My winter hearth’s dim life aglow.
Be with me even in the spring
When from the Druid Oak is torn
The last brown-burnished, mummied leaf,
And Phoenix-like new life exurges.
Be with me Ann, be with me.
Stands shivering in the autumn air.
Be with me when low-angled sun
No longer scatters morning dew,
When icy needles stab the grass.
Be with me yet when gray days darken
Sorrowing under snow-filled skies,
When I shall want for spark to keep
My winter hearth’s dim life aglow.
Be with me even in the spring
When from the Druid Oak is torn
The last brown-burnished, mummied leaf,
And Phoenix-like new life exurges.
Be with me Ann, be with me.
TO ANN UPON THE BIRTH OF CATHERINE
1965
Our love is now the pulse of life:
Syncarnate in one common flesh
And beating single, full with life,
Our separate hearts are One.
Now do our quondam separate humors
Course consanguine through one vein;
Two living streams conjoined in flood,
One river starts to sea.
Adjusted, now, my varied tunes
To your rhythmic, soft, and steadfast beat;
And harmonized for One to sing
Our separate songs.
Syncarnate in one common flesh
And beating single, full with life,
Our separate hearts are One.
Now do our quondam separate humors
Course consanguine through one vein;
Two living streams conjoined in flood,
One river starts to sea.
Adjusted, now, my varied tunes
To your rhythmic, soft, and steadfast beat;
And harmonized for One to sing
Our separate songs.
TO ANN ON OUR FIRST ANNIVERSARY
1965
Twelve million breaths of air have passed
Our lips since passed the breath
That said you’d be my wedded wife
And scared me half to death.
Fifty-eight billion miles and more—
One trip around the sun--
A dizzy race it is we’ve run,
But hasn’t it been fun?
Our lips since passed the breath
That said you’d be my wedded wife
And scared me half to death.
Fifty-eight billion miles and more—
One trip around the sun--
A dizzy race it is we’ve run,
But hasn’t it been fun?
FROM
FRANK IN OHIO
TO
ANN IN NEW YORK
1983
A
The streetlight shines upon the cherry--
Inflorescent glory by the still, dark pond.
Cherry shadows fall on shadows,
Shadows that enshroud the shore
Whereon with voice too loud to sing
A peepers’ chorus shouts, “It’s spring!”
Falling petals of the plum
Whisper gently, “Spring has come,”
Echoing the morion breeze
That has pried them from the trees.
They lie, the flowers--
Or they are mistaken.
The blossoms lie--
Or some cruel joke
Has brought them out too soon.
The peepers all prevaricate--
Or else they cannot guess the truth:
Spring cannot come without you.
Z
The streetlight shines upon the cherry--
Inflorescent glory by the still, dark pond.
Cherry shadows fall on shadows,
Shadows that enshroud the shore
Whereon with voice too loud to sing
A peepers’ chorus shouts, “It’s spring!”
Falling petals of the plum
Whisper gently, “Spring has come,”
Echoing the morion breeze
That has pried them from the trees.
They lie, the flowers--
Or they are mistaken.
The blossoms lie--
Or some cruel joke
Has brought them out too soon.
The peepers all prevaricate--
Or else they cannot guess the truth:
Spring cannot come without you.
Z
WHEN THESE FLOWERS
ARE FADED
1983
When these flowers are faded
And their curled and velvet petals
Have incarnadined the table,
I shall come for you, my love.
We shall journey to a garden
Where for every falling flower-face
Another springs to take its place.
And their curled and velvet petals
Have incarnadined the table,
I shall come for you, my love.
We shall journey to a garden
Where for every falling flower-face
Another springs to take its place.
TO ANN ON OUR 30TH ANNIVERSARY
1994
Context for this poem is given
in Memoir 28
Where are they gone, those thirty years?
Where blow the leaves that blushed
On sassafras and maple boughs
Each autumn as our anniversaries marched
So briskly past the milestone cairns
Beside the unpaved path of time?
Where are they gone, the voices of our past,
The sounds of those we see no more?
Where are the songs and symphonies
That graced our lives and brought us breathless
To higher heights and greater goals?
In our collective memory still they pulse—
Echoing, resounding, sparkling, and reflecting,
Still shaping our perceptions and our thoughts.
We think together, and we know those thirty years
Still resonate in love we share—
Love that perdures and grows
As long as we shall live.
in Memoir 28
Where are they gone, those thirty years?
Where blow the leaves that blushed
On sassafras and maple boughs
Each autumn as our anniversaries marched
So briskly past the milestone cairns
Beside the unpaved path of time?
Where are they gone, the voices of our past,
The sounds of those we see no more?
Where are the songs and symphonies
That graced our lives and brought us breathless
To higher heights and greater goals?
In our collective memory still they pulse—
Echoing, resounding, sparkling, and reflecting,
Still shaping our perceptions and our thoughts.
We think together, and we know those thirty years
Still resonate in love we share—
Love that perdures and grows
As long as we shall live.
REQUEST TO ANN
December, 2012
The dedication poem in my “Red Books,”
read aloud to Ann at her un-birthday party,
less than a week before her death.
Let me go first into that night
Where all paths disappear
Into the silence of the stars
And naught remains to fear.
Go not before me to that void
Nor cast me back to grieve.
Stay with me 'til the hour when I'm
Coerced at last to leave.
read aloud to Ann at her un-birthday party,
less than a week before her death.
Let me go first into that night
Where all paths disappear
Into the silence of the stars
And naught remains to fear.
Go not before me to that void
Nor cast me back to grieve.
Stay with me 'til the hour when I'm
Coerced at last to leave.
A TOAST TO ANN
2013
I drink a toast to Ann Elizabeth Hunt Zindler--
Who was born on February 25th in 1935
And died on January 4th in 2013.
Let us drink a toast to the only woman I have ever loved,
The only woman I could ever love.
Let me drink in remembrance of the mind
That was my second self, my better me,
For 48 years, two months, and two weeks.
I toast the memory of the mother of my only child, Catherine,
Through whom a part of Ann’s being has flowed
Into my grandchildren, Michael, Steven, and Laura.
I drink a toast to my life-partner--
The soul with whom I’ve shared the spark of being,
The spark that briefly lit our lives as we have journeyed
Between the darkness that shrouds our infinite past
And the eternal darkness into which
The universe itself shall pass.
I drink to ANN, who drank to me so short a while ago,
When, for the last time, she came home.
I drink to the woman whose courage never faltered
As the last few grains of life
Dropped through the hourglass of destiny.
And last, I drink to my beloved Ann
Whose bravery to the end
It is my hope to equal
When the cup of my own existence
Has been emptied to the lees.
Who was born on February 25th in 1935
And died on January 4th in 2013.
Let us drink a toast to the only woman I have ever loved,
The only woman I could ever love.
Let me drink in remembrance of the mind
That was my second self, my better me,
For 48 years, two months, and two weeks.
I toast the memory of the mother of my only child, Catherine,
Through whom a part of Ann’s being has flowed
Into my grandchildren, Michael, Steven, and Laura.
I drink a toast to my life-partner--
The soul with whom I’ve shared the spark of being,
The spark that briefly lit our lives as we have journeyed
Between the darkness that shrouds our infinite past
And the eternal darkness into which
The universe itself shall pass.
I drink to ANN, who drank to me so short a while ago,
When, for the last time, she came home.
I drink to the woman whose courage never faltered
As the last few grains of life
Dropped through the hourglass of destiny.
And last, I drink to my beloved Ann
Whose bravery to the end
It is my hope to equal
When the cup of my own existence
Has been emptied to the lees.
I DREAM OF ANN
2014
In dreams now do you come to me
And slip into my sleeping mind.
Some fourteen months now you’ve been gone,
Yet ne’er in dreams do we recall
The agony of that last hour--
It’s like you’ve not been gone at all!
You’re younger now than when you left,
And I am younger in my dreams
Than when I wake and touch the place
Where night by night you slept with me.
In dreams yet do we strive as one
To climb each hill, to ford each stream,
To find our way through tangled banks.
But no adventure finds its end,
No goal’s attained before I wake.
Now I alone can reach the peak;
You fade before the summit’s reached--
I grasp at mist to pull you up
But you are lost to me.
Now I alone can ford the streams--
For even gentle currents sweep
You far from my once strong embrace,
Around the bend and out of sight.
The tangled bank through which we wend
Our struggling feet and grasping hands
Soon hides you from my weeping eyes.
I stumble on, directionless,
And know not where to go.
And slip into my sleeping mind.
Some fourteen months now you’ve been gone,
Yet ne’er in dreams do we recall
The agony of that last hour--
It’s like you’ve not been gone at all!
You’re younger now than when you left,
And I am younger in my dreams
Than when I wake and touch the place
Where night by night you slept with me.
In dreams yet do we strive as one
To climb each hill, to ford each stream,
To find our way through tangled banks.
But no adventure finds its end,
No goal’s attained before I wake.
Now I alone can reach the peak;
You fade before the summit’s reached--
I grasp at mist to pull you up
But you are lost to me.
Now I alone can ford the streams--
For even gentle currents sweep
You far from my once strong embrace,
Around the bend and out of sight.
The tangled bank through which we wend
Our struggling feet and grasping hands
Soon hides you from my weeping eyes.
I stumble on, directionless,
And know not where to go.
WAKE THE HARP
2014
(A poem written in my sleep about a year after Ann died)
Wake the harp from silent slumber,
Break forth tones of gold and umber!
Blow the bugle, toll the bell,
Start the march and sound the knell!
Dig the grave, let joy depart;
Shatter all my dreams and heart.
Lay my love on lilies soft,
Let my grief be borne aloft.
Mourn my loss through time and space,
Always, always guard this place.
Let the sad world know one thing:
Ne’er again shall this voice sing.
Wake the harp from silent slumber,
Break forth tones of gold and umber!
Blow the bugle, toll the bell,
Start the march and sound the knell!
Dig the grave, let joy depart;
Shatter all my dreams and heart.
Lay my love on lilies soft,
Let my grief be borne aloft.
Mourn my loss through time and space,
Always, always guard this place.
Let the sad world know one thing:
Ne’er again shall this voice sing.
MY SUMMER'S FLOWER
Now is my leaden season come
With leaden days, this leaden hour.
Now is my heavy tongue grown numb,
Inept to mourn my summer’s flower--
My flower who, from years to year,
Transmuted leaden days to gold,
Beamed summer’s sun to autumn’s sphere,
Warmed winter’s wold, as we grew old.
Now do the leaden days unfold,
The gold is gone, my flower’s flown;
The days grow short, and I’m grown old
And wander reft of love’s lodestone.
With leaden days, this leaden hour.
Now is my heavy tongue grown numb,
Inept to mourn my summer’s flower--
My flower who, from years to year,
Transmuted leaden days to gold,
Beamed summer’s sun to autumn’s sphere,
Warmed winter’s wold, as we grew old.
Now do the leaden days unfold,
The gold is gone, my flower’s flown;
The days grow short, and I’m grown old
And wander reft of love’s lodestone.
HOW LONG?
How long will I without you go?
Shall I endure until the snow
Has covered every flower’s grave,
’Til deathless darkness floods the cave
That is my heart, my emptied soul?
How once again can I make whole
The unity now cleft in twain--
Two minds that fueled a common brain?
How long will I without you feel
The sting of memories that steal
Into each passing earthly pleasure
Demanding I give up my treasure—
The sum of all we loved and cared,
Of all for which we strove and dared?
How long, how long, how long must I
Resist the nighthawk’s siren cry,
Delay my journey into night,
Endure this agony of light?
How long yet must I tread the sand
Before set free to cross the strand
That bounds Time’s ocean deep and dark
Where glows no spark, exults no lark?
What feebled joys, what bankrupt bliss
Must I endure since our last kiss?
Joy is only joy when shared
With other souls by Fate ensnared,
With one whose mind with mine once twined,
With one who’s in my heart enshrined.
How long must I without you sow
Dry tears that into nothings grow?
Shall I endure until the snow
Has covered every flower’s grave,
’Til deathless darkness floods the cave
That is my heart, my emptied soul?
How once again can I make whole
The unity now cleft in twain--
Two minds that fueled a common brain?
How long will I without you feel
The sting of memories that steal
Into each passing earthly pleasure
Demanding I give up my treasure—
The sum of all we loved and cared,
Of all for which we strove and dared?
How long, how long, how long must I
Resist the nighthawk’s siren cry,
Delay my journey into night,
Endure this agony of light?
How long yet must I tread the sand
Before set free to cross the strand
That bounds Time’s ocean deep and dark
Where glows no spark, exults no lark?
What feebled joys, what bankrupt bliss
Must I endure since our last kiss?
Joy is only joy when shared
With other souls by Fate ensnared,
With one whose mind with mine once twined,
With one who’s in my heart enshrined.
How long must I without you sow
Dry tears that into nothings grow?