The Unforeseen
Lord never grant me what I ask for.
The unforeseen delights me, what comes down
from your fair stairs; let life
deal out before me all at once the cards
against which I must play. I want the shock
of going silently along my dark street,
feeling that I am tapped upon the shoulder,
turning about, and seeing the face of adventure.
I do not want to know where and how
I shall meet death. Caught unaware,
may my soul learn at the turn of a corner
that one step back it stilled lived.
By Conrado Nale Roxlo (Argentina, 1898 -?)
I have been rethinking Frost lately and going back through the collected poems, and falling for a lot of poems that never caught my ear and eye before. This is one of them, and it makes a nice companion to Roxlo's. I'd go so far as to say the close reminds me of Rilke.Lost In Heaven
The clouds, the source of rain, one stormy night
Offered an opening to the source of dew ;
Which I accepted with impatient sight,
Looking for my old skymarks in the blue.
But stars were scarce in that part of the sky,
And no two were of the same constellation —-
No one was bright enough to identify ;
So 'twas with not ungrateful consternation,
Seeing myself well lost once more, I sighed,
"Where, where in Heaven am I? But don't tell me
Oh, opening clouds, by opening on me wide.
Let's let my heavenly lostness overwhelm me.
3 comments:
Rilke-esque indeed.
"Let's let my heavenly lostness overwhelm me."
This makes me think about DNA testing for certain diseases--huntington's, breast cancer--and the fact that you can learn that, barring any unforseen events, you will contract a fatal illness. I've wondered why people would do that...and also wondered how they could not. And sad that we can even begin to make this choice at all, but yet how remarkable it is to live a life fully aware of the exact fact of one's own death. Which leads me to the Steve Jobs commencement speech which can be seen on YouTube. Check it out.
Every reader has his own Frost. As a teenager, I first came across Frost in the Pocket Book paperback, edited by Louis Untermeyer. Later, I read Randall Jarrell's essay in praise of Frost. Not a single poem that Jarrell mentioned had been included by Untermeyer.
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