{"id":3671,"date":"2009-03-06T07:49:11","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T12:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=3671"},"modified":"2009-03-05T18:17:35","modified_gmt":"2009-03-05T23:17:35","slug":"going-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/going-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Going; Gone."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

There will come soft rains<\/strong><\/p>\n

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
\nAnd swallows circling with their shimmering sound;<\/p>\n

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
\nAnd wild plum-trees in tremulous white;<\/p>\n

Robins will wear their feathery fire
\nWhistling their whims on a low fence-wire;<\/p>\n

And not one will know of the war, not one
\nWill care at last when it is done.<\/p>\n

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
\nIf mankind perished utterly;<\/p>\n

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
\nWould scarcely know that we were gone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Sara Teasdale)<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Snow Geese<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!
\nWhat a task<\/span>
\nto ask<\/span><\/p>\n

of anything, or anyone,<\/p>\n

yet it is ours,
\nand not by the century or the year, but by the hours.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Oliver)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>, but “Snow Geese” continues on as follows:<\/p>\n

One fall day I heard
\nabove me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound<\/span>
\nI did not know, and my look shot upward; it was<\/p>\n

a flock of snow geese, winging it
\nfaster than the ones we usually see,<\/span>
\nand, being the color of snow, catching the sun<\/p>\n

so they were, in part at least, golden. I<\/p>\n

held my breath
\nas we do
\nsometimes
\nto stop time
\nwhen something wonderful
\nhas touched us<\/p>\n

as with a match,
\nwhich is lit, and bright,
\nbut does not hurt
\nin the common way,<\/p>\n

but delightfully,
\nas if delight
\nwere the most serious thing
\nyou ever felt.<\/p>\n

The geese
\nflew on,
\nI have never
\nseen them again.<\/p>\n

Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.
\nMaybe I won’t.
\nIt doesn’t matter.
\nWhat matters
\nis that, when I saw them,
\nI saw them
\nas through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One more from whiskey river<\/em><\/a> (via The Querulous Squirrel<\/em><\/a>):<\/p>\n

Poem With Two Endings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Say “death” and the whole room freezes —
\neven the couches stop moving,
\neven the lamps.
\nLike a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.<\/p>\n

Say the word continuously,
\nand things begin to go forward.
\nYour life takes on
\nthe jerky texture of an old film strip.<\/p>\n

Continue saying it, hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,
\nit becomes another syllable.
\nA shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle.<\/p>\n

Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
\nLife is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
\nneither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,
\neach swallows and swallows the world.<\/p>\n

The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.<\/p>\n

(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jane Hirshfield)<\/p>\n

Finally, on a lighter note: a lithe, lean little barefoot-shuffle of a sermonette from Jack Johnson (lyrics below)…<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/div>\n

Lyrics:<\/p>\n

Gone<\/strong>
\nwords and music by Jack Johnson
\nperformance by Ben Harper and <\/em>Jack Johnson <\/em><\/p>\n

Well look at all those fancy clothes
\nBut these could keep us warm
\nJust like those.
\nAnd what about your soul
\nIs it cold
\nIs it straight from the mould
\nAnd ready to be sold.<\/p>\n

And cars and phones and diamond rings
\nBling, bling
\nThose are only removable things
\nAnd what about your mind
\nDoes it shine or
\nAre there things that concern you more
\nThan your time<\/p>\n

Gone going
\nGone everything
\nGone give a damn
\nGone be the birds when they don\u2019t want to sing
\nGone people
\nAll awkward with their things
\nGone<\/p>\n

Look at you out to make a deal
\nYou try to be appealing but you lose your appeal
\nAnd what about those shoes you\u2019re in today
\nThey\u2019ll do no good
\nOn the bridges you burnt along the way<\/p>\n

You\u2019re willing to sell anything
\nGone with your herd
\nLeave your footprints
\nAnd we\u2019ll shame them with our words<\/p>\n

Gone people
\nAll awkward with their things
\nGone<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From whiskey river: There will come soft rains There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum-trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-Xd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3671"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3689,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions\/3689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}