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Contemplating violence to & from other humans last year I posted an excerpt from Insensibility by Wilfred Owen, plus links to material of or about him. [See October 2002 Archives; links repeated on April 21, 2003]

For this sombre year's Anzac Day, this poem is shorter, more personal, but just as strong emotionally. The last stanza particularly echoes some of the feelings of most grieving survivors.

Futility
Move him into the sun --
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds --
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, -- still warm, -- too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
-- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

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Labels: poetry

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 4/25/2003 09:58:00 pm