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Tuesday 10 July 2012

The Hare


Look over the edge where the ocean churns
then over again, where the cold earth burns,
but wherever you look, and whatever runs there
good and evil are shaped like a hare,
configured for you at the time of your birth
and always abroad and at work on the earth.

And all that is there, that is left of the world,
all that a man can expect of the world:
all that the world has failed to forgive,
every promise it's made, every prayer we've prayed,
all art, all music, all poetry lives
in the breath and warmth and flight of the hare.

9 comments:

Brian Miller said...

all poetry does live there....like the tight rhyme scheme of the first stanza, unraveling a bit in the second...in the form of a hare...there are several possibilities for metaphor there and i am glad you dont pick a definition for us but leave it open to us...

Mary said...

Good and evil follow a person through life...and all art, music, and writing springs forth from a person perhaps, in part, due to whatever combination of goods and evils one draws.

Dave King said...

Brian
Thanks for this, and yes, you are correct: I did intend to loosen things a bit in the second stanza, but probably let it unravel more than was good for it. I then made the situation worse by introducing last minute changes when posting. Thanks for saying, the confirmation helps.

Mary
Exactly. I think you have it there! Thanks.

kaykuala said...

Dave,
The first stanza described the vagaries of the weather moving. There's a lot of movements apparently, mysterious movements!

Hank

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

I really enjoyed the metaphysical intensity of this poem..and I feel exactly that about the hare!

And once more I sense some William Blake's breath in the background.

Gerry Snape said...

all over the world the hare is symbol of life and death and mystery...my recent experience thrilled me when one ran so close to where I was standing.

JeannetteLS said...

why is that so often I must read your poetry aloud to truly experience it? I like the loosening of the scheme when I read it aloud--it builds the intensity for me. But perhaps it's my attachment to sound as well as sight--and your poetry is usually tightly enough conceived for me that using both drives it home.

Does that make sense? Saying "I really LIKED this" doesn't quite say anything profound, I know. Yet I did. It raced true.

Anonymous said...

It certainly goes by fast! I wish we could be more like the tortoise! Well done. k.

Dave King said...

Hank
There certainly have been lately! Thanks for.

Tommaso
All these literary antecedents are going to my head - but don't let that put you off! Thanks Tommaso.

Gerry
Ah, the garden! Yes, a beautiful post you made of it. Very moving.

JeanetteLS
It does make sense, yes. Rather flattering sense, but I do thank you for your remarks. Very sincerely.

manicddaily
Ah, now you're talking! Thanks for this.