Death Will Come and Will Have Your Eyes by Cesare Pavese

Death Will Come and Will Have Your Eyes

Death will come and will have your eyes—

this death that accompanies us

from morning till evening, unsleeping,

deaf, like an old remorse

or an absurd vice. Your eyes

will be a useless word,

a suppressed cry, a silence.

That’s what you see each morning

when alone with yourself you lean

toward the mirror. O precious hope,

that day we too will know

that you are life and you are nothingness.

Death has a look for everyone.

Death will come and will have your eyes.

It will be like renouncing a vice,

like seeing a dead face reappear in the mirror,

like listening to a lip that’s shut.

We’ll go down into the maelstrom mute.

(Translated by Geoffrey Brock)

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

What the Living Do

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. 

And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of. 

It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living room windows because the heat’s on too high in here, and I can’t turn it off. 

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those 

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. 

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want 

whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss — we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, 

say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:

I am living, I remember you.

An Adventure by Louise Glück

An Adventure

1.

It came to me one night as I was falling asleep

that I had finished with those amorous adventures

to which I had long been a slave. Finished with love?

my heart murmured. To which I responded that many profound discoveries

awaited us, hoping, at the same time, I would not be asked

to name them. For I could not name them. But the belief that they existed—

surely this counted for something?

 

2.

The next night brought the same thought,

this time concerning poetry, and in the nights that followed

various other passions and sensations were, in the same way,

set aside forever, and each night my heart

protested its future, like a small child being deprived of a favorite toy.

But these farewells, I said, are the way of things.

And once more I alluded to the vast territory

opening to us with each valediction. And with that phrase I became

a glorious knight riding into the setting sun, and my heart

became the steed underneath me.

 

3.

I was, you will understand, entering the kingdom of death,

though why this landscape was so conventional

I could not say. Here, too, the days were very long

while the years were very short. The sun sank over the far mountain.

The stars shone, the moon waxed and waned. Soon

faces from the past appeared to me:

my mother and father, my infant sister; they had not, it seemed,

finished what they had to say, though now

I could hear them because my heart was still.

 

4.

At this point, I attained the precipice

but the trail did not, I saw, descend on the other side;

rather, having flattened out, it continued at this altitude

as far as the eye could see, though gradually

the mountain that supported it completely dissolved

so that I found myself riding steadily through the air—

All around, the dead were cheering me on,

the joy of finding them obliterated

by the task of responding to them—

 

5.

As we had all been flesh together,

now we were mist.

As we had been before objects with shadows,

now we were substance without form, like evaporated chemicals.

Neigh, neigh, said my heart,

or perhaps nay, nay—it was hard to know.

 

6.

Here the vision ended. I was in my bed, the morning sun

contentedly rising, the feather comforter

mounded in white drifts over my lower body.

You had been with me—

there was a dent in the second pillowcase.

We had escaped from death—

or was this the view from the precipice? 

Country Fair by Charles Simić

Country Fair

If you didn't see the six-legged dog,

It doesn't matter.

We did, and he mostly lay in the corner.

As for the extra legs,

One got used to them quickly

And thought of other things.

Like, what a cold, dark night

To be out at the fair.

Then the keeper threw a stick

And the dog went after it

On four legs, the other two flapping behind,

Which made one girl shriek with laughter.

She was drunk and so was the man

Who kept kissing her neck.

The dog got the stick and looked back at us.

And that was the whole show. 

Passing by Carl Phillips

Passing

When the Famous Black Poet speaks,

I understand

that his is the same unnervingly slow 

rambling method of getting from A to B

that I hated in my father,

my father who always told me

don't shuffle.

The Famous Black Poet is

speaking of the dark river in the mind

that runs thick with the heroes of color,

Jackie R., Bessie, Billie, Mr. Paige, anyone

who knew how to sing or when to run. 

I think of my grandmother, said

to have dropped dead from the evil eye,

of my lesbian aunt who saw cancer and

a generally difficult future headed her way

in the still water

of her brother's commode.

I think of voodoo in the bottoms of soup-cans,

and I want to tell the poet that the blues

is not my name, that Alabama

is something I cannot use

in my business.

He is so like my father,

I don't ask the Famous Black Poet,

afterwards,

to remove his shoes,

knowing the inexplicable black

and pink I will find there, a cut 

gone wrong in five places.

I don't ask him to remove

his pants, since that too

is known, what has never known

a blade, all the spaces between,

where we differ ...

I have spent years tugging

between my legs,

and proved nothing, really.

I wake to the sheets I kicked aside,

and examine where they've failed to mend

their own creases, resembling some silken

obstruction, something pulled

from my father's chest, a bad heart,

a lung,

the lung of the Famous Black Poet

saying nothing I want to understand. 

Waiting by William Carlos Williams

Waiting 

When I am alone I am happy. 

The air is cool. The sky is

flecked and splashed and wound

with color. The crimson phalloi

of the sassafras leaves

hang crowded before me

in shoals on the heavy branches. 

When I reach my doorstep

I am greeted by

the happy shrieks of my children

and my heart sinks. 

I am crushed. 

Are not my children as dear to me

as falling leaves or

must one become stupid

to grow older? 

It seems much as if Sorrow

had tripped up my heels. 

Let us see, let us see! 

What did I plan to say to her

when it should happen to me

as it has happened now?

If This Is a Man by Primo Levi

If This Is a Man

You who live safe

In your warm houses, 

You who find warm food

And friendly faces when you return home. 

Consider if this is a man

Who works in mud, 

Who knows no peace, 

Who fights for a crust of bread, 

Who dies by a yes or no.

Consider if this is a woman

Without hair, without name,

Without the strength to remember,

Empty are her eyes, cold her womb,

Like a frog in winter. 

Never forget that this has happened.

Remember these words.

Engrave them in your hearts, 

When at home or in the street, 

When lying down, when getting up. 

Repeat them to your children.

Or may your houses be destroyed, 

May illness strike you down, 

May your offspring turn their faces from you.