We dead leave no footprints in the snow,
and when we summon you to the door,
you say it’s the wind, or rustling ivy,
or a dry branch scraping a window pane.
We wait voiceless in the dark,
in our hunger and our rage,
for you to wander out that door,
or lean out the window into the night.
For we are your ineradicable past
and your inescapable future.
[Darrell Schweitzer]
I miss the night sky.
In the city,
you can’t see much:
only the moon
and the very brightest stars;
the glorious Milky Way remains
unsuspected, unimagined
by most who live out their lives
within the city’s glare.
I miss the night sky.
In the grave,
the stars of the deathlands,
are few and faint and strange,
the last fading embers
of fires already extinguished,
and we who rise up out of the grave
are too preoccupied with our pain
to pause and look at the night sky.
[Darrell Schweitzer]
The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend –
Or the most agonizing Spy –
An Enemy – could send –
Secure against its own –
No treason it can fear –
Itself – its Sovereign – of itself
The Soul should stand in Awe –
I died for Beauty – but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room -
He questioned softly “Why I failed”?
“For Beauty”, I replied -
“And I – for Truth – Themself are One -
We Brethren are”, He said -
And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night —
We talked between the Rooms -
Until the Moss had reached our lips -
And covered up – Our names -
[Emily Dickinson]
“The poem weighs idealism against the stark reality of death, emphasizing that death is far more permanent than the ideals people die for.” (LitCharts.com)