Bayard Boyesen - 2 Short Poems (1916-21)

Forgotten Poems #78

    
              —: Lake :—

       There's too much selfhood in this lake:
       Though, varying, four streams partake
       In amber rushes till they break
       When softening confusions shake
       Identities into the lake.

       I know the four streams, all their ways;
       I've paddled in their amber sprays
       And flung them into bubbled praise
       Of sunlight; but I see too well
       The lake complacently will tell
       Only selfhood, nor admit
       How four streams engendered it.
    

    
             —: Over the Ultimate :—

       Who asketh when
       We that have done with doing
            and the blood-red tides of men
       Shall hold fast
       Ourselves at last!
       Who cares when?

       We that have dived o'er the morning
            and the thither sides of night,
       What delight
       Should we have of your traces,
       Times and places,—
       What delight?

       Ye that are day-things,
       Reckoners of north and south,
       Of great things ruinous,
       What should ye know of us,
       Us that have stars for our playthings,
       Yea, stars to browse on our mouth?

       What life saith
       Shall we care,
       We that have juttied through death
       And despair?
       We that have joked with the mountain-gale
       And sent them rattling home,
       We that have held the morning's sails
       O'er the foam,
       Laughing at sails and mornings,
            all things that are still or roam?
       What life saith
       Of its strife
       Shall we care,
       We that have juttied through death
       And despair—
       Yea, and life!
       Shall we care?
       Of what shall we care?
      

Bayard Boyesen (p. 1912-1922, etc.) was, “chiefly known as a critic and writer on art; has concerned himself also with educational theory.” (The Dial, 1917) Well known anarchist and activist: “Anarchism, the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.” (Boyesen, The Dial, 1917) Published poetry in Alfred Kreymborg’s Others: A Magazine of the New Verse, and Broom.

        
             —: After Bayard Boyesen :—
                         by Dick Whyte

              I.

       peer into
       the darkness

       unborn
       with prophecy

       the earth speaks

              II.

       breathe into being
       horizons
       of disbelief
       
       ridding the world
       of ungrateful
       gods

              III.

       those that remain
       bloom,

       with perfect love
       living
       imperfectly loved
    

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