| October 2007 |
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In History
by Martin Burke
Belgium
| One of the strange “centres” of the earth D.H. Lawerence |
Night-songs
Voices issuing from the cities of heart and mind
A sharp breeze through the seven linden trees
And moonlight
Moonlight in Flanders
Moonlight and a multiplicity of stars
Cloudless sky
It is March, March turning to April and April turning to summer
Summer –and the longing of the heart at midnight
O the heart longs at midnight and after
Voices and longing
Voices and longing
Night-songs carried on the breeze and lights of night
Voices and voices singing the grief and beauty of the world and all the voices rising from the cities of the heart
| like wily Greeks Besieged within the siege, whispering morse Seamus Heaney |
Yet sing?
What shall I sing?
I shall sing with the voices of night
I shall sing the songs of midnight and after
I shall sing the grief and beauty of the world
| Wherever I turn Away from grief I turn to grief again Dante |
Singing beauty and grief though all seems grief in the moonlight over Darfur
Singing in moonlight, under the stars, singing the wild and untamed song of the heart as it reaches into the night
Beauty and grief, beauty and grief –I listen to the wailing of the world
Singing in moonlight, under the stars, singing the wild and untamed song of the heart as it reaches into the night
Beauty and grief, beauty and grief –I listen to the wailing of the world
Who is it invades Death’s Kingdom in his life? Dante |
Listening and lurching into history
And all is history
From the lurch of the stone’s heartbeat to the cry of Darfur there is but one music carried through the branches of the
trees and it is carried into history
This is the song that is sung again and again
This is the underlying score
It is beauty and grief and has always been so
It is beauty and grief and will always be so
History, history, only the myths complete us
It fails and it fails but it always starts up again
-this is the song it sings through the leaves-
I have sung for this in December
I have sung for it in the spring’s slow ripening
I have sung for it when the words went astray and the music veered away from that score yet it was always beauty and
grief
Beauty and grief, beauty and grief, the wind whispers through the leaves
| Without the blessing cannot the kingdom come Edwin Muir |
And if not for beauty, if not for grief, then for what have I sung?
History and the comforting myths
-thought Cassandra sighs in the long night of disbelief and the cry of Darfur is neither muted nor appeased-
Nothing is muted this midnight –neither the bell nor its echo nor the voices whispering through the leaves of the linden
trees
Nothing muted, nothing denied though history has betrayed so much
So if not for beauty then for what will I sing?
Midnight, midnight, stroke of a bell –these are the night-songs of the world
History and the comforting myths
-thought Cassandra sighs in the long night of disbelief and the cry of Darfur is neither muted nor appeased-
Nothing is muted this midnight –neither the bell nor its echo nor the voices whispering through the leaves of the linden
trees
Nothing muted, nothing denied though history has betrayed so much
So if not for beauty then for what will I sing?
Midnight, midnight, stroke of a bell –these are the night-songs of the world
| Will there be singing in the dark times? Yes, there will be singing about the dark times Bertolt Brecht |
Into history
Into the long night of shattered glass and shattered lives
Into the horror
Into the cold calculation at the point of the bullet
Into the water that cannot, will not wash away the blood on doorsteps
Into the deceiving hand
Into the child betrayed again and again and not just in December
Into the lover denied his song
Into the lover denied her chance to listen
As smoke rises over the fallen cities of the world and each city calls ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem’
As the waters rise in flood
As the loud men drown out the fragile cry of peace and the words falls back into history and silence
Into the mouth that cannot sing
Into the railway wagons shunting east and west
Into history and its terrible silence
Beauty and grief, beauty and grief in the words that whisper though the linden trees in moonlight
Into the long night of shattered glass and shattered lives
Into the horror
Into the cold calculation at the point of the bullet
Into the water that cannot, will not wash away the blood on doorsteps
Into the deceiving hand
Into the child betrayed again and again and not just in December
Into the lover denied his song
Into the lover denied her chance to listen
As smoke rises over the fallen cities of the world and each city calls ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem’
As the waters rise in flood
As the loud men drown out the fragile cry of peace and the words falls back into history and silence
Into the mouth that cannot sing
Into the railway wagons shunting east and west
Into history and its terrible silence
Beauty and grief, beauty and grief in the words that whisper though the linden trees in moonlight
| I said to the almond tree Sister, speak to me of God And the almond tree blossomed Nikos Kazantzakis |
Beauty and grief, beauty and grief –who sings for the beauty of the rose?
Who will sing in December and sing in the summer?
The rose does not say
It awaits our courtship
It tells one million stories yet even that does not exhaust it
And I have sung for the rose or at least attempted to sing
In December and summer
In the long silence of the shadow-filled night and the cry of the beasts prowling outside their compounds
History is the enemy of the rose
The rose blooms in the summer and is coy in December yet even this is thought of as betrayal
The watchers at the gate have no concern for the rose
The watchers at the gate are wrapped in silence
This is history –silence and silence and the cold calculation
And dreams stilled on the compounds of reason and desire
Unwholesome shadows stirring in the night
A profane and bitter wailing rising over the rooftops of the world
-this is also the enemy of the rose yet the rose would embrace it-
Songs rising through the long nights of Darfur and Baghdad and wherever there is wailing in the world
And still the rose maintains its core and sepals and charms
Still it is beautiful and cannot be denied
It is beauty and grief in the wailing of the world
Who will sing in December and sing in the summer?
The rose does not say
It awaits our courtship
It tells one million stories yet even that does not exhaust it
And I have sung for the rose or at least attempted to sing
In December and summer
In the long silence of the shadow-filled night and the cry of the beasts prowling outside their compounds
History is the enemy of the rose
The rose blooms in the summer and is coy in December yet even this is thought of as betrayal
The watchers at the gate have no concern for the rose
The watchers at the gate are wrapped in silence
This is history –silence and silence and the cold calculation
And dreams stilled on the compounds of reason and desire
Unwholesome shadows stirring in the night
A profane and bitter wailing rising over the rooftops of the world
-this is also the enemy of the rose yet the rose would embrace it-
Songs rising through the long nights of Darfur and Baghdad and wherever there is wailing in the world
And still the rose maintains its core and sepals and charms
Still it is beautiful and cannot be denied
It is beauty and grief in the wailing of the world
| Rose of all my days W.B. Yeats |
History, history, what will atone it?
Is there –as Eliot would ask- a redemption in time?
O surely for the rose there must be a redemption and if not in time then outside it
Is there –as Eliot would ask- a redemption in time?
O surely for the rose there must be a redemption and if not in time then outside it
| We who seven years ago…. W.B. Yeats |
Yet the child was betrayed in December
The betrayal was present from the start and there was no escape
Even exile could not save it from the wrath of winter
The betrayal was present from the start and there was no escape
Even exile could not save it from the wrath of winter
| What thou lovest well remains the rest is dross Ezra Pound |
Yet if there is grief –and there is- there is also beauty and this cannot be denied
To do so would be to betray the rose
Would be to confuse language with silence and mistake stagnant for clear water
Would be to answer the terrible No with a wounded Yes and to say that there is no difference
To confuse the wounds of the rose with the core of the rose
To answer No and No
To decry the sailor on the sea and the wife on the waiting shore
She weaves and she weaves, makes and undoes, and weaves again and again
And will no one sing the sailor home and assuage the waiting wife?
He has been ten years upon the sea and still there seems no end to it
He has sailed the dangerous waters
She has waited and woven
The shuttlecock has moved over the loom again and again and again
The wife is maimed, the sailor is wounded, yet both are beautiful
Their story is woven into the fabric of time, becomes a history, becomes a grief yet it is also beautiful
Grief has wailed through the halls of his absence yet now all is calmed
And so the story enters time, enter my hand upon this page and the pages of history
Wounded and woven
Maimed but singing
Beauty, beauty, beauty and grief –this is the song of the world
To do so would be to betray the rose
Would be to confuse language with silence and mistake stagnant for clear water
Would be to answer the terrible No with a wounded Yes and to say that there is no difference
To confuse the wounds of the rose with the core of the rose
To answer No and No
To decry the sailor on the sea and the wife on the waiting shore
She weaves and she weaves, makes and undoes, and weaves again and again
And will no one sing the sailor home and assuage the waiting wife?
He has been ten years upon the sea and still there seems no end to it
He has sailed the dangerous waters
She has waited and woven
The shuttlecock has moved over the loom again and again and again
The wife is maimed, the sailor is wounded, yet both are beautiful
Their story is woven into the fabric of time, becomes a history, becomes a grief yet it is also beautiful
Grief has wailed through the halls of his absence yet now all is calmed
And so the story enters time, enter my hand upon this page and the pages of history
Wounded and woven
Maimed but singing
Beauty, beauty, beauty and grief –this is the song of the world
| In the winding gyres W.B. Yeats |
And when she spoke her voice held the Sybil’s intent
“That our very form will change cannot be denied. Dark rings form around the moon and the moon is cold in
December.”
We were walking by the shoreline.
A summer’s long evening.
The breeze light and fresh.
The moon not yet visible
“History corrupts the rose yet the rose is inviolable. Look beyond the moment. See the restoration of all things in the
eternal. Look at both the core and the wound but look at the core. See the rose in the rose in the rose.”
And then
“History wipes away our footprints yet the sand will remember us.”
Even then the sand was remembering us footprint by footprint as we walked to our destination four kilometres away
though in truth that was not our destination
Knowing, not knowing, ends not seen and beginning that began in deceptive movements of our footsteps in the sand
“Yes, forms will change in the evening-lands of the world. Twilight is here and not just on this shoreline. History will be
ruthless with its needs.”
Who could argue?
Who could reply or contend with this?
“Yet duty remains. To see the rose in its beauty. To address and balm the wound of the world. To bear witness and
speak and celebrate what can be celebrated. To hold the intensity of a verb against the coldness of the world.”
And so her words drive me on to this-
To speak of the rose and the wound
To witness the moon
To mark out the beauty of this pathway through the sand
To listen when the god speaks
To see the rose in the wound in the rose of time
To make the lyric, not the elegy, emblematic of our time yet to sing the elegy also
To sing for the child of Darfur and its weeping parents
To do so in many languages but always in the diamond language of love
To sing the sailor home to the waiting wife
To sing in time and timelessness
To sing in tempo with the waves that wash the beach
To sing the rose and the wound at the core of the rose
To sing the endless, endless rose
“That our very form will change cannot be denied. Dark rings form around the moon and the moon is cold in
December.”
We were walking by the shoreline.
A summer’s long evening.
The breeze light and fresh.
The moon not yet visible
“History corrupts the rose yet the rose is inviolable. Look beyond the moment. See the restoration of all things in the
eternal. Look at both the core and the wound but look at the core. See the rose in the rose in the rose.”
And then
“History wipes away our footprints yet the sand will remember us.”
Even then the sand was remembering us footprint by footprint as we walked to our destination four kilometres away
though in truth that was not our destination
Knowing, not knowing, ends not seen and beginning that began in deceptive movements of our footsteps in the sand
“Yes, forms will change in the evening-lands of the world. Twilight is here and not just on this shoreline. History will be
ruthless with its needs.”
Who could argue?
Who could reply or contend with this?
“Yet duty remains. To see the rose in its beauty. To address and balm the wound of the world. To bear witness and
speak and celebrate what can be celebrated. To hold the intensity of a verb against the coldness of the world.”
And so her words drive me on to this-
To speak of the rose and the wound
To witness the moon
To mark out the beauty of this pathway through the sand
To listen when the god speaks
To see the rose in the wound in the rose of time
To make the lyric, not the elegy, emblematic of our time yet to sing the elegy also
To sing for the child of Darfur and its weeping parents
To do so in many languages but always in the diamond language of love
To sing the sailor home to the waiting wife
To sing in time and timelessness
To sing in tempo with the waves that wash the beach
To sing the rose and the wound at the core of the rose
To sing the endless, endless rose
| It is December in Wicklow Seamus Heaney |
Beauty and grief, beauty and grief –this is the wailing and the wound
Words cantering over the compounds of reason and desire in the seasons of autumn and spring
Words as the Sybil spoke them
Words that flush out the darkness and silence
Words atoning for what past words have said where nothing is forgotten and nothing is denied
And the waves on the beach
And the waves of moonlight
And the waves of language swishing up the beach
Sing, sing, but what shall I sing if not of beauty and grief?
And the rose perfects itself upon the trellis on the wall amid the wanton destruction of the world
Beauty and grief, beauty and grief, the child cries and the mother weeps and the rose goes on and on upon the trellis
on the wall and enters history
To answer Yes and Yes even as the railway wagons are shunted east and west again
Even as language is twisted
Even as the rose of the mind is desecrated and denied
Even as the shadows assume the forms of beasts prowling outside their compounds
Darkness, darkness, even in June
The summer runs riot and rots in the grass
One by one the outposts fall and the city is conquered
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which heart does not cry with your exile?
The watchers at the gate are wrapped in silence
The watchers at the gate have no concern for the rose
It is beauty and grief in the twilight of the world and grief entering history with an unspoken cry and terrible silence
History and its shadows on the grass
-The beach is now only visible by moonlight-
Here in this place, here in this time
Here in the wailing of the world
Words cantering over the compounds of reason and desire in the seasons of autumn and spring
Words as the Sybil spoke them
Words that flush out the darkness and silence
Words atoning for what past words have said where nothing is forgotten and nothing is denied
And the waves on the beach
And the waves of moonlight
And the waves of language swishing up the beach
Sing, sing, but what shall I sing if not of beauty and grief?
And the rose perfects itself upon the trellis on the wall amid the wanton destruction of the world
Beauty and grief, beauty and grief, the child cries and the mother weeps and the rose goes on and on upon the trellis
on the wall and enters history
To answer Yes and Yes even as the railway wagons are shunted east and west again
Even as language is twisted
Even as the rose of the mind is desecrated and denied
Even as the shadows assume the forms of beasts prowling outside their compounds
Darkness, darkness, even in June
The summer runs riot and rots in the grass
One by one the outposts fall and the city is conquered
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which heart does not cry with your exile?
The watchers at the gate are wrapped in silence
The watchers at the gate have no concern for the rose
It is beauty and grief in the twilight of the world and grief entering history with an unspoken cry and terrible silence
History and its shadows on the grass
-The beach is now only visible by moonlight-
Here in this place, here in this time
Here in the wailing of the world
| The once in a lifetime’s portent Seamus Heaney |
Pity the rose, pity the rose
These are the night-songs of the world
Into history –all things go into history
The wind sings through the linden tress but what does it sing?
It sings the pity of the rose and history its enemy
Yet the poem is valid –even as the child cries and the mother weeps
Darfur, Darfur, all things bend to your grief
And somewhere a lone guitar plays an adagio to the night
Music and music –yes, through the trees and beyond
Beauty and grief and the wailing and the wound
Voices and voices singing the night songs of the world
I have sung in December and summer
In these lines and those others
Have sung for the child, have sung for the rose, have sung for the grief of Darfur
Music and history –as if they were compatible
Music and history –components of the night
Music and history –a strange, uneasy alliance
These are the night-songs of the world
Into history –all things go into history
The wind sings through the linden tress but what does it sing?
It sings the pity of the rose and history its enemy
Yet the poem is valid –even as the child cries and the mother weeps
Darfur, Darfur, all things bend to your grief
And somewhere a lone guitar plays an adagio to the night
Music and music –yes, through the trees and beyond
Beauty and grief and the wailing and the wound
Voices and voices singing the night songs of the world
I have sung in December and summer
In these lines and those others
Have sung for the child, have sung for the rose, have sung for the grief of Darfur
Music and history –as if they were compatible
Music and history –components of the night
Music and history –a strange, uneasy alliance
| At grief so deep the tongue must talk in vain Dante |
Voices in night
The wind singing through the leaves
This is and was, will be and is the wailing and the wound
The wind singing through the leaves
This is and was, will be and is the wailing and the wound
