The earth that is bequeathed us
Great poems are like great friends, and vice-versa. Rare, precious, and if one is lucky, full of empathy and imagination. My good friend Jam is like me, poem-passionate, poem-stricken, poem-fatally attracted. She and I used to message each other endlessly with poems on Facebook and the ones she sends always speak to me. Now that I’ve gone FB-teetotal (for Lent, for my sanity, for job security!), she emails me from time to time. This is what she sent me today:
Untitled (this is what was bequeathed us) by Gregory Orr:
This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.No other shore, only this bank
On which the living gather.
No meaning but what we find here.No purpose but what we make.
That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.
