(The Wild Iris, Louise Glück)
Notes from book:
"THE WILD IRIS
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth bending a little. And what I took to be birds darting in low shrubs.
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater." Page 1
"Who else would so envy the bond we had then as to tell us it was not earth
but heaven we were losing?" page 44
"EARLY DARKNESS
How can you say
carth should give me joy? Each thing
born is my burden; I cannot succeed
with all of you.
And you would like to dictate to me,
you would like to tell me
who among you is most valuable,
who most resembles me.
And you hold up as an example
the pure life, the detachment
you struggle to achieve-
How can you understand me
when you cannot understand yourselves?
Your memory is not
powerful enough, it will not
reach back far enough-
Never forget you are my children.
You are not suffering because you touched each other
but because you were born,
because you required life
separate from me. " page 45
"the first rains of autumn shaking the white lilies-
When you go, you go absolutely, deducting visible life from all things
but not all life,
lest we turn from you. "page 55
"SEPTEMBER TWILIGHT
I gathered you together,
I can dispense with you-
I'm tired of you, chaos
of the living world-
I can only extend myself
for so long to a living thing.
I summoned you into existence
by opening my mouth, by lifting
my little finger, shimmering
blues of the wild
aster, blossom
of the lily, immense,
gold-veined-
you come and go; eventually
I forget your names.
You come and go, every one of you
flawed in some way,
in some way compromised: you are worth
one life, no more than that.
I gathered you together;
I can erase you
as though you were a draft to be thrown away,
an exercise
because I've finished you, vision
of deepest mourning." page 60
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