POM: April 15
This is a new poet for me and I’m not sure why I’ve not come across her works before. She apparently was influential in the Modernist movement so I’m curious as to why when I read up on Pound and Elliot, Djuna Barnes doesn’t chime in. Lovely name and lived nearly a century. Somehow this poem seemed appropriate for the date.
Call of the Night
Djuna Barnes, 1892 – 1982
Dark, and the wind-blurred pines,
With a glimmer of light between.
Then I, entombed for an hourless night
With the world of things unseen.
Mist, the dust of flowers,
Leagues, heavy with promise of snow,
And a beckoning road ‘twixt vale and hill,
With the lure that all must know.
A light, my window’s gleam,
Soft, flaring its squares of red—
I loose the ache of the wilderness
And long for the fire instead.
You too know, old fellow?
Then, lift your head and bark.
It’s just the call of the lonesome place,
The winds and the housing dark.
Pam Webb 