Color (Cullen)/To You Who Read My Book
To You Who Read
My Book
SOON every sprinter, However fleet,Comes to a winter Of sure defeat:Though he may race Like the hunted doe,Time has a pace To lay him low.
Soon we who sing, However high,Must face the Thing We cannot fly.Yea, though we fling Our notes to the sun,Time will outsing Us every one.
All things must change As the wind is blown;Time will estrange The flesh from the bone. The dream shall elude The dreamer's clasp,And only its hood Shall comfort his grasp.
A little while, Too brief at most,And even my smile Will be a ghost.A little space, A Finger's crook,And who shall trace The path I took?
Who shall declare My whereabouts;Say if in the air My being shoutsAlong light ways, Or if in the sea,Or deep earth stays The germ of me?
Ah, none knows, none, Save (but too well)The Cryptic One Who will not tell.
This is my hour To wax and climb,Flaunt a red flower In the face of time.And only an hour Time gives, then snapGoes the flower, And dried is the sap.
Juice of the first Grapes of my vine,I proffer your thirst My own heart's wine.Here of my growing A red rose sways,Seed of my sowing, And work of my days.
(I run, but time's Abreast with me;I sing, but he climbs With my highest C.)
Drink while my blood Colors the wine,Reach while the bud Is still on the vine. . . .
Then . . . When the hawks of deathTear at my throat Till song and breathEbb note by note, Turn to this bookOf the mellow word For a singing lookAt the stricken bird.
Say, "This is the way He chirped and sung, In the sweet heydayWhen his heart was young. Though his throat is bare,By death defiled, Song labored thereAnd bore a child."
When the dreadful Ax Rives me apart,When the sharp wedge cracks My arid heart,Turn to this book Of the singing meFor a springtime look At the wintry tree.
Say, "Thus it was weighed With flower and fruit,Ere the Ax was laid Unto its root.Though the blows fall free On a gnarled trunk now,Once he was a tree With a blossomy bough."