James Whitworth

If I in my unnumbered years should fail
To register of comprehend the breath
Of age that blows in gusts upon my back,
Then keep from me the secrets that remain
...

The seminary of the sown seed,
Rounded and smoothed by the river of wind
And pacing with a soundless footfall
Upon the ground surrounding age,
...

So strikes the clock on this the drowsy dawn,
Its sixth-houred face unable to recall
From what degree or tense I have been turned
By acid hours that burned my midnight toil,
...

Whose number’s the sum of my sanity;
Whose figures first count penitence then burn
Fire-wise the crust of my daily bread;
Whose ear-caught words that fall from mindless mouths
...

Are the still points of the quartered seasons
That light the dawns which count down to our birth,
A singular malfunction of design
Which holds within its eye all time condensed;
...

A modern voice cannot compare the deeds
That lay unread, drowned by compound degrees;
Exampled in archaism that seeds
The time-lined though less travelled circling seas.
...

Theirs was a time of titans;
Of unrelenting progress onward
From the face of an arable age –
An acquiescence which its subjects
...

As Atlas shrugs to tilt our little ball,
His muscle, like courage, strengthened by use,
We are taught that with the surest footing
One man can with one promise move the earth.
...

Lift up your smile toward the risen sun,
Before the day that breaks falls on the land;
Its sequence of decay is almost done.
...

In that which lies beyond our inmost point,
We hold the rose between its thorn and bloom;
A token of a love to live the day
We lay it lengthwise on this loved one’s tomb.
...

This scissor’d century,
Ribboned and strewn between the wars
Where I was born, wrung from ancience’ youth
To crawl fist-first along the paralleled
...

A legion of memories, imprecise,
Crowd the crowing sleep when I retreat
Between a tunnelled-birth where I became,
And this, my final end I cannot fear.
...

The man who burnt the barn to see the moon
Did so, only that he might see you.

In the kindling of the star-christened sky,
...

You, who bore a wounded spirit
Between the deaths of laughter and tears,
Are the birthplace of these words.
...

Dull the cry of the dying night,
Whose enemies by dawn’s light plot
The mourning after the nightmare before.
Death is preached a means to birth,
...

A seeker of silences am I.
Through furious-changing seasons I rest;
In snow and harvest find I reflection.
What voices call upon the wind,
...

During these hours of silent accord,
Below the silver-gilded sky,
Where you bathed in the scent of evening
And I fell from that seat of grace,
...

Except for the bow of dawn
Morning approached unrecognisable as never before.
A low sun bleeding from the wounded sky
Caught the face of the sinner, kneeling,
...

You speak your truth as if immortal,
With rich man’s laugh and vagabond eyes,
While the antique hand of love betrays
The silent sufferers who solitary tread
...

The candle flame hovers,
From your eye to the door, I look, then back:
Is it farther to enter than it is to leave?
Met by a calm, untroubled glance,
...