Death Encourages Poem by gershon hepner

Death encourages, said Marianne,
and he who strongly feels behaves
not like an angel, but a mortal man,
a lighthouse facing stormy waves.
Don’t talk of innocence, don’t talk of guilt,
but talk of courage to remain alive;
the windmills against which we have to tilt
provide the energy that is our daemon drive,
propelling us with blades from the abyss,
till we discover once again the splendor
of life, though we are mortal, and the bliss
to which we yearn we may again surrender.

Inspired by a poem, “What Are Years” which I heard Marianne Moore reading on a recording broadcast on KUSC this morning. Dennis Bartel chose Marianne Moore because she loved baseball and even wrote poems about it, and tonight is thje All Star Game:

What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt, -
dumbly calling, deafly listening-that
in misfortune, even death,
encourage others
and in it's defeat, stirs

the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
in its surrendering
finds its continuing.

So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.


7/15/08