James Whitworth Poems

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,
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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,
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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
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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;
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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.
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Theirs was a time of titans;
Of unrelenting progress onward
From the face of an arable age –
An acquiescence which its subjects
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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.
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Lift up your smile toward the risen sun,
Before the day that breaks falls on the land;
Its sequence of decay is almost done.
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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.
...