Tuesday, November 12, 2013

George Szirtes SINGULAR

All our singular
voices were joined in the choir
of the vanishing.

We were not ourselves.
We were a single body
and so we vanished.

It was a single
terror, indivisible.
We could not know it.

Out there the planets
were counting themselves. Their eyes
were looking away.

The terror out there
was happening inside us
individually.

We had dreamt it all
before. It was quite common.
It was what joined us.

We were united
in our singularity,
our dreams and dying.

We dream all the time
of this commonality,
the wild singular.

So when the water
rose and the wind gathered
we knew it as dream.

The wind was wailing
with us. I too was wailing
with others as choir.

So things vanish: we,
our invaluable dreams,
our terrors, our lot.

We can't grieve ourselves.
The water and wind will have
to do it for us.

We are the dreaming
congregation. Our voices
are yours now. You grieve.

- George Szirtes

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