Your soul contains my self—I cannot die
So long as you, my children, live—
Death rises on the sunset—it’s a sigh
Of shadows every life must give.
You stare at the horizon, and you say,
“It’s death.” I say, “Approach.” You say, “I can’t.”
Indeed, the red horizon of the day
Recedes—you run, you run, you pant,
But all horizons must recede—the sun
Descends behind it, though, for you
Can never reach the setting dun—we’re done
One day, and we pay what’s due.
Your soul contains my self—each poem I
Have written someone reads, each book
I publish, play someone has seen, reply
In scholarship—my words a brook
Delivering my mind to others’—my songs
The music of my mind that flow
Into a delta—all my rights and wrongs,
My vanities and virtues grow
And grow with all the minds who take my words
And make new meaning out of them, and eat the curds
That form out of my milk—are for your sake.
Your soul contains my self—this poem’s worth
Is measured in remembered rhythms, rhymes—
And after I am dead, they will give birth
To minds all holding mine throughout all times
That people understand these words—the sun
Will never set—Apollo rises soon—
The earth will turn—daylight has begun
Upon another face—another noon
Will bring enlightenment—under my tree
Will others seek to flee the heat, but light
Is dancing through the leaves. I’ll never be,
In my becoming, night, the moon in flight.
