A lady this afternoon in a little meeting
we had asked me to read this poem.
So I'm going to read it.
As a matter of fact, it's one of the poems
I think I might put what little money I have to put on my poems
on.
Anyway here it is.
The scene is on a little island of the Mediterranean.
But a big yacht harbor.
But otherwise, all forested cliffs, surf,
no radios allowed.
It's called Masts At Dawn on Waking.
Past second cock crow yacht masts in the harbor
go slowly white.
No light in the east yet.
But the stars show a certain fatigue.
They withdraw into a new distance,
have discovered our unworthiness.
It is long since the owl in the dark eucalyptus, dire
and melodious, last called, and long since the moon sank
and the English finished fornicating in their ketches.
In the evening, there was a strong swell.
Red died the sun.
But a dark wind rose easterly.
White sea nagged the black harbor headland.
When there is a strong swell, you
may, if you surrender to it, experience a sense, in the act,
of mystic unity with that rhythm of the universe.
Your peace becomes the sea's will.
But now, no motion.
The bay face is glossy in darkness
like an old windowpane flat on black ground
by the wall near the ash heap.
It neither receives nor gives light.
Now is the hour when the sea sinks into meditation.
It doubts its own mission.
The drowned cat that on the evening swell
had kept nudging the piles of the pier
and had seemed to want to climb out and lick itself dry
now floats free.
On that surface, a slight convexity only.
It is like an eyelid in darkness closed.
You must learn to accept the kiss of fate,
for the masts go slowly white as light like dew
from darkness condenses on them, on oiled wood or metal.
Dew whitens in darkness.
I lie on my bed and think how, in darkness, the masts
go white.
The sound of the engines of the fire--
first fishing dory dies seaward.
Soon, in the inland glen, wakes the first dawn dove.
We must try to love so well the world
that we may believe, in the end, in God.