There's a poem of Dylan Thomas, which I'm sure you know,
which begins, "it was my 30th year to heaven."
And there's a line in this poem, because he just died,
which refers to the fact that he was now one second from earth.
There's also a reference to wrong-again Emily
because Dylan Thomas used to tell
a story of how, on one occasion, when he came to America,
he was met by a cigar-smoking husband who
said not one single word and his wife who
said many and prattled on very pleasantly but eventually
said, to Dylan Thomas, how much she enjoyed his Hornblower
series.
And the husband eventually took the cigar out of his mouth
and said, wrong again Emily.
[LAUGHTER]
All down the valleys they are talking and in the community
of the smoke-laden town.
Tomorrow, through bird-trailed skies,
across neighboring waves, wrong-again Emily
will come to the dandelion yard and, with rum tourists,
inspect his grave.
Death was his voluntary marriage,
and his poor silence sold to that rich and famous bride.
Beleaguered in that essential kiss
he rode the whiskey-meadows of her breath
till, mortal, voiceless, he gave up his nailed ghost
and he died.
No more to celebrate his disinherited innocence
or your half-buried heart, drunk as a butterfly,
or sober as black.
Now, one second from earth, not even for the sake of love
can his true energy come back.
So cease your talking.
Too familiar you blaspheme his name and collected legends.
Some tears fall soundlessly and aren't
the same as those that drop with obituary explosion.
Suddenly, others who sing seem older and lame.
But far from the blind country of prose, wherever his burst
voice goes about you or through you,
look up in surprise, in a hurt public house
or in a rain-blown street, and see
how no fat ghost but a quotation cries.
Stranger, he is laid to rest not in the nightingale dark
nor in the canary light.
At the dear last, the yolk broke in his head,
blood of his soul's egg in a splash of bright voices.
And now he is dead.
I'd like to--