Let Us Hurry

Junko O'Neill

Let Us Hurry

Let us hurry to love people they depart so quickly
the shoes remain empty and the phone rings on
what's unimportant drags on like a cow
the meaningful sudden takes us by surprise
the silence that follows so normal it's unbearable
like chastity born simply from despair
when we think of someone who's been taken from us.

Don't be sure you have time for there's no assurance
as all good fortune security deadens the senses
it comes simultaneously like pathos and humor
like two passions not as strong as one
they leave fast grow silent like a thrush in July
like a sound somewhat clumsy or a polite bow
to truly see they close their eyes
though to be born is more of a risk than to die
we love still too little and always too late.

Don't write of it too often but write once and for all
and you'll become like dolphin both gentle and strong.

Let us hurry to love people they depart so quickly
and the ones who don't leave won't always return
and you never know while speaking of love
if the first one is last or the last one first.

Jan Twardowski


A poem for my friend who misses her mother.

Another "let" poem for the collection. I just stumbled across it and that first line stopped me short. We learn from death to love fervently. I don't know of many poems that manage to cram it all in like this one does (I wish he'd left the dolphin part out, but that's just me). That line "don't be sure you have time"  - that's the kicker. We really do benefit from a sense of urgency - may our senses always be awake and alive to the fact that the time to love is now.





 

from Sonnets to Orpheus

Otto Piltz

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29


Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.

Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Rilke

Its hard to make a comment on this. Sometimes the only response is fullness of thought. I will say one thing - that line, "if the world has ceased to hear you", is resonant, so real and true, and the encouragement to both accept ("flow") and withstand ("speak") so necessary. Another "let" poem, and a beautiful example of the strange mix of allowing and asserting.  

In the Dark

John Salminen, "Chicago River"

In the Dark

God said: Let the dark be dark.

Let the stars shine properly.

And let darkness with no stars

heal the damage caused by the light.

Men said: Let there be light all

 night through, where there is no-one

much or no-one at all, let

the gathered haze from street-lamps,

undying brand-names, full-blaze

unpopulated windows

stain the undersides of clouds

even when the nights are cloudless.

God said: Light itself needs rest.

Some things are best seen, unseen,

in darkness unhindered by

Great Light. Me, for example.

Robin Fulton Macpherson 

Another "let" poem. I like that its the opposite of "Let there be light!" It reminds me of Ecclesiastes - "There's a time for everything." Time for light, and time for darkness. Time to work, and time to rest. The last stanza makes me think of  Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", in which the protagonist comes to what he feels is the epicenter of evil and darkness, and finds the tiniest pinpoint of light there, and feels for the first time the full power of  it. Its the contrasts sometimes, that speak to us most. 

"Let there be light!"

Maurice Sapiro, "Red Sunset"

And God Said, "Let there be light!"

Earth heard the loud, the solemn sound, 

And started from her utmost bound, 

And Darkness, on his ebon car, 

Spread his black wings, and fled afar; 

The dun clouds opened with affright, 

And hailed the burst of life and light!

''Tis light! 'tis light!' the mountains rung, 

''Tis light! 'tis light!' the valleys sung! 

The stars beheld its dawning bright, 

The spheres confessed the Godhead's might, 

While Nature's universal voice 

Proclaimed aloud, 'Rejoice! rejoice!' 

Charles Mackay

If I'm going to be adding "Let" poems, for sure I have to include the biggest one. If I think about it, "let" was the first word ever recorded. The first word. No wonder it strikes me. Here, it is the word that brought about the birth of the universe, of being, of awareness, of life. The supremely beautiful word of creation. 

 

Let it Be Forgotten

Edward le Bas, "The Tea Table"

Let it Be Forgotten

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten, 

Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold, 

Let it be forgotten for ever and ever, 

Time is a kind friend, he will make us old. 

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten 

Long and long ago, 

As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall 

In a long forgotten snow.

Sara Teasdale


I was going over this poetry collection the other day and noticed the poems "Let Love Go On" by Carl Sandburg, and "Let Evening Come" by Jane Kenyon, and was thinking to myself what a strange word "let" is - at least in those poems. Partly acceptance, and partly an imperative. I thought I'd hunt down some more poems and see how "let" is used in them. This one again has that strange paradoxical sense of doing something purposefully and allowing it to happen. How do you deliberately forget something? Trying to forget usually imprints the memory even more firmly in our heads. And what is the poet trying to forget? She wouldn't want to forget something pleasant, and yet she akins the memory she wants to forget with beautiful things that easily slip from our minds. A strange poem in so many ways.


 

Let Evening Come

Herbert Waters, "Les Smith's Barn"

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through the chinks in the barn, move

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needle

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down. Let the shed

go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop

in the oats, to air in the lung

let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

Jane Kenyon

A friend shared this poem with me the other day. I fell instantly in love. It reads like a benediction. The words fall assuredly into place, the images clear in my mind's eye. Its as if there could have been no other words chosen, these are so true and fitting. Kenyon may have meant it to be about aging, but I don't feel that so much as I feel its call to just Be. That word "let" in itself - at once an imperative and a submission, a command and an acceptance - is compelling.  Every image is restful. Things left undone, things taken up again, quietness, darkness - and behind it all this sense of assurance in spite of unknowns to come. Beautiful. I could go on and on.

 

Let Love Go On

Antonia Rzhevskaya

              Let Love Go On

LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made, the last dollar spent and the last blood gone.
Time runs with an ax and a hammer, time slides down the hallways with a pass-key and a master-key, and time gets by, time wins.
Let the love of this hour go on; let all the oaths and children and people of this love be clean as a washed stone under a waterfall in the sun.
Time is a young man with ballplayer legs, time runs a winning race against life and the clocks, time tickles with rust and spots.
Let love go on; the heartbeats are measured out with a measuring glass, so many apiece to gamble with, to use and spend and reckon; let love go on. Carl Sandburg Dear to my heart, this poem. A reminder that there will not always be this opportunity to show love, to act in love, to live in attitudes of love. Time streamlines love, pares it down, gives it leanness and speed. I need to love now, in the most basic ways, without ornament or delay for lack of inspiration. Love like bread and water, love like a millionaire emptying my accounts. Here, now, love.