Living

Slow bleak awakening from the morning dream Brings me in contact with the sudden day. I am alive – this I. I let my fingers move along my body. Realization warns them, and my nerves Prepare their rapid messages and signals. While Memory begins recording, coding, Repeating; all the time Imagination Mutters: You'll only die. Here's a new day. O Pendulum move slowly! My usual clothes are waiting on their peg. I am alive – this I. And in a moment Habit, like a crane, Will bow its neck and dip its pulleyed cable, Gathering me, my body, and our garment, And swing me forth, oblivious of my question, Into the daylight – why? I think of all the others who awaken, And wonder if they go to meet the morning More valiantly than I; Nor asking of this Day they will be living: What have I done that I should be alive? O, can I not forget that I am living? How shall I reconcile the two conditions: Living, and yet – to die? Between the curtains the autumnal sunlight With lean and yellow finger points me out; The clock moans: Why? Why? Why? But suddenly, as if without a reason, Heart, Brain, and Body, and Imagination All gather in tumultuous joy together, Running like children down the path of morning To fields where they can play without a quarrel: A country I'd forgotten, but remember, And welcome with a cry. O cool glad pasture; living tree, tall corn, Great cliff, or languid sloping sand, cold sea, Waves; rivers curving; you, eternal flowers, Give me content, while I can think of you: Give me your living breath! Back to your rampart, Death.