By the winter Sea
What can we say to-day that is not negative?
Do not and again do not. Thus failure to act
Seems more commendable than a positive stance,
Here at the foam—edge of the pounding sea,
Grey, neutral, dirty-specked, with March wind scourging it.
And across the faded acreage of years the drums
Of childhood beat themselves to death. 0 do not act
Like frenzied drum-beaters, incensed by doom.
Encased in winter despair may one still hope
For another spring, for a tunnel away from gloom
Far below the crust of the earth, then out to a valley
Green in a haze of summer noon, gold fires ablaze?
Or, not advancing, retreating sometimes, faith’s crumb holding,
Making an effort to be honest about motives,
(The Hamlet self, the double man ringed round by question marks)
Can affirmation come, keeping at arm’s length meantime
The lonely sobbing of this winter sea,
And smothering that maddened drum-beat of a childhood
Lost long aeons ago on a Northern shore?
Do not and again do not - wait, it will come!
