9.15.2013

City Lights Out Of The Fog

And every bit the air slows down
the curl of leaves and ripened red
could leave us shivering in the morning
could leave us mourning for the dead.

But all the moons and planets,
and lights that touch our toes,
kissed us then in silence,
on heads attached to granite souls -
Now we are island refugees
of the sacred that still glows.

Remnants

So this is not a poem. Just a note that I lost all of my writing in a hard drive crash. It's hard to believe I didn't back any of it up. Except for a few copies of the work on my novel, a poem published in an anthology, and  a poem published in a literary magazine, this blog is all that remains. The surprising thing is that beyond the initial sting I don't think losing my old work will bother me too much. So without further complaining, a Rudyard Kipling poem I quite enjoy:

If:

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!"