Only the Years

TWO POEMS

ONLY THE YEARS

Sea shell and flower corolla and strict blade of a wing,

The thigh's clean line, the pure curve of the breast-

All natural objects bred to the final form, the simple thing

Out of time past,

These flawless know survival. Year upon long year served

Their special use, shaping design to need:

The shell's enameled cone, the tapering thigh, the carved

And segment-fitted seed.

Down through the generations craftsmen, creators

Have passed the gift of power from palm to palm-

Gift dreamed in the laboring mind, taken in love greatly

Alive and warm,

Nor ripped in one stroke from the body, bloodless and shining,

Not hacked out raw from the secreting stone

Came the essential thing, the ultimate simple line

Exact, alone.

(How many ages blind, till the seeking eye might prove

In light through glass one cells minute perfection,

-Years motion-locked till the piston functioned smooth

As the heel's tendon? )

Men of our time, workers in wood, fabric or metal

Strip ornament from structure: beauty is line

In use: the bridge harp-cabled, the ship's deep keel

The wing-spread of the plane.

But not in our time, not yet, is the pattern for life drawn clean:

The mind's unserved, the flesh misused, the breath

Chokes in the terrible net spread dark between

Our birth and death:

When shall we strip off the false and intricate decay

That rival nations value: in what hour

Strike the tools of craft from the hands of madness, save

The gift of power?

Only the years that lie on the far edge of light

Shall answer us, the possible future see

Tempered in blood and fire beyond this shadow of our night

The simple form set free.