SUMMING UP: TWO POEMS ON A THEME

SUMMING UP: TWO POEMS ON A THEME

I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it/Since what is kept must be adulterated?—T.S. Eliot, Gerontion

 

1. LEFT UNSAID

Nothing could be taken back, nothing offered.
The passion I thought I had is an old saw--
it would not, could not cut through the years
that have turned into whorled cores in a tree
cut down in the harvest of logs, in a clearing
that will not grow again. Will not be here again.
Dry timber in a forest fire. Ashes in my mouth,
like loves left unsaid. Nothing to take back nor give.

2. A WAITING GAME

Looking for a good time to stop,
is to stop looking, like slumping

on a fallen trunk or a trail rock
jagged and jutting out of the bluff.
Morning walks get longer along
empty spaces before familiar curbs
signal a turn to what we wait for:
the final bend. We are back home.

“HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME.
Now Albert is coming back,
make yourself a bit smart.”* Eliot,
of course, said it for me earlier.
How long ago was that, when I
read those Wasteland lines? How
long have I waited to use them?
Is this a good time yet? I waited.

Because we have seen the clues,
because we have seen them all
already, I know it is time to stop
waiting, sum up the bill, and go.
What was I given to bear the pain
of knowing that I did not know?
Or build a home I could not live in?
What tools must I now return?

In summing up, I will discount this,
in the game of haggling for a place
back in the Garden. Our stay here
was overpaid. We waited too long
for that room with a better view,
that terrace with a canopy of roses,
and blue birds trilling on the sill.
O, for a touch of that distant sky!

Next time around, if there is one,
I will be smart. I will settle only for
a room where I could see the sky
and the sea conspire to eat the sun.
Nothing could be taken back, nothing
offered. The passion I thought I had
is an old saw—Ashes in my mouth.
Burnt dry timber, loves left unsaid.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

Mississauga, October 6, 2014

* T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland, II. A Chess Game, T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950)