#zhivago - Hello Poetry

Lawrence Hall [email protected] Following a Path Worn by Pilgrims -Doctor Zhivago, p. 75 No one is first along a pilgrim road Other footsteps began our journey for us - To Bethlehem, Emmaus, Damascus – Wherever the heart is centered in hope Someone has stepped on this cactus before And sat on that rock to pull out the spines And muttered about the indignity Of a holy man pestered with stickers But humility is part of the search Because No one is last along a pilgrim road

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Nov 2, 2016

Nov 2, 2016 at 10:15 PM UTC

lawrence-hall

Following a Path Worn by Pilgrims

Lawrence Hall [email protected] Following a Path Worn by Pilgrims -Doctor Zhivago, p. 75 No one is first along a pilgrim road Other footsteps began our journey for us - To Bethlehem, Emmaus, Damascus – Wherever the heart is centered in hope Someone has stepped on this cactus before And sat on that rock to pull out the spines And muttered about the indignity Of a holy man pestered with stickers But humility is part of the search Because No one is last along a pilgrim road

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Upon Re-Reading Doctor Zhivago for two comrades Love lost along abandoned railway lines, Grave-cold, grave-still, grave-dark beneath dead snow, A thousand miles of ashes, corpses, ghosts - Sacrarium of a martyred civilization. A silent wolf pads west across the ice, The rotting remnant of a young man’s arm, Slung casually between its pale pink jaws - A cufflink clings to a bit of ragged cloth. Above the wolf, the ice, the arm, the link A dead star hangs, dead in a moonless sky, It gives no light, there is no life; a mist Arises from the clotted, haunted earth. For generations the seasons in darkness slept, Since neither love nor life were free to sing The eternal hymns of long-forbidden spring - And yet beneath the lies the old world sighs The old world sighed in sudden ecstasy A whispered resurrection of the truth As tender stems ascended, pushed the stones Aside, away into irrelevance. And now golden sunflowers laugh with the sun Like merry young lads in their happy youth Coaxing an ox-team into the fields, Showing off their muscles to merry young girls. The men of steel are only stains of rust, Discoloring fragments of broken drains, As useless as the rotted bits of brass Turned up sometimes by Uncle Sasha’s plow. For this is Holy Russia, eternally young; Over her wide lands high church domes bless the sky, While Ruslan and Ludmilla bless the earth With the songs of lovers in God’s eternal now.

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Nov 13, 2016

Nov 13, 2016 at 7:26 PM UTC

lawrence-hall

Upon Re-Reading *Doctor Zhivago*

Upon Re-Reading Doctor Zhivago for two comrades Love lost along abandoned railway lines, Grave-cold, grave-still, grave-dark beneath dead snow, A thousand miles of ashes, corpses, ghosts - Sacrarium of a martyred civilization. A silent wolf pads west across the ice, The rotting remnant of a young man’s arm, Slung casually between its pale pink jaws - A cufflink clings to a bit of ragged cloth. Above the wolf, the ice, the arm, the link A dead star hangs, dead in a moonless sky, It gives no light, there is no life; a mist Arises from the clotted, haunted earth. For generations the seasons in darkness slept, Since neither love nor life were free to sing The eternal hymns of long-forbidden spring - And yet beneath the lies the old world sighs The old world sighed in sudden ecstasy A whispered resurrection of the truth As tender stems ascended, pushed the stones Aside, away into irrelevance. And now golden sunflowers laugh with the sun Like merry young lads in their happy youth Coaxing an ox-team into the fields, Showing off their muscles to merry young girls. The men of steel are only stains of rust, Discoloring fragments of broken drains, As useless as the rotted bits of brass Turned up sometimes by Uncle Sasha’s plow. For this is Holy Russia, eternally young; Over her wide lands high church domes bless the sky, While Ruslan and Ludmilla bless the earth With the songs of lovers in God’s eternal now.

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Lawrence Hall HSG [email protected] Petite Bourgeois, Personal, and Self-Indulgent I used to admire your poetry. I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections...it's suddenly trivial now. -Strelnikov to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago (film) In the evenings I sit on my summer lawn Slouched in an old, much-painted metal chair That symbol of petite-bourgeois respectability With a little table for my drink, my pipe, my book (The cat pads by on errands of his own) At dusk a friend or two might amble along And join me for a glass, a smoke, a talk We casually swat at mosquitoes and rumors And argue about Doctor Zhivago and Lonesome Dove (A fast-diving mockingbird mocks the cat) In a fallen world of chaos and suffering With fear of revolution in the air Is it right to indulge ourselves with such trifles As sitting and talking with old friends in the twilight? Oh, yes (The cat and the mockingbird continue their game)

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Jun 13, 2024

Jun 13, 2024 at 11:13 AM UTC

lawrence-hall

Petite Bourgeois, Personal, and Self-Indulgent

Lawrence Hall HSG [email protected] Petite Bourgeois, Personal, and Self-Indulgent I used to admire your poetry. I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections...it's suddenly trivial now. -Strelnikov to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago (film) In the evenings I sit on my summer lawn Slouched in an old, much-painted metal chair That symbol of petite-bourgeois respectability With a little table for my drink, my pipe, my book (The cat pads by on errands of his own) At dusk a friend or two might amble along And join me for a glass, a smoke, a talk We casually swat at mosquitoes and rumors And argue about Doctor Zhivago and Lonesome Dove (A fast-diving mockingbird mocks the cat) In a fallen world of chaos and suffering With fear of revolution in the air Is it right to indulge ourselves with such trifles As sitting and talking with old friends in the twilight? Oh, yes (The cat and the mockingbird continue their game)

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