by Samuel Beckett Quatre Poèmes translated from French by the author

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1. Dieppe

again the last ebb
the dead shingle
the turning then the steps
toward the lighted town

2.

my way is in the sand flowing
between the shingle and the dune
the summer rain rains on my life
on me my life harrying fleeing
to its beginning to its end

my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts

3.

what would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where every instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die
the pantings the frenzies toward succour towards love
without this sky that soars
above it's ballast dust

what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living
in a convulsive space
among the voices voiceless
that throng my hiddenness

4.

I would like my love to die
and the rain to be falling on the graveyard
and on me walking the streets
mourning the first and last to love me

Talking about invoking reality!

I was having a great conversation with a dear friend, Sarah Lipton, the other day and of course it covered the ground of speaking and singing, invoking and the flowers of emptiness which are truly abundant these days. Sarah was singing to me and bringing forth the world when we parted. Later that day a friend from Ireland sent her this poem. Some would say synchronicity others auspicious, some both and some neither but you are probably not reading this blog. Here's the poem and by whom I know not.


Crisis

Ancient traditions hold
that earth is sung into being,
each single thing
and there’s a naming.

So came sound
and before the word written
came remembrance
and its boundaries.

Remembrance needed repetition
so the singing could travel,
pass from one to the other
like sean-nós.

Yet each singer was unique
and each time
added something new
to the old and the true.

Without the singing of a country,
what is held is lost.
When that happens
it must be sung back,

grandparent to child,
child to grandchild.
Search now for the tuning fork
then listen, listen.

Search in the unnamed
and the sacred places.
Search quickly.

(sean-no's were the ancients poet singers and they are being reborn today in our young people)