Ken Morrill

Conrad, in “Youth”:  “One of the ship’s boys (we had two), impressed by the weirdness of the scene, wept as if his heart would break.”

Journal

Not yet left
Wistful wisteria
The River Yarrow
A city of spleen
Hope for the future
Exaggerated distance

I liked having you there
I was distracted
Not teased out of thought
As much as troubled like the roiled sea
Not vexed, perturbed, or annoyed
As much as the sea but sweet, swift, sleek–
Poetry at night written after a walk around the lake
A puddle, a sea, a season of my youth
In sight, my mind’s eye–
Vision.

Vision of cities brilliant marble in the sun
Where the tide laps the sand-glittering shore
Polish of sun glint off the water of the sea
Being with you makes sense to me.

Morning is calm and morning is bight
Where sea breeze leaves star-furrowed night
This the magic of olden time
By the weeping willow and casement chime.

Past–rich deep mysterious, unfathomed, sleepy–
Thought beyond speech, speech beyond thought
Improvisation of John Thacker in Nelson County
Making the most of his childhood, loving his family.

“And leave a casement ope’ at night
To let the warm love in.”  (last 2 lines of Keats’s “Ode to Psyche”)

If I were
poetry to write
wouldn’t I need
a bit more time
more time please
like a prayer
like the wind
I love you
wouldn’t that be
tomorrow and today
after mine own fashion
quite appropriate
All you sang
wished for me
came true
Wouldn’t that be.

Journal