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These pieces are parts of a larger collection, Falconry and other poems, published in 2003 by Unlimited Publishing, Bloomington, Indiana. They are all protected by copyright.
John William Houghton
The Harvard crimson still looks out of place
Emblazoned on the gun-rack in your truck--
Though no more than beside the blue of Yale
On my Renault: we're living second lives,
Like newts or tadpoles breathing air at last.
You've told me, little brother, I should learn
To compromise, like you: and I've replied
That you should learn to stand by what you love,
Like me. You're worried that I waste my time
In calling up remembrance of things past:
You'd let old loves, or new-learned hatreds, go.
Or so you say: yet as I watch your grief
You seem no cold amphibian, but such
A Salamander as sleeps wreathed in flames.
A recording of me reading this poem. (382 KB .wav file)
My still-unravished bride, no touch of age
Has made you less than she whom I first saw,
Delighting in the sight, so long ago
I doubt I knew myself--much less knew love.
Perhaps I've learned. I know we've changed,
Drawn closer, till we're huddled here before
The fire, with its ever-sweeter threat
That soul's heat will at length break down red clay.
The truth is, beauty's still a mystery:
We know it when we see it--or we hope
We do: ephemeral perdurance that
Connects the world we're given to the Forms,
As light's last, briefest, flash through western clouds
Connects the blackbird's wing and setting sun.
You will dine well, my Fabullus, chez moi,
Next Friday night (God willing)--if you'll bring
A nice substantial meal along with you,
A pleasant wine, some entertainment, and
A girl who'll be--sincere. And bring some salt.
If you'll supply those things, my charming friend,
You'll dine quite well, I say. And otherwise--
My wallet's full, of course, but full of lint.
Still, if you'll come, I'll see that you receive
The purest love--or something just a bit
More suave and elegant: an oil so sweet
That Venus must have sent it to my girl.
And when you smell it, Fabullus, I swear,
You'll wish that you could turn into a nose.
-translation of Catullus, XIII
Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi!
Et ecce intus eras et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam. --Augustine, Confessions
X.38.
Unbounded light, undying harmony,
A fragrance that no wind can blow away,
A food which tasting still leaves unconsumed,
The one embrace fulfillment does not end--
Some such unchanging Beauty sensed and lost
In one ecstatic moment Augustine
Could love when once he understood that God
Was no substantial thing, however fine.
Still half in exile, burdened with false maps,
We only glimpse the homeland of the soul
From distant peaks we labor to ascend.
And yet how near this new and ancient love
Reveals itself to be when we've confessed
That only there can hearts it made find rest.
On a theme suggested by Fr. David Tracy:
Pondus meum amor meus.--Augustine, Confessions XIII.9
My love is the weight by which I'll be drawn
In time to the center only now guessed
By watching me wander, rushing at first,
Then stopped: or at times, reversed in my course--
Describing no circle, cycling year
By year through the empty void that our paths
As seen from that point define into space:
We hope in an order seen from our end.
My love is the burden put in my heart
Which I must the louder sing as the chord
Once heard is dissolved in dissonant lines,
And harmonies seldom break through the noise
To hint of the score or point to the Sun
Whose drawing makes weight and burden both light.
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This page last revised December 16, 2004.
Copyright (c) 2003, John William Houghton