Introduction

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Hear me read
the poem as
an MP3 file.

Watch me read
the poem as
a YouTube video.

Video Music: Serenade for Strings: Larghetto.
By Antonin Dvorak. Performed by the Advent Chamber Orchestra.
Music free to use at YouTube.

 Perhaps you want a moment for reflection
Or a glimpse of someone's struggles with perfection.
Even greyhounds need a clear, still light
To bring them to the precipice of night.
Rest here, then, where joys and sorrows blend;
Yearning needs no goal and has no end.

Be like a bell, and let me be your tongue:
Your thoughts will toll when I've your passions rung.

Nor can I know what words will strike your ears:
In poems one's life transfigures what one hears.
Clear words contain a silence still as glass,
Horizons as remote as distant brass,
Old meanings darting luminous in pools
Like light caught in the blaze of well-cut jewels.
All this exists like sound without a bell;
So be its instrument, and listen well.

Give my poems the courtesy of space;
Often they need room to show their grace.
Reason works quite wonderfully by day;
Darkness must be grasped another way.
On you the moon, with muted, mirrored beams,
Now casts its lace of memories and dreams.

Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.

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