For Alan

For Alan

Three verse poem with a tribute to a friend.

1945-05-28

One page typewritten document

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SYeomanHT104405v10020

POEM
[underlined]For Alan[/underlined]

You who are etched
Deep in this poised
Heart of thought
I watch your eager step
In shifting quicksand
The guessed emotion to
My sure comfort
Flowered
In no strange tongue.

You grasping
Calculated drift
Of airvoid
Poised mathematical
Upon the inherited wing
Slender and fiercely
Twine your vacant arms
In cloud ascension
High as the love in April
Or darkly latticed in the maze
Of English night
Painting no mark
But a tremulous
Music
Vibrant in taut wire
Discovered as map speck
In wonder by
The watcher
The waiting sentry
In the lips of grass.

Now
Snap from aching sky
As a dream in youth
Turn delicate to touch
The brocaded face
Bewildered in analysis
Among dead brothers
But stay to count
The knotted anger
Nor follow too near
This
Beyond the sickle way
Of moonset
To the unveiling flame
The shrivelled penitence
Who writes your courage
On my shield of slate
Bitter in the dumb
Recrimination
My ripening famine
For this
Far word.
28 may 45
India