C e n t u r i e s

in memory,Thom Gunn

 

 

 

Keats stared at coiled hair—John

Milton’s—and felt blood

drenching his face, as later

he felt the same hot

acknowledgement before a

Greek cup, all life flocking there

at full-bodied ease.

 

 

And yes, there is that great one’s

unsurpassable

doing, then the javelin

thrown anyway, the

uncoiling lunge off the block

before that whisper over

the shoulder, before

 

 

they toss up the white flag at

the finish. And yet

beyond sparking hair, just past

all those burstings in

the young man, an opening

onto fields, blown curtains onto

standing bending weeds

 

 

and the wind out of blending

spaces, of what we

call the centuries and then

fall still before—that:

it coming from where, and we

weaponless, the forehead cool,

unthought of. The whole

 

 

of that already there yet still coming.

 

 

 

(Published in PNRievew 160, 2004)