Poetry

Throughout the dream sequence in Chapter 1: "Moving Beyond," I have interwoven lines from various poems I wrote during the Spring of 1968, when I found myself dreaming dreams that I later recognized as incorporating details from various past lives. At this time, ideas for what eventually became The Passing of Merlin Zauber were beginning to crystalize. I conclude Chapter 1 with the following poem:

THE DYING LIGHT

These empty halls and rooms
are silent now
so I have borrowed from the past
to fill these afternoons
and I have sat beside the window
and watched the light turn gold
they dying light
so soft it is
so fragile
sad.

I will not quote all the poems incorporated into this chapter. The reader can spot them easily enough. Since ideas for poetry usually come to me in dreams, the way the lines of the other poems in this chapter are quoted is much closer to the original inspiration than my finished poems are, since in fact they recreate how the ideas initially came to me.

The following poem is dated 28 April 1968:

MOURNERS AT THE FUNERAL

We who march behind the hearse
have no heritage
but a curse
and a cloud of dust.

Is it the dust of withered leaves?

Through ashes and dust
and broken glass
barefoot
we pass
slowly
by the once-clear stream
where the forest used to be.

We move
into the gray twilight.

The days grow shorter.
Soon they will disappear.
We have failed to halt the Winter,
failed to ransom back the year.

We know that Spring will not return.
We are mourners at the funeral.

The following poem, incorporated toward the end of the chapter, is dated 11 May 1968:

THE WORLD

I loved the world,
and wanted
to adorn it:
I pledged myself

to spread the hills
with gold,
and streak the sky
with purple light,

strew the grass
with silver drops,
and strike
the cobwebs crystal.

But I grew up
and lost my love,
and nothing
I adorned:

for it was
not yet dawn
when I went out,
and after dusk

when I returned,
and I was old
and empty
in my heart.