Robert Duncan




Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow

 
as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,   
that is not mine, but is a made place,
 
that is mine, it is so near to the heart,   
an eternal pasture folded in all thought   
so that there is a hall therein
 
that is a made place, created by light   
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.
 
Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved   
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.
 
She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words   
that is a field folded.
 
It is only a dream of the grass blowing   
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun’s going down
 
whose secret we see in a children’s game   
of ring a round of roses told.
 
Often I am permitted to return to a meadow   
as if it were a given property of the mind   
that certain bounds hold against chaos,
 
that is a place of first permission,   
everlasting omen of what is.
 

D. H. Lawrence

 from Pansies THE WHITE HORSE The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on and the horse looks at him in silence. They are s...