September 15, 2011 | +
Edward Hirsch, “The Renunciation of Poetry”

(Hofmannsthal in Athens, 1908)

These ruinous days of autumn. At dawn
the brightness seeps through the crumbling air,
at dusk the air gathers up the brightness.

So this is Greece, fabled decay. For years
he dreamt of caressing the flanks of these hills
and standing on the Aegean’s thunderous shoulders,

but now he feels a gust of disappointment
at a country of tombs and columns, graveyards
and excavations, stones and fragments of stones.

The dust of travel still clings to his body
and particles of sunlight fade on his skin.
What has happened to the eternal presences?

He climbs to the Acropolis in the early evening
to watch the sun descending behind the Parthenon. 
The first fires are being stoked in the sky,

and there is a smell of acacias, ripening
wheat and the open sea. But nothing penetrates.
In this light everything disintegrates into mist. 

These Greeks, he wonders, what are they
but shadows dissolving into shadows, prophets
of non-existence, premonitions of emptiness.

Impossible antiquity, aimless searchings. 
He despises them all for becoming vain boasts
and eternal treacheries, wall decorations.

(source; submitted by weissewiese)

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Tagged: #Edward Hirsch #poetry #lit #submission

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    - Edward Hirsch, The Renunciation of Poetry
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    by Edward Hirsch...weissewiese; source]
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