The Second Trying
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If I could only get hold of the whole of you,
How could I ever get hold of the whole of you,
Even more than the most beloved idols,
More than mountains quarried whole,
More than mines
Of burning coal,
Let’s say mines of extinguished coal
And the breath of day like a fiery furnace.
If one could get hold of you for all the years,
How could one get hold of you from all the years,
How could one lengthen a single arm,
Like a single branch of an African river,
As one sees in a dream the Bay of Storms,
As one sees in a dream a ship that went down,
The way one imagines a cushion of clouds,
Lily-clouds as the body’s cushion,
But though you will it, they will not convey you,
Do not believe that they will convey you.
If one could get hold of all-of-the-whole-of-you,
If one could get hold of you like metal,
Say like pillars of copper,
Say like a pillar of purple copper
(That pillar I remembered last summer)—
And the bottom of the ocean I have never seen,
And the bottom of the ocean that I can see
With its thousand heavy thickets of air,
A thousand and one laden breaths.
If one could only get hold of the-whole-of-you-now,
How could you ever be for me what I myself am?
As much as we know about a person, there is always more. As much as we love them there is always doubt..about the "Muchness" of their being. About their true thoughts and about their love mirrored against our own. I have fallen in and out of love a thousand times with the same person...are they, too, doing the same? I always joke that only one of us really has to remain in love at a time...then it will flip and the other person will be the glue. But by gosh, what if you were both in love at the very same time? If we could know the whole story and they could know the whole story about us....what a world.
ReplyDeleteMines and coals are strong symbols. Fuel, and almost linked to diamonds.
ReplyDeleteI like the progression of the "whole of you" a lot better after reading your comment