Last Friday I was scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers at the annual Plunkett Poetry Festival, alongside two of my most admired poet-friends, Betsy Sholl and Baron Wormser. Betsy was going to talk about Kate Barnes, Baron about Leo Connellan. I would have spoken about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Instead, yesterday evening, I took this photo in Longfellow Square. There's deep poignancy in this vision of the muzzled poet . . . and yet his eyes speak, and his hands. He leans forward in his chair, willing my attention.

The covered face, the deep-set eyes, the eager hands: they capture an actuality--the way in which people on the street continue to communicate the social nature of their humanity--but I also imagine them as a metaphor for the internal struggle to maintain a conversation with myself.

Outside, now, the clouds hang low over the city, but the forecast insists that the sun will break through. I'll hang clothes on the line and weed in the garden, and Tom will putter around with gravel and fire bricks.

I cling to these everyday passions--plants and soil; but also the precise edge, the artifacts of the mind.


The Bridge

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city,
Behind the dark church-tower.

I saw her bright reflection
In the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling
And sinking into the sea.

And far in the hazy distance
Of that lovely night in June,
The blaze of the flaming furnace
Gleamed redder than the moon.

Among the long, black rafters
The wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean
Seemed to lift and bear them away;

As, sweeping and eddying through them,
Rose the belated tide,
And, streaming into the moonlight,
The seaweed floated wide.

And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o’er me
That filled my eyes with tears.

How often, O, how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!

How often, O, how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O’er the ocean wild and wide!

For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.

And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.

I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!

And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;

The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.