ISSUE: Autumn 1958
My mother it was who died too soon
Before she ever knew peace or rest.
She learned that life was a struggle at best,
But if she could wait till the year went round
All that she wished for might be found.
But at one black midnight with never a moon
She could wait no longer, and turned her head
Away from the world, and so was dead.
My father it was who lived too long,
Till his days grew hollow with empty thought,
And grim possession of all he sought.
They told him he was a fortunate man
To have watched the end of what he began;
But he cursed and glared and said they were wrong,
And reached toward his fields with the river beside,
And knotted his angry hands, and died.
And if ever I die, who stand between
The spring’s brightness and the autumn’s turning,
I shall vanish like flame that has no yearning,
And reach as I die a realm unseen,
Unhoped for by my father or mother,
Unthought of even by me today—
Unknown and ever so far away.
I shall find it indeed. I will have no other.
