Pietà
A POEM
“Does the darkness cradle thee Than mine arms more tenderly?”
— Willa Cather
….I know but one thing
You grew
And grew
Standing forth
Tall…taut
Pain wrapped you
Beyond my heart’s fullness
You are lying across
My lap
I who gave you birth
Now cradle you
In the motherness
Of me
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Evidently a man of coarse, even slovenly, personal habits, Auden was as meticulous as T.S. Eliot in the precision of his verse.
Envy of the Empty Air
Of what do they dream
— the white-robed monks?
while we
with half-shaped forms
from…