Are You There?
July 6, 2023A Walk After Dark
July 6, 2023Another Time
For us like any other fugitive,
Like the numberless flowers that cannot number
And all the beasts that need not remember,
It is today in which we live.
So many try to say Not Now,
So many have forgotten how
To say I Am, and would be
Lost, if they could, in history.
Bowing, for instance, with such old-world grace
To a proper flag in a proper place,
Muttering like ancients as they stump upstairs
Of Mine and His or Ours and Theirs.
Just as if time were what they used to will
When it was gifted with possession still,
Just as if they were wrong
In no more wishing to belong.
No wonder then so many die of grief,
So many are so lonely as they die;
No one has yet believed or liked a lie,
Another time has other lives to live.
W.H. Auden
W.H. Auden (1907-1973) was an English-American poet who is considered one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Auden's poetry often explored themes of love, politics, and morality, and his most famous works include "Funeral Blues" and "September 1, 1939." He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1948.