Home > Work > Old and New Poems
1 " Love is like sounds, whose last reverberations / Hang on the leaves of strange trees, on mountains / As distant as the curving of the earth, / Where the snow hangs still in the middle of the air.-from "Love is Like Sounds "
― Donald Hall , Old and New Poems
2 " We are all dyingof something, always,but our degrees ofawareness differ- from "Tubes "
3 " Nothing I do will make death disappearOr let your shudder or your knowledge go.See the world whole, and see it clearly then,A globe of dirt crusted with bones of men.If we walk, we walk on graves.- from "Shudder "
4 " The tree is burning on the autumn noonThat builds each year the leaf and bark again.Though frost will strip it raw and barren soon,The rounding season will restore and mend.Yet people are not mended, but go on,Accumulating memory and love.And so the wood we used to know is gone,Because the years have taught us that we move.We have moved on, the Tamburlaines of then,To different Asias of our plundering.And though we sorrow not to know againA land or face we loved, yet we are king.The young are never robbed of innocenceBut given gold of love and memory.We live in wealth whose bounds exceed our sense,And when we die are full of memory.-from "September Ode "
5 " Life is hell but death is worse.- from "No Deposit "
6 " We die of habits,deplorable oneslike merely living:finally fatal.- from "Tubes "
7 " When a long-desiredbaby is born, whatjoy! More happinessthan we find in sex,more than we take insuccess, revenge, orwealth. But should the sameinfant die, would youmeasure the horroron the same rule? Griefweighs down the seesaw,joy cannot budget it. "
8 " Exiled by death from people we have known,We are reduced again by years, and tryTo call them back and clothe the barren bone,Not to admit that people ever die.-from "Exile "
9 " Death of a part is agony- from "The Red Branch "
10 " Love is Like Sounds"Late snow fell this early morning of spring.At dawn I rose from bed, restless, and lookedOut of my window, to wonder if there the snowFell outside your bedroom, and you watching.I played my game of solitaire. The cardsCame out the same the third time through the deck.The game was stuck. I threw the cards together,And watched the snow that could not do but fall.Love is like sounds, whose last reverberationsHang on the leaves of strange trees, on mountainsAs distant as the curving of the earth,Where snow still hangs in the middle of the air. "