Hilton Head Island: some recently read poems

 

                                     Matsuo Basho  1644-1694

A great blue heron often sleeps in the afternoon in one of the live oak trees just beyond our deck.  (EM are the initials of the translator.)

These are the last line of T.S. Eliot’s (1888-1965) ‘The Love Song of J. Arthur Prufrock’.

Eliot like me was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and like me did not want to be there.  He became an Englishman.  I became whatever I am.

Whatever that is, I am not Prufrock.  I think the mermaids sang to me.  I even hope they still will.  Perhaps fondly of what we have shared.  Perhaps in respect for one who has unexpectedly grown old and still seeks their company.

                                               Robinson Jeffers   1887-1962

                                                       e.e. cummings  1894-1962

                                                        Countee Cullen   1903-1946