Above Everything

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I wished for death often
but now that I am at its door
I have changed my mind about the world.
It should go on; it is beautiful,
even as a dream, filled with water and seed,
plants and animals, others like myself,
ships and buildings and messages
filling the air -- a beauty,
if ever I have seen one.
In the next world, should I remember
this one, I will praise it
above everything.

–David Ignatow

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above everything

.

I wished for death often
but now that I am at its door
I have changed my mind about the world.

It should go on; it is beautiful,
even as a dream, filled with water and seed,
plants and animals, others like myself,
ships and buildings and messages
filling the air -- a beauty,
if ever I have seen one.

In the next world, should I remember
this one, I will praise it
above everything.
 

–David Ignato 

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to whom are we beautiful as we go?

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I wish I understood the beauty
in leaves falling. To whom
are we beautiful
as we go?

I lie in the field
still, absorbing the stars
and silently throwing off
their presence. Silently
I breathe and die

by turns.

He was ripe

and fell to the ground

from a bough

out where the wind

is free

of the branches.


–David Ignatow
Against the Evidence: selected poems

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For My Daughter

 

 

 

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When I die choose a star
and name it after me
that you may know
I have not abandoned
or forgotten you.
You were such a star to me,
following you through birth
and childhood, my hand
in your hand. 

When I die
choose a star and name it
after me so that I may shine
down on you, until you join
me in darkness and silence
together.
 

—David Ignatow
Against the Evidence: Selected Poems 1934-1994

 

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