a friend's umbrella

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Ralph Waldo Emerson, toward the end
of his life, found the names
of familiar objects escaping him.
He wanted to say something about a window,
or a table, or a book on a table.

But the word wasn't there,

although other words could still suggest

the shape of what he meant.

Then someone, his wife perhaps,

would understand: "Yes, window! I'm sorry,

is there a draft?" He'd nod.

She'd rise. Once a friend dropped by

to visit, shook out his umbrella

in the hall, remarked upon the rain.

Later the word umbrella

vanished and became

the thing that strangers take away.

Paper, pen, table, book:

was it possible for a man to think

without them? To know

that he was thinking? We remember

that we forget, he'd written once,

before he started to forget.

Three times he was told

that Longfellow had died.

Without the past, the present

lay around him like the sea.

Or like a ship, becalmed,

upon the sea. He smiled

to think he was the captain then,

gazing off into whiteness,

waiting for the wind to rise. 

–Lawrence Raab 

.

All my life’s a struggle with water and wind

.

All my life’s a struggle with water and wind.
two against one must be my story—
as I make my way into the earth
under the waves. There’s no country
I can call my own. But I’ve learned
to grow strong by being still. I know
if I fail I’ll be broken, and all
that’s part of me will be torn from me.
Let me find my place
among the stones, and be held.


–Lawrence Raab
from The Word Exchange
Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation

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