Donald Davidson Quotes

Then let my skeleton soul</br>Writhe upward from its loam,</br>Drink red morning again,</br>And look gently home.

This is an autumn when they come no more.</br>Beech leaves yellow and fall, the beech-mast rots</br>Uneaten. Infertile now the beech</br>Hollows its heart, begetting naught.</br>There is frost on the grandson's eyes,</br>And only rumor upon the skies...

Then no soft arms could hold me from my wilderness </br>To reap at daylight's fallow edge, with bullet or knife,</br>That flicker of hoof or pelt, that flash of wings returning -</br>The dogs trace it - harvest of life that gives me life.

We, too, have names that blaze on mouldering stone</br>And I have seen men's tears fall where they slept</br>And heard a shouting while I wept,</br>A century off yet louder in my ear</br>Than all that's so much magnified and near.

Something stirs that once had life. It drops</br>Into the stream, a last act of faith.</br>Seedballs of sycamore, incautious leaves of willow,</br>These have outstayed their autumn, teasing death</br>Only so far, not yet beyond all patience.</br>Now they let go.

The probing knife of madness</br>Can start a dullard brain;</br>Cold cheeks feel kisses</br>And warm with tears again

Farewell,</br>Army of Tennessee! Rough glory, rooted here,</br>Feeds the lone vow, the lingering touch</br>Of a late comrade sworn to remember you!</br>Lights glow from river and town. The darkness stabs.</br>And winter sweeps the undefended earth.

I want the word that burns into my heart</br>Like God's coal alive on the Prophet's tongue.</br>I would listen now while memory is ablaze</br>To seal your testament within my soul.

The sky drips its spectral </br>And Gods, like men, to soot revert.</br>Gone is the mild, the serene air.</br>The golden years are come too late.</br>Pursue not wisdom or virtue here,</br>But what blind motion, what dim last</br>Regret of men who slew their past</br>Raised up this bribe against their fate.

The seed of Appomattox blooms; its fruit</br>Rots where eyes are dazed with a hungry searching,</br>And ears are deaf with steps that murmur and follow</br>No command.

For he has seen a road by healing waters</br>Hushed into wintry slate against the sand,</br>And spoken there with the wind's elfin daughters,</br>And mingled in their dusty saraband.</br></br>He has known winds that blow from blossomy closes,</br>Rich with the fruity smell of summertide,</br>And kissed warm faery lips... Now he reposes,</br>While we are not quite certain he has died.

Father remembered the wild pigeons crowding</br>Beech groves, mast-rich. The flutter in boughs, the cloud</br>Darkening all, a hurricane circling and surging.</br>Eye lost count, ear could not measure sound.</br>Mind hurled measureless with them, feathered the sky.

We mourned with you then in brotherhood,</br>And I'll weep with you now for those whose names</br>Burn on your monuments like altar flames.

Why did my father write? I know he saw</br>History clutched as a wraith out of blowing mist</br>Where tongues are loud, and a glut of little souls</br>Laps at the too much blood and the burning house.

The whispering in the marrow spreads to the brain;</br>The remembering heart carries it round again</br>Till it beats in the throat, the lips, the weeping eye</br>And is born at last in a blazing wordless outcry.