Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser by Janet Kaufman & Anne Herzog

Author:Janet Kaufman & Anne Herzog [Kaufman, Janet & Herzog, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822980186
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 2005-05-22T04:30:00+00:00

On burning voyages of war they go.

Like starving ghosts they stumble after nuns.

Children of heroes, Defeat the dark companion.

But if they are told they are happy, they will know.

Who kills the father burns up the children's tears.

Some suffering blazes beyond all human touch,

some sounds of suffering cry, far out of reach.

These children bring to us their mother's fears.

Singing, “O make us strong O let us go—”

The new world comes among the old one's harms,

old world carrying new world in her arms.

But if you say they are free, then they will know.

War means to me, sings a small skeleton,

only the separation,

mother no good and gone,

taken away in lines of fire and foam.

The end of war

will bring me, bring me home.

The children of the defeated, sparrow-poor and starved,

create, create, must make their world again.

Dead games and false salutes must be their grace.

One wish must move us, flicker from our lives

to the marred face.

My child, my victim, my wish this moment come!

But the martyr-face cries to us fiercely

“I search to learn the way out of childhood;

I need to fight. I wish, I wish for home.”

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