Death
of a Son
(who
died in a mental hospital aged one)
Something has ceased to come along with
me.
Something like a person: something very like one.
And there was no nobility in it
Or anything like that.
Something was there like a one year
Old house, dumb as stone. While the near buildings
Sang like birds and laughed
Understanding the pact
They were to have with silence. But he
Neither sang nor laughed. He did not bless silence
Like bread, with words.
He did not forsake silence.
But rather, like a house in mourning
Kept the eye turned in to watch the silence while
The other houses like birds
Sang around him.
And the breathing silence neither
Moved nor was still.
I have seen stones: I have seen brick
But this house was made up of neither bricks nor stone
But a house of flesh and blood
With flesh of stone
And bricks for blood. A house
Of stones and blood in breathing silence with the other
Birds singing crazy on its chimneys.
But this was silence,
This was something else, this was
Hearing and speaking though he was a house drawn
Into silence, this was
Something religious in his silence,
Something shining in his quiet,
This was different this was altogether something else;
Though he never spoke, this
Was something to do with death.
And then slowly the eye stopped looking
Inward. The silence rose and became still.
The look turned to the outer place and stopped.
With the birds still shrilling around him.
And as if he could speak
He turned over on his side with his one year
Red as a wound
He turned over as if he could be sorry for this
And out of his eyes two great tears rolled, like stones,
And he died.
Something like a person: something very like one.
And there was no nobility in it
Or anything like that.
Something was there like a one year
Old house, dumb as stone. While the near buildings
Sang like birds and laughed
Understanding the pact
They were to have with silence. But he
Neither sang nor laughed. He did not bless silence
Like bread, with words.
He did not forsake silence.
But rather, like a house in mourning
Kept the eye turned in to watch the silence while
The other houses like birds
Sang around him.
And the breathing silence neither
Moved nor was still.
I have seen stones: I have seen brick
But this house was made up of neither bricks nor stone
But a house of flesh and blood
With flesh of stone
And bricks for blood. A house
Of stones and blood in breathing silence with the other
Birds singing crazy on its chimneys.
But this was silence,
This was something else, this was
Hearing and speaking though he was a house drawn
Into silence, this was
Something religious in his silence,
Something shining in his quiet,
This was different this was altogether something else;
Though he never spoke, this
Was something to do with death.
And then slowly the eye stopped looking
Inward. The silence rose and became still.
The look turned to the outer place and stopped.
With the birds still shrilling around him.
And as if he could speak
He turned over on his side with his one year
Red as a wound
He turned over as if he could be sorry for this
And out of his eyes two great tears rolled, like stones,
And he died.
A Space in the Air
The first day he had gone
I barely missed
him. I was glad almost he had left
Without a bark or flick of his
tail.
I was content he had
slipped
Out into the world. I felt,
Without
remarking, it was nearly a relief
From his dirty habits. Then, the
second
Day I noticed the space
He left behind. A hole
Cut out of the
air. And I missed him suddenly,
Missed him almost without knowing
Why it was so. And I grew
Afraid he was dead, expecting death
As something I
had grown used to. I was afraid
The clumsy children in the
street
Had cut his tail off as
A souvenir of the living and
I did not know
what to do. I grew afraid
Somebody had hurt him. I called
his name
But the hole in the air
remained.
I have grown accustomed to death
Lately. But his
absence made me sad.
I do not know how he should do
it
But his absence
frightened me.
It was not only his death I feared,
Not only his
but as if all of those
I loved, as if all those near me
Should suddenly go
Into the hole in the light
And disappear.
As if all of them should go
Without barking, without
speaking,
Without noticing me there
But go, and going as if
The instrument
of pain were a casual thing
To suffer, as if they should
suffer so,
Casually and without
greatness,
Without purpose even. But just go.
I should be
afraid to lose all those friends like this.
I should fear to lose those
loves. But mostly
I should fear to lose
you.
If you should go
Without
affliction, but even so, I should fear
The rent you would make in the
air
And the bare howling
Streaming after your naked hair.
I should feel
your going down more than my going down.
My own death I hear everyday
More or less
But your death would be something else,
Something else
beyond me. It would not be
Your death or my death, love,
But our rose-linked
dissolution.
So I feared his going,
His death, not
our death, but a hint at our death. And
I shall always
fear
The death of those we love as
The hint of your death,
love.
Jon
Silkin’s numerous collections of poetry include The Peaceable Kingdom (1954), The Two Freedoms (1958); The
Re-Ordering of the Stones (1961), Nature with Man (1965), Flower Poems, (1966); Amana Grass (1971); The Principle of
Water (1974), The Psalms with Their Spoils (1980), The Ship's
Pasture (1986), Selected Poems (1988; revised 1993), and The
Lens-Breakers (1992).
Jon Silkin (December 2, 1930 - November 25, 1997)
