As we walk the wall
all night as in Jones’ ‘The Wall,’
in memory of
‘The Dying Gaul,’ we
sleep at last. The enigma
of being survives
our betrayal. We
die in ignorance, walking
the wall, whispering
the tricks of our trade,
staying awake, remember-
ing wonderful things.
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Author: Tom D'Evelyn
Tom D'Evelyn is a private editor and writing tutor in Cranston RI and, thanks to the web, across the US and in the UK. He can be reached at tom.develyn@comcast.net. D'Evelyn has a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Before retiring he held positions at The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard University Press, Boston University and Brown University. He ran a literary agency for ten years, publishing books by Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, among others. Before moving to Portland OR he was managing editor at Single Island Press, Portsmouth NH. He blogs at http://tdevelyn.com and other sites.
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Thank you for this one. Reminds me of these lines of Montale: “…to sense with sad wonder/how all of life and its hard work/is trudging along beside a wall/spiked with jagged shards of broken bottles.”
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How fine to remember that! The poem suggests another kind of memory too!
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