{"id":2257,"date":"2013-09-20T13:06:07","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T18:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.snc.edu\/susanallen\/?p=2257"},"modified":"2013-09-20T13:06:07","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T18:06:07","slug":"poem-for-cassandra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sncmagazine.knight.domains\/uncategorized\/poem-for-cassandra\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem for Cassandra"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It’s just pure joy that we have poets among our college community and that, sometimes, we get to publish their words. This week, the dedication of the new Cassandra Voss Center <\/a>on campus was the occasion for a new poem, too. It’s author,\u00a0Laurie MacDiarmid <\/strong>(English), was one of Cassandra’s teachers.<\/p>\n

Poem for Cassandra<\/strong><\/p>\n

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
\n<\/em>And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
\n<\/em>\u2013Walt Whitman<\/p>\n

At the end of another August,
\nmaple leaves flutter
\nin a welcome breeze,
\nsighing shade in soft smiles
\nover the sidewalks,
\nover the mown lawns and gleaming dogs,
\nproud on the ends of their leashes,
\nover the neighbor
\nwho pinches a last delicate rose
\nfrom its thorny stem,
\nover children who dive and swoop
\nacross the grass
\nlike sparrows,
\nstill free
\nbut smelling the hot start
\nof September
\nwith its chalky classrooms,
\ntheir arithmetic drone
\nlike the buzz
\nof a thousand bees.<\/p>\n

In this drowsy comfort,
\nwe might feel the shape
\nof your body\u2019s absence —<\/p>\n

a delicate silhouette,
\na sudden shadow
\nin the shape of an angel,
\nslipping past overhead —<\/p>\n

we might feel the shape of your absence
\nand shiver,
\nimagining the human things
\nyou might now be doing \u2026<\/p>\n

Like reading a French novel
\nin your backyard,
\nand sipping a glass of iced tea,
\nor sitting at a table in a sunny caf\u00e9
\nin some foreign country
\nwhere time is a bit thicker
\nand words fall more slowly,
\nleaning forward to laugh
\nwith a friend,
\nthe sound rising up
\nlike white wings,
\nso that the woman sitting by herself
\nnext to the window
\nlooks up at you
\nand smiles,
\nbathed in that light.<\/p>\n

These dreams of you in your body
\nare beautiful and sad,
\nlike the mellow end of summer
\nstretched in tree shadows
\nacross our gardens —<\/p>\n

but only for us,
\nstill bound to a single time and place,
\nstill tied
\nto the crushing wheel of time,
\nto loneliness and anger
\nand falling out of love,
\nto the inevitable disappointment
\nthat collects as dust
\non all of our human possessions.<\/p>\n

You, after all,
\nare still beautiful
\nand never sad.<\/p>\n

You are everything
\nand everywhere
\nall at once \u2013<\/p>\n

You are silver and gold and rubies,
\nyou are laughter
\nand velvet grass underfoot —
\nyou are peony petals beaded with rain
\nand a whisper
\nthat tickles the ear,<\/p>\n

you are swans and dancers
\nand poets in parks,
\nyou are rivers feeding the oceans,
\nand clouds shaped like goldfish,<\/p>\n

you are snowfall glittering in cherry orchards,
\nand tulip bulbs
\nkeeping their secrets
\nunder February\u2019s freeze.<\/p>\n

You are your father\u2019s smile,
\nyour mother\u2019s grace,
\nyour sisters\u2019 and brother\u2019s clear eyes.<\/p>\n

You are dreams and memories and songs
\nfloating through our minds
\nlike breath,<\/p>\n

and you are the hands that have touched you,
\nand the spirits you\u2019ve shaped \u2013<\/p>\n

You are the bricks and glass and mortar
\nin this building,
\nand you are the thousands
\nwho will laugh and love
\ninside it \u2013<\/p>\n

You are the space above us
\nand the ground beneath us \u2013
\nthe very air contains you<\/p>\n

and yet<\/p>\n

you are free,
\nyou exceed us,<\/p>\n

like a million years of starlight
\nstretching forwards
\nand backwards —
\nthe purest love
\nwe can never
\nfully imagine.<\/p>\n

Sept. 18, 2013
\nLaurie MacDiarmid<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s just pure joy that we have poets among our college community and that, sometimes, we get to publish their words. This week, the dedication of the new Cassandra Voss Center on campus was the occasion for a new poem,…<\/p>\n

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