Sometimes it feels a bit like entering another country. People relate to one another just as they do on the outside... except differently. Relationships move at the pace they always do -- except when they deepen rapidly in the face of death, beyond the point where words fail and where speech can go no farther.
I hear many stories there. I become part of many other stories. I see endings and heartbreak (and, inexplicably, life and hope). I wish I could tell all of these stories, but intimacy and death are powerful delineators of boundaries.
Instead, I read and re-read this poem. One line in particular surfaces over and over in my mind, week after week, as I feel the burden and the lightness of having borne witness to so many stories: "Make in your mouths the words that were our names."
Privacy laws prevent me from sharing "the words that were our names." But I trust that they, and their stories, are all held in this beautiful autumnal poem by Archibald Macleish.
Epistle to be Left in the Earth (1930)
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...It is colder now there are many stars we are drifting North by the Great Bear the leaves are falling The water is stone in the scooped rock to southward Red sun grey air the crows are Slow on their crooked wings the jays have left us Long since we passed the flares of Orion Each man believes in his heart he will die Many have written last thoughts and last letters None know if our deaths are now or forever None know if this wandering earth will be found We lie down and the snow covers our garments I pray you you (if any open this writing) Make in your mouths the words that were our names I will tell you all we have learned I will tell you everything The earth is round there are springs under the orchards The loam cuts with a blunt knife beware of Elms in thunder the lights in the sky are stars We think they do not see we think also The trees do not know nor the leaves of the grasses hear us The birds too are ignorant do not listen Do not stand at dark in the open windows We before you have heard this they are voices They are not words at all but the wind rising Also none among us has seen God (... We have thought often the flaws of sun in the late and driving weather pointed to one tree but it was not so.) As for the nights I warn you the nights are dangerous The wind changes at night and the dreams come It is very cold there are strange stars near Arcturus Voices are crying an unknown name in the sky |
