In Provence Gorni's got a lot of enemies who put down my songs as well. Yet I know I am the poet, the only one of my generation. When I sing mountains dance valleys & forests rejoice. I take up my harp & happy Zion's daughters form a circle. If I want I can wake up bones & make stones run like the Jordan. . . . . . . . . . When I die girls will lament me everyday & merchants make big deals in world-markets for bags of dirt from my grave, out of my coffin's planks others will carve amulets -- special for barren women. Someone will string harps & fiddles with my hair & the tunes will come, O lovely tunes sans strum or bow of human hand. Even my clothes -- revered -- anything that's touched my skin. But grind my bones to dust, I won't promote idolatry. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES; THE 10TH SATIRE OF JUVENAL, IMITATED by SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784) EMBLEMS OF LOVE: 4. THE TIMOROUS ADVENTURER by PHILIP AYRES FATHER O'SHEA WAS HIS REGIMENT'S PRIDE by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR PSYCHE by WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER SONG: CELIA SINGING by THOMAS CAREW |