"We Meet Only To Part"

I have written here before that the purpose of poetry is not to edify.  Perhaps a better way to put it is that anyone who sets out to write a poem in order to edify us is doomed to failure.  Still, I should also be very clear about this:  a good poem can -- perhaps better than any other form of art (I am biased, I admit) -- help us to understand what it means to be a human being in a wondrous and mysterious world.

Poetry provides inklings, not answers.  Poetry is not religion or science or metaphysics or politics (for which we can all be thankful).

The world through which we walk is beautiful and heartbreaking.  From stepping stone to stepping stone is the only way to traverse the ground.

               . . . . . we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

From Philip Larkin, "The Mower."

John Aldridge, "The River Pant Near Sculpin's Bridge" (1961)

We meet only to part,
Coming and going like white clouds,
Leaving traces so faint
Hardly a soul notices.

Ryokan (1758-1831) (translated by John Stevens), in Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan (Shambhala 1996).

Walter Goodin, "The River Beverley" (1938)

                            Afterpeace

This wind that howls about our roof tonight
And tears live branches screaming from great trees
Tomorrow may have scarcely strength to ruffle
The rabbit's back to silver in the sun.

Patrick MacDonogh Poems (edited by Derek Mahon) (The Gallery Press 2001).

Alfred Parsons (1847-1920), "Poplars in the Thames Valley"

Why should little things be blamed?
Little things for grace are famed;
Love, the winged and the wild,
Love is but a little child.

Anonymous (translated by Thomas Rogers), in Henry Wellesley (editor), Anthologia Polyglotta: A Selection of Versions in Various Languages, Chiefly from the Greek Anthology (1849).

George Vicat Cole, "Iffley Mill" (1884)