A poem by Thomas Thornburg from Munseetown

(for Tammy Meyer)

I did not come this south to north for growth,
No north roots pulled me, no, nor northern home,
No tinseled dreams seduced me from the sun.
The truth is plainly albumed here, for both
Were happy where we were and where from.
We were content enough when dawn, begun
By macaws screaming in the feathered grove,
Rolled up like thunder from some poet’s book.
All that contentment all these prints declare
Was mirrored in our eyes, the mirrored love
That made a kind of magic once. But look
At this one here. Look there.
One day the magic and the mirror broken
In splendid ruin on the ruined floor
Could not be mended anywise, nor spoken.
Fit words to fix above a ruined door:
The hateful word said or the word unsaid,
Legend enough for the house of the dead.
O, the black dawns that opened days, the dark
Dog of despair that dogged us in our work,
That haunted closets, haunted every bed,
Crept in the wakeful halls and bit us and we bled.
I wept and bled and birthed a daughter
Whom he seized up and struck and slew her joy
That so displeased him and estranged from laughter,
As drunken father did him when a boy.
Down all the darksome ways we fled his reach
Through northern lights and fearful nights we fled him,
Far from the sun, the lapping purling beaches,
The savage vistas where his dark god led him.
She sleeps in terror still; in all her dreams
She screams to hear again the macaw scream.

Bitter? I do not think this cold will hinder
My pouring poison into cups for men this winter.