Auden's Face

Fraser Sutherland
From:   Matuschka Case: Selected Poems 1970-2005. Toronto: TSAR, 2006.

Much of any poetry's dispensible, but
observe his face. A runic face, cracked
like baked clay, mud-veins left
by the drying sun. What are these hieroglyphics
this dry irony of skin? Read the message
of the temple broken open, the ark
desecrated. Was there ever a time better
than the one in which he lived? The sun
told him no. Bleached bones in a salt land
said don't forget us. Age limned
the parchment with memory, decay, life scored
the tablet vertical, horizontal. Writing words
carefully looked up, he sought precise truth, kept
life in one pocket, work in another
like pencils. This was Auden's face. He
chose, was given these serious ruins,
the mark of bitter weather.

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Fraser Sutherland's works copyright © to the author.