Debating whether to post a clunky rhyming poem (I’m no good with rhymes) I churned out last night for today’s post, I came across this poem on my daily feed from poets.org.
I first read H.D.’s poetry in a University of Calilfornia, Riverside, graduate school course on confessional poets in 2004 or 5. I fell instantly in painfully beautiful love. The incisive, careful cut of an exquisite mosaic or tapestry suggestive of eternity in the local is how I describe her poetry. You can see the source of the delicate angles of her words reflected in her face: the keen eye, angular nose and chin, all projecting intense insight.
If memory serves, Ezra Pound discovered or fostered her. I’m glad someone did, so that I could find her centuries later. Hope you enjoy.
Born in 1886, Hilda Doolittle was one of the leaders of the Imagist movement.
Sitalkas
H. D., 1886 – 1961
Thou art come at length
More beautiful
Than any cool god
In a chamber under
Lycia’s far coast,
Than any high god
Who touches us not
Here in the seeded grass.
Aye, than Argestes
Scattering the broken leaves.
In the gaze of the other 