The Journal Wk. 18
The Mirror and the Light: Salvage
From the wreckage of death
these things:
Silence
and slow, thorned regret
which longs for banishment —
Disperse the breathing ghosts
who cling to you,
who, dying, dream,
making war and empire of the past.
Yours to make or mar,
Yours to betray — or arm
Your thoughts
Against the nights that trouble you;
All the world lies
And lies at your feet,
What no one else knows
You know, and have, and hold
Against the day
Your steady star, golden, ever growing
Is stilled between the heavens, and glowing, falls.
The Journal is a section where I post weekly poems responding to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. Here’s last week’s edition:
