We resort to poetry when ordinary language fails us. And it always fails us. So does poetry, but in a different way. There’s no way we can tell the truth if we don’t know the truth.
April is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Whenever I read this, it makes me think of that spring day my mother first took me from my crib and carried me outside. It’s not a memory, but the memory of a memory. I wrote it down when I was old enough to write—but first I drew it, in stick figures—because I knew memories were all my family had left.
A new child, born into an old family, stirred those dull roots
with the desire for a new beginning in a new land. But all families are
equally old, and this new land is just as dead as the old.
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