Sligo Blues

SLIGO BLUES POEM by Guido Vermeulen, March 2014

This is the cave where Yeats slept

explained the Sligo guide to us.

Did he sleep in a cage?

someone from the tour group asked.

Maybe his house was one,

you decide that after our visit.

I smiled about the misunderstanding,

even small communication is difficult,

poems however are personal and universal

enigmas at the same time.

What are you thinking about?

The young son of the guide could read my old face.

What your father meant was that Yeats

slept and dreamed in these caves,

in the beauty of these mountains, in the green valleys,

in the nearby clouds, so near they touch our heads,

in the golden sunlight and the silvery moon one,

in the hearts of the people who have the privilege of living here,

in the soul of every one who reads him or has read him.

You really must love Mister Yeats?

Love dies naturally, I replied.

But the dreams of the dead are made of

spoken, written and abandoned poems.

Abandoned?

Mallarmé said that poets do not finish poems,

they only abandom them.

I add to that: it is a bit like the dead, they only abandon life.

Mister Yeats did that too, that’s why we are here today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats