(no subject)

Kathleen Raine

The Dead

Not because they are far, but because so near
The dead seem strange to us;
Stripped of those unprized familiar forms they wore,
Defending from our power to wound
That poignant naked thing they were,
The holy souls
Speak, essence to essence, heart to heart.
Scarcely can we dare
To know such intimacy
Those whom coutesy, or reticence, or fear
Hid, when, covered in skins of beasts,
Evading and evaded,
We turned the faces of our souls away.
Only the youngest child is as near as they,
Or those who share the marriage-bed
When pity and tenderness dwell there.

( Kim's thoughts )