The Widow's Lament in Springtime, The Great Figure

Listen to:

The Widow's Lament in Springtime, The Great Figure (1:25)

by William Carlos Williams

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

THE WIDOW'S LAMENT IN SPRINGTIME

  Sorrow is my own yard
  where the new grass
  flames as it has flamed
  often before but not
  with the cold fire
  that closes round me this year.
  Thirty five years
  I lived with my husband.
  The plum tree is white today
  with masses of flowers.
  Masses of flowers
  load the cherry branches
  and color some bushes
  yellow and some red
  but the grief in my heart
  is stronger than they
  for though they were my joy
  formerly, today I notice them
  and turn away forgetting.
  Today my son told me
  that in the meadows,
  at the edge of the heavy woods
  in the distance, he saw
  trees of white flowers.
  I feel that I would like
  to go there
  and fall into those flowers
  and sink into the marsh near them.


THE GREAT FIGURE

  Among the rain
  and lights
  I saw the figure 5
  in gold
  on a red
  firetruck
  moving
  with weight and urgency
  tense
  unheeded
  to gong clangs
  siren howls
  and wheels rumbling
  through the dark city.