[1067] On A Wedding Anniversary

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul, <Aseem_Kaul@>:

The sky is torn across
This ragged anniversary of two
Who moved for three years in tune
Down the long walks of their vows.

Now their love lies a loss
And Love and his patients roar on a chain;
From every tune or crater
Carrying cloud, Death strikes their house.

Too late in the wrong rain
They come together whom their love parted:
The windows pour into their heart
And the doors burn in their brain.

	-- Dylan Thomas

Easily one of my favourite Dylan poems. I love the way the sense of distance
and separation in the first stanza dissolves into aching passion; how a
quiet walk on a cloudy day becomes an experience of love that is
simulataneously revelation and loss. And I love the way that Thomas, as
always, finds the exact phrases for that experience - of all the places in
poetry that relationships have floundered, there are few more simple and
more moving than "too late in the wrong rain" - and finds also the exact
balance between those phrases, so that a poem filled with raging lines
("Love and his patients roar on a chain", "Doors burn in their brain") still
manages to convey an overall impression of quiet tragedy.

Aseem.

[Minstrels Links]

Dylan Thomas:
Poem #14, Prologue
Poem #38, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Poem #58, The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
Poem #138, Fern Hill
Poem #225, Poem In October
Poem #270, Under Milk Wood
Poem #335, After the Funeral (In memory of Ann Jones)
Poem #405, Altarwise by Owl-Light (Stanzas I - IV)
Poem #476, In my craft or sullen art
Poem #568, Especially when the October Wind
Poem #1035, The Hand that Signed the Paper
Poem #1067, On A Wedding Anniversary


[this poem is archived, accessible and awaiting your comments at]
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1067.html

From: sccook@  Fri Jun 28 14:48:48 2002

I don't think there is anyone walking in a literal sense. The journey is
the paths that are taken towards loving, honouring and cherishment 'til
death do they part; and perhaps the stark and horrid realisation that
the journey isn't about romance, but compromise and tenacity. It's the
Love song and it's once innocent singers that have been shackled, and
the lightning from the crater carrying cloud of the torn sky has rended
the shelter that Love provided. There's a new tune of an entirely
different sort to be sung.


Regards,

Steve.



On A Wedding Anniversary

The sky is torn across
This ragged anniversary of two
Who moved for three years in tune
Down the long walks of their vows.

Now their love lies a loss
And Love and his patients roar on a chain;
From every tune or crater
Carrying cloud, Death strikes their house.

Too late in the wrong rain
They come together whom their love parted:
The windows pour into their heart
And the doors burn in their brain.

>Easily one of my favourite Dylan poems. I love the way the sense of
distance and separation in the first stanza dissolves into aching
passion; how a quiet walk on a cloudy day becomes an experience of love
>that is simulataneously revelation and loss. And I love the way that
Thomas, as always, finds the exact phrases for that experience - of all
the places in poetry that relationships have floundered, there are few
>more simple and more moving than "too late in the wrong rain" - and
finds also the exact balance between those phrases, so that a poem
filled with raging lines ("Love and his patients roar on a chain",
>"Doors burn in their brain") still manages to convey an overall
impression of quiet tragedy.