“For when words cease to cling close to things, kingdoms fall, empires wane and diminish.” – Ezra Pound
This week The Drifter offers a twenty-three-line poem because that’s what occurred – or arrived. In the unlikely event that anyone out there wants more “Drifter” today, I advise perusing this pome (not a typo) a multitude of times. This is not an article from The New York Daily Bullshit with a tag on it saying, “2 min read.” Reading this piece very, very, very, very, very, very, very slowly (aloud, or inside) is the recommended method – a form of medicine. I here predict (and if I’m wrong, I won’t know it, or care) that this one will be around for a while.
In the title, “Beauty” is a name, as in the old French legend, “Beauty and the Beast.”
This piece contains the past and the present, and has eyes on the future, in a writing where hundreds of things are deliberately hidden within every line.
And: age, does it not sneak up on us like a thief in the night?
With sincerity,
The Drifter
April 30, 2026 AD, 11:33 AM
The Heaven of Beauty
When I thought of your long red silver hair
and how many years it’s been that I haven’t seen it
blowing in the wind,
I was surprised, and almost shocked,
and I couldn’t believe that it was almost May again.
May,
month of dying
purple lilac petals in Berwyn,
another chance, a thawing of the heart, a re-resolution,
despite all.
May,
a sinking of the heart, a re-realization,
a too-real realization, and a knowing, that nothing,
like us, does not last forever.
And May,
telling me
there will be
another summer
of a different kind
Somewhere Else
somewhere down the line
one of these
lifetimes.
The Drifter
Saragun Springs 
Drifter
The month of May has a strange reality to it that changes with age. It used to be a magic time, the end of the school year…then, well nothing.
Nowadays it is the “speed bump” time in which you remember that it was just New Years Day!
I still have to read the ‘pome’ again. Any comment on that would be unfairly superficial.
But you are right about the “dying time.” There has always been that feeling for me.
You are thoughtful again!
P.S. that Pound quote is utterly profound
Leila
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Hi Leila
Thanks for focusing on the Pound quotation because, in a world where so much has already been said and written I really do consider my quotations to be more than just “quotations,” more like voices from beyond the grave spoken by very specific, already-well-rounded characters.
Everything has already been said by someone somewhere, and yet, every generation also needs to say it again themselves in their own way, or the thing/s Ezra talked about in the quote will also happen.
That’s why Ezra also famously said: “MAKE IT NEW.” He wasn’t only talking to his own generation when he said that.
I also have a fascination with Pound’s collaboration/s with his friend, H.D. They didn’t actually collaborate as in write things together too much, but they did collaborate in lots of other literary ways, editorially and so forth.
Thanks again!
Dale
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Heartfelt and heart-breaking. The May motif works well. Lovely imagery (“purple lilacs in Berwyn,” nice internal rhyme). “…somewhere down the line one of these lifetimes” is a strong closing. Very nice.
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Thank you, David!
You are a fine craftsman of the written word with a great eye and I appreciate your analysis, support and commentary. You also have a heart or you wouldn’t be able to feel the heartbroken heartfelt nature of this at all, and I appreciate that perhaps most of all!
Dale
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Melancholy and wistful – full of yearning – just really lovely. dd
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Hi Diane
You are sensitive to beauty which means you have a fine sensibility. I appreciate your continued support, both as commentator and as, literally, Literally Editor. Thanks again for everything!
Dale
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