Holà by C.H. Sisson

PN Review 87, September - October 1992

Holà

Words do not hold the thing they say:
Say as you will, the thing escapes
Loose upon air, or in the shapes
Which struggle still before the eyes.
Hola will run upon its way
And never catch up with its prize.

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Esperance

Meaning is what is lacking. Size
And shape are nothing in this room
Where there is neither light nor dark.
The usual servitude of eyes
Condemned to see the world in bloom
Is lifted, and it leaves no mark.

'Was someone once' is all there is
Yet cannot be because it was,
By that precluding presence now,
For, in the last analysis
The past is only there because
The present lives to show it how.

This loss is more than all. I brood
On nothing but the vacant hour
Which slips away unregistered.
Language, be still. Do not allude
To any comfort in time's power:
Imagery has become absurd.

Yet there is spring, which breaks upon
The world without the help of man,
Subduing every living thing.
No emptiness can settle on
The mind it speaks to. Nothing can
Avert the meaning it will bring.

And though it seems that I must live
Beyond communication now
Of any wilful word or sign,
It needs only beauty to give
The light she cannot disallow
And every certitude is mine.

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These poems are taken from PN Review 87, the September - October 1992 issue. Further contributions from Sisson are available in the archive to paying subscribers, as well as more poetry, features, reviews and reports from across the back catalogue.