My Seasons

Haniel Long

Famed as a writer of prose, Haniel Long’s poetry was discovered almost twenty-one years after his death. In her introduction to this volume, his friend poet May Sarton wrote, “The tone can be wry; it can tease a little; there is often a smile hovering about as in Robert Frost, and you have to sense the smile to understand what is being said. It can be pretty tough. But the toughness is part of the music.”

A sample poem from the book

If Our Great Fragile Cities

Man making nature to his own measure,

Making himself to his own measure,

Spun of his need

The switchboard of the telephones,

This symbol, this treasure.

If our great fragile cites were destroyed,

And the fabric of our life had to part

And we from the ground to make a fresh start,

It would be the light-flashing switchboard

My heart remembered in the void.

Trying to make corn grow

Without plow or hoe,

Trying to catch fish without hook or line,

My bare feet on sharp stones,

Not enough clothes to cover my bones,

To keep on living I could recall the time

When, if only over the telephones,

We became lights and went seeking

One another, and were answered by other lights,

And invisible people speaking.