the doing so

It is the test they set that will not go,
the failing of the doing so,
ungainly legacy that they bestow.

i know the tricks and yet i cannot show
why you and i in all our afterglow
just fail the test of doing so.
it is the legacy that they bestow,
and they remorselessly will have it so.

it is the test of those who cannot row
upon a burning sea where charred winds blow
the ghastly empires of the dead and tow
them to their ghastly deaths to show
them dead and ghastly,smiling,slow.
it is the test they set that will not go.

and all our dead and all their dead friends know
we have no gift for lying low,
no gift at all for doing so.
the test they set you will not go.
it is the legacy that they bestow,
the failing of the doing so.



Harold Pinter 1977

back, and in good company

in the long months we were absent we heard of Harold Pinter's death, - except for his unusuall, and very succesfull theater plays there is his poetry, which we love for its dry humor and sensetivity.
we wonder if you would like it as well as we do.


Nomi Ben-David