Words that 'speak to all'

 

“The poet speaks to all men of that other life of theirs that they have smothered and forgotten.” –  Edith Sitwell

                    Sitwell, born on Sept. 7, 1887 was both a patron of the writing and art worlds and also a critic and noted poet herself.  She started writing while still in grammar school and had her first poem The Drowned Suns, published in London’s Daily Mirror in 1913.  

                    From 1913, the date of her first poem, she published poems continuously until her death in 1964.   Perhaps her best-known poem is Still Falls the Rain about the WWII blitz of London and set to music by Benjamin Britten.   Her poem The Bee-Keeper was set to music by Priaulx Rainier, as The Bee Oracles. 

                    For Saturday’s Poem, here is Stiwell's,

                 Answers

I kept my answers small and kept them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bullwark to my fear.

The huge abstractions I kept from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.

But the big answers clamoured to be moved

Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.

Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, still I hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow.

And all the great conclusions coming near.