I sit here perpetually inventing new people
as if the population boom were not enough
and not enough terror and problems
God knows, but I know too,
that's the point. Never fear enough
to much delight, nor a deep enough abyss,
nor time enough, and there are always a few
stars missing.
I don't want a new heaven and a new earth,
only the old ones.
Old sky, old dirt, new grass.
Nor life beyond the grave,
God help me, or I'll help myself
by living all these lives
nine at once or ninety
so that death finds me at all times
and on all sides exposed,
unfortressed, undefended,
inviolable, vulnerable, alive.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018), "Ars Lunga," from Wild Angels (1960-1975)
*
Bellchimes jangle, freakish wind
whistles icy out of desert lands
over the mountains. Janus, Lord
of winter and beginnings, riven
and shaken, with two faces,
watcher at the gates of winds and cities,
god of the wakeful:
keep me from coldhanded envy
and petty anger. Open
my soul to the vast
dark places. Say to me, say again,
nothing is taken, only given.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018), "January Night Prayer," from "V. Philosophy and Theology," Life Sciences: New Poems, 2006-2010
*
Few now and faint the stars that shone
all night so bright above you.
The sun must rise, and I be gone.
I leave you, though I love you.
We have lived well, my love, and so
let not this parting grieve you.
Sure as the sunrise you must know
I love you, though I leave you.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018), "Aubade," from "IV. Developmental Ontology," Life Sciences: New Poems, 2006-2010
