AUTUMN POEMS BY RICHARD BERENGARTEN FROM 'THE WINE CUP'
Image by Arijana Mišić-Burns.
Richard Berengarten , arguably this generation’s leading Cambridge poet, releases some of his magical poems of loss and life to The Cambridge Critique in the week of their publication in The Wine Cup. Shot through with defiance, tinged with sadness and regret and determined to celebrate life , they are the perfect autumnal contemplation - their poignancy amplified by the death of Queen Elizabeth - a beautiful homage to her , and to the fate we must all of us eventually face.
CHRYSANTHEMUMS
Autumn chrysanthemums! What gorgeous colours!
I pluck their flowers, dew-wet. Then float them
On the surface of this – whatsit – that drowns care.
Whatever is, has form. What’s born becomes
Death-fruit – death being birth’s corollary.
Autumn is back with gold chrysanthemums.
Everything’s ripened – apples, damsons, plums.
I’ve picked all, twisted each stem carefully.
Whatever is, has form. What’s born becomes.
I’ve rubbed skin-bloom off fingers, licked my thumbs,
Sucked juices out. Such sensuality!
Autumn is back with gold chrysanthemums.
I’m still in rapture. Consciousness succumbs
To this abundant prodigality.
Whatever is, has form. What’s born becomes.
I still hear bee-hordes. My whole being thrums.
I pick flower-heads to dry for wine and tea.
Autumn is back with gold chrysanthemums.
Blackbirds peck berries. Sparrows, fallen crumbs.
And me? Drunk without drinking, on a spree.
Whatever is, has form. What’s born, becomes.
Autumn is back with gold chrysanthemums.
FIRST FROST
Dew freezes. No mists drift.
Pungent chrysanthemums blaze, open up the woods.
A line of green pines crowns the cliffs.
A crispness on the air, a chill, first frost,
Pines silhouetted on the sheer cliff-top,
Chrysanthemums ablaze in petalled rust.
Here is completeness, no waste, nothing lost,
Between what’s far and near, no chasm or gap,
A crispness on the air, a chill, first frost.
Chill flames bloom with an acrid tang of must,
Searing the wood’s edge, petal-frills knife-sharp,
Chrysanthemums ablaze in petalled rust
While past the pines, in lines of mauve, criss-crossed,
The mountains’ chorus quivers like a harp.
A crispness on the air, a chill, first frost.
However pressed, expressed, impressed, compressed,
This natural music keeps perpetual shape –
Chrysanthemums ablaze in petalled rust.
A man may be a ghost pressed out of dust
But me? I’m drunk and haven’t touched a drop.
A crispness on the air. A chill, first frost.
Chrysanthemums ablaze in petalled rust.
ENDS
The empty boat drifts off. No oar directs it.
To being human there’s most definitely an end.
The end is where things stop. It’s not a thing.
But rather a no-thing, an emptiness.
Once it arrives, there’s no more numbering.
No scurrying, no self-encumbering,
No counting out or down, no more or less –
The end is where things stop. It’s not a thing.
No other and no else, no square or ring,
No angle, line or curve, no strife or stress –
Once it arrives, there’s no more numbering.
Nothing to take away, nothing to bring,
No time, no tense, no map, no fixed address –
The end is where things stop. It’s not a thing.
So sit down, friend, and drink. Stop worrying.
We’re not there yet and worry’s meaningless.
Once it arrives, there’s no more numbering.
And who knows what this evening may bring?
Tears? Wonder? Visions? Peace? Forgetfulness?
The end is where things stop. It’s not a thing.
Once it arrives, there’s no more numbering.
A HUNDRED YEARS?
Humans lease a body for up to a hundred years
But end up in the twinkling of an eye.
We lodge here for at most a hundred years
Then perish in the twinkling of an eye.
That’s just the way things are. No cause for tears.
Life moves in subtle interlocking spheres.
You get your turn at it and so do I.
We lodge here for at most a hundred years.
Your death’s a window through which Nothing leers
With eerie eyeless grin. Don’t grieve. Don’t sigh.
That’s just the way things are. No cause for tears.
No summer sky can bring effective cures
For winter, which must enter by and by.
We lodge here for at most a hundred years.
What should we do then to allay our fears
Of Nothing? Nothing! Does your throat feel dry?
That’s just the way things are. No cause for tears.
So, bottoms up! We may as well get by
By drowning fear – and spitting in Death’s eye.
We lodge here for at most a hundred years
That’s just the way things are. No cause for tears.
HILLS AND MOUNTAINS
High mountains swallow my shadow
But my heart is truly not a stone.
Shadows of hills and mountains steal my own
And swallow it with minimal delay.
But I’ve a heart. I’m not a rolling stone.
Autumn again. My garden’s overgrown,
And though light drenches everything by day
Shadows of hills and mountains steal my own.
Come evening, before the sun climbs down,
My shadow lengthens, blurs, and melts in grey.
But I’ve a heart. I’m not a rolling stone.
As if dusk clutched me in long arms, breeze-blown,
And coddled me, protectively, in play,
Shadows of hills and mountains steal my own.
When cloudy night, black-robed, ascends her throne
She’ll squeeze my shadow till it drains away.
But I’ve a heart. I’m not a rolling stone.
I’ll be engulfed soon – breath, flesh, entrails, bone –
A creature fashioned out of mud and clay.
Shadows of hills and mountains steal my own.
But I’ve a heart. I’m not a rolling stone.
These poems are published in The Wine Cup by Richard Berengarten (Shearsman Books, September 2022). The image of the wine-cup is by Arijana Mišić-Burns.
