Al Purdy, poem
You are ill and so I lead you away
and put you to bed in the dark room
- you lie breathing softly and I hold your hand
feeling the fingertips relax as sleep comes
You will not sleep more than a few hours
and the illness is less serious than my anger or cruelty
and the dark bedroom is like a foretaste of other darknesses
to come later which all of us must endure alone
but here I am permitted to be with you
After a while in sleep your fingers clutch tightly
and I know that whatever may be happening
the fear coiled in dreams or the bright trespass of pain
there is nothing at all I can do except hold your hand
and not go away
Al Purdy
March 8th, 2005 at 4:01 pm
nice poem i like it a lot
December 10th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
please post all Alpurdy’s poetry on the internet+ all the criticism please.It’s easier for people to understand because I know nothing about him and his poetry.
December 10th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Me too. I didn’t know his poetry. Whatever man….
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
I am in a Advanced Placement English Class and my classmates and I were each assigned two poems. My two poems were “Poem” by Al Purdy and “Childhood” by Maura Stanford. I had no trouble finding information about the latter but “Poem” was a very hard piece of literature to hunt down.
To get to the point I just wondered if anyone had any comments for me about this poem. It seems straightforward enough but I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing any symbolism or an underlying meaning. I would enjoy any feedback, the faster the better because our presentations our in 2 days. Thank you for anyone’s time.