{"id":108887,"date":"2017-03-17T14:35:36","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T18:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=108887"},"modified":"2017-03-17T14:51:53","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T18:51:53","slug":"the-light-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/17\/the-light-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Light of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer. I have grown up believing it is a vocation, a religious vocation. What I described in Another Life<\/em>\u2014about being on the hill and feeling the sort of dissolution that happened\u2014is a frequent experience in a younger writer. I felt this sweetness of melancholy, of a sense of mortality, or rather of immortality, a sense of gratitude both for what you feel is a gift and for the beauty of the earth, the beauty of life around us. When that\u2019s forceful in a young writer, it can make you cry. It\u2019s just clear tears; it\u2019s not grimacing or being contorted, it\u2019s just a flow that happens. The body feels it is melting into what it has seen. This continues in the poet. It may be repressed in some way, but I think we continue in all our lives to have that sense of melting, of the \u201cI\u201d not being important. That is the ecstasy. \u2014Derek Walcott, The Art of Poetry No. 37<\/a>, 1986<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Derek Walcott has died at eighty-seven. In the days to come, we\u2019ll say more about his life and legacy\u2014for now, I wanted to share\u00a0the last three stanzas\u00a0from his poem \u201cThe Light of the World<\/a>,\u201d which appeared in our Winter 1986 issue, and invite you to\u00a0share in the \u201cecstasy\u201d of his art, as he describes in his Writers at Work<\/a> interview. He will be missed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Because I felt a great love that brought me to tears,
\nand a pity that prickled my eyes like a nettle,
\nafraid that I might start suddenly sobbing
\non the public transport with the Marley going,
\nand a small boy peering between the shoulders
\nof the driver and me, at the lights coming
\nat the rush of the road in the country darkness
\nwith lamps in the houses on the small hills,
\nand thickets of stars, I had abandoned them,
\nI had left them on earth, I left them to sing
\nMarley\u2019s songs of a sadness as real as the smell
\nof rain on dry earth, or the smell of damp sand,
\nand the bus felt warm with their neighborliness,
\ntheir consideration, and the polite partings<\/p>\n

in the light of its headlamps. In the blare,
\nin the thud-sobbing music, the resinous scent
\nthat came from their bodies, I wanted the transport
\nto continue forever, for no one to descend
\nand say a goodnight in the beams of the lamps
\nand take the crooked path up to the lit door,
\nguided by fireflies, I wanted the beauty
\nto come into the warmth of considerate wood
\nand the silent, relieved greeting of enamel plates
\nin the kitchen, and the tree in the yard,
\nbut I came to my stop. Outside the Halcyon Hotel.
\nThe lounge would be full of tourists like myself.
\nThen I would take a dark walk up the beach.
\nI got off the van without saying goodnight.
\nGoodnight would be full of inexpressible love.
\nThey went on in their transport, they left me on earth.<\/p>\n

Then, a few yards ahead, the van stopped. A man
\nshouted at me through the transport window.
\nI walked up towards him. He held out something.
\nA pack of cigarettes had dropped from my pocket.
\nHe gave it to me. I felt closer to tears.
\nThere was nothing they wanted, nothing I could give them
\nbut this thing I have called \u201cThe Light Of The World.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dan Piepenbring is the web editor of<\/em>\u00a0The Paris Review.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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