Exile

These hills are sandy. Trees are dwarfed here. Crows

Caw dismally in skies of an arid brilliance,

Complain in dusty pine-trees. Yellow daybreak

Lights on the long brown slopes a frost-like dew,

Dew as heavy as rain; the rabbit tracks

Show sharply in it, as they might in snow.

But it’s soon gone in the sun—what good does it do?

The houses, on the slope, or among brown trees,

Are grey and shrivelled. And the men who live here

Are small and withered, spider-like, with large eyes.

Bring water with you if you come to live here—

Cold tinkling cisterns, or else wells so deep

That one looks down to Ganges or Himalayas.

Yes, and bring mountains with you, white, moon-bearing,

Mountains of ice. You will have need of these

Profundities and peaks of wet and cold.

Bring also, in a cage of wire or osier,

Birds of a golden colour, who will sing

Of leaves that do not wither, watery fruits

That heavily hang on long melodious boughs

In the blue-silver forests of deep valleys.

I have now been here—how many years? Years unnumbered.

My hands grow clawlike. My eyes are large and starved.

I brought no bird with me, I have no cistern

Where I might find the moon, or river, or snow.

Some day, for lack of these, I’ll spin a web

Between two dusty pine-tree tops, and hang there

Face downward, like a spider, blown as lightly

As ghost of leaf. Crows will caw about me.

Morning and evening I shall drink the dew.

Copyright Credit: Conrad Aiken, “Exile” from Collected Poems. Copyright 1953 by Conrad Aiken. Used by permission of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc. Any electronic copying or distribution of this text is expressly forbidden.

Source: Collected Poems (Random House Inc., 1970)