21 April - Roger Zelazny Poetry Month - The Graveyard Heart

I tend to use my copy of the Collected Stories as a my go-to reference for the shorter works. I have dozens (hundreds?) of Zelazny paperbacks scattered across various bookshelves, but I always know where my Collected Stories are. 

Second dinosaur head on the right and then straight on 'til morning

Plus, the books well-indexed, cleanly organized and comprehensively annotated. They're nice to hold too. So I went to my copy when I needed to look up The Graveyard Heart. The thing was, I couldn't remember what volume it was in. I figured it would be quicker to thumb through the volumes than to check, so that's what I did, starting with Volume 2: Power & Light, and working my way up. I got all the way to volume 4 before I decided to loop around to the first book and there it was. 

It's such a mature story. I thought it came later in his career. 

My original intent had been to pull some of Unger's poetry to serve as the poetry for this book, which is of course Zelazny's own poetry, which he had pulled and adapted from his own writing.  It is, I admit, a little strange to have none of Roger Zelazny's poetry in what I trumpet as "Roger Zelazny Poetry Month". However, the thing is, I like to include a link to the poem I'm referencing and there aren't many examples of his poetry online. And I liked the idea less the more I thought about it. It just seemed like cleverness for its own sake.

So, instead, I have gone with Love After Love by Derek Walcott. I think it represents Moore's calculus in reinventing himself to join the Set and woo Leota. 

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.