You can’t go home again, even if you stay there.
You’d think it possible, if you held still,
To thrall the damned place, lock it in,
Fix statues all about,
Give shout and freeze all mockingbirds, all sparrows,
The peachfuzzed boys in trees, the girls with unsprung syrups
In their summer marrows; the grains of pollen
That sift down the timing-glass,
The prismed-rainbow faces of old maids in bedroom mirrors,
Startled by your cry: All time, hear this!
All hearts, beat slow.
All dogs lie down with cats in snowing drifts
Of days made measureless as dust that blows
In attics when the wind sifts in to leaf
The ancient griefs of books unturned in years, where tears
Lie round in clusters, chandeliers
That once—oh once!—in lost parades
Hung down from elephantine palm-fan ears.
Now, listen, town! from this day on: No change!
No charge of cavalries to other towns and ranges,
All friends, take root in lawns!
All yawns and gapes of graves stand empty, wait!
All fates, with crepe flags furled, go stand in corners;
All mourners, cease! Tombstones? Decrease!
All marbles stay unmarked and waiting for a name I will not name!
Stay on! Who says? I say. It’s so!
No more fool’s growth!—all things that grow
Go down to death. I say to darkness: No!
So town and population, steady! be the same
As at my birth and growing tall.
All! All! Yes, all! wait on my breath.
Only if I say “Death” can quick things fall.
So I stand here and roundabout
Then shut me in, encircle with such life as makes dark doubt.
You rose-ring girls in games, prevent the night!
And at the rim of graveyard put things right.
And trap in amber hours such gasps of soul
As makes to dance the rhubarb-drunken mole
Who sees the sun and all its bright abyss.
All this I say and saying, lose that bliss;
For long years gone, and I stayed on
Am shrunk to bone,
Alone, I see, my lifelong friends turn dumb from me.
Run fast, stand tall, grow old, and, all surprised
And bleached and gray there
Hear their cries!
My God!
You can’t go home again, not even if you stay there.
P.S.
And, finally, now that every town’s the same,
There’s nowhere to run;
Everyplace in the sun
Is Taco Bell Two
Or Colonel Chickencrud’s Deep Fried 101.
So there’s no use in leaving
Cause when you put down
You find the town you’ve arrived in
Is the same damn town you left
Two thousand miles back on 66
And the fix you left behind
Flyblown on the slowly sinking porch
Is waiting up ahead, the same damn fix.
Is it worth the traveling, then?
Should you save up for trips?
Does a hippopotamus have a secret monkey lover?
(Am I hurting you, dear?)
Does a chicken have lips?