Creation

Wherever the dead are there they are and
Nothing more. But you and I can expect
To see angels in the meadowgrass that look
Like cows -
And wherever we are in paradise
in furnished room without bath and
six flights up
Is all God! We read
To one another, loving the sound of the s’s
Slipping up on the f’s and much is good
Enough to raise the hair on our heads, like Rilke and Wilfred Owen

Any person who loves another person,
Wherever in the world, is with us in this room -
Even though there are battlefields. 

--Kenneth Patchen

"On December 13, 1911, Kenneth Patchen was born in Niles. A poor boy throughout his childhood, he spent his time playing football and working in a factory. He enjoyed publishing in his school newspaper, kept a diary from the age of twelve, and began reading Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Robert Burns, and Herman Melville.

"After high school, he moved to Wisconsin and attended Alexander Meiklejohn's Experimental College for one year and then the University of Wisconsin. Around this time, Patchen published a sonnet, 'Permanence,' in the New York Times. He continued his education in Arkansas and then spent years traveling. He was employed as a migrant worker in a variety of jobs in the United States and Canada."

Read more:  http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/23