Yeats
By: Jehangir Saleh
Written: April 6, 2003
Yesterday
I read Yeats in my bed
at two in the morning
my body heavy
my mind still speeding
down the track
as he came
forty-six years before me
I can only imagine a man
whose life was a joyful tragedy1
an individual manifestation
of hidden truth and meaning2
who still hadn’t figured it out
but knew
he never would
I would have liked
to have met him
shook his hand
and thanked him
for all his suffering
I too
Being poor
Have only my dreams3
1After his readings of German philosopher Nietzsche,
Yeats developed a notion of ‘tragic joy’; being able
to accept defeats with a certain amount of fervour.
2In a letter just before his death, Yeats wrote:
“Man can embody truth but he cannot know it”.
3Based on line five from poem “He wishes for
the Clothes of Heaven”, from Wind Among the Reeds
by W.B. Yeats, published 1899