Sea Canes
by Derek Walcott
Half my friends are dead
I will make you new ones, said earth
No, give me them back, as they were, instead
with faults and all, I cried
Tonight I can snatch their talk
from the surf's faint drone
through the canes, but I cannot walk
on the moonlit leaves of the ocean
down that white road alone,
or float with the dreaming motion
of owls leaving earth's load.
O earth, the number of friends you keep
exceeds those left to be loved.
The sea-canes by the cliff flash green and silver;
they were the seraph lances of my faith,
but out of what is lost grows something stronger
that has the rational radiance of stone,
enduring moonlight, further than despair
strong as the wind, that through dividing canes
brings those we love before us, as they were,
with faults and all, not nobler, just there.
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