Henry Faulkner

Henry Faulkner (1961)

Oh, and do you know the bread that poetry is?
The truth that is in a leaf;
that the tongue of God is in the bells of Sunday mornings.
and that Sunday is the smile of God.
That spring rains are full of sunny music.
The sun is the hair of God falling on the land.
Did you know that God was once creating children?
That He made a beautiful mistake
and called it honeysuckle…

Oh, and in the rivers that run down
under the Sundays of your sorrows
the dinner bells of happiness are drowned.
Somewhere children are hungry and in need of hope
and the winds of sorrow are crying along the corners
in their sorry tombstone-grey neighborhoods
the grass is only mocking, what might have been
but as tho’ they were eating some strange bread
The children of sorrow smile…
As tho’ smelling an apple’s strange sweet air.
They lift their heads and smile like morning
breaking through, because they now the taste
of the apples of goodness.

Oh, and children know, no matter how rich or how poor,
sad or happy, children know.
The taste of the bread of poetry.

~Henry Lawrence Faulkner (1924-1984)

Related article: Living in the Henry Faulkner House