High Windows
by Philip Larkin
When I see a couple of kids
And guess he’s fucking her and she’s
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That’ll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
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5 comments:
Ha. I was just looking at The House of Rufus boxed set, and the salesperson recommended a biography, There Will be Rainbows, which is prefaced by Philip Larkin's "High Windows".
http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/pubsetpages/greatloves/
That was the inspiration. Was.
To contextualize this poem in 2008, a lover's lover liked Philip Larkin, which meant that I hated Philip Larkin. I cannot think of much that I liked about myself at that time, so I won't mention it.
This is the book I won't read because I cannot contemplate that life.
https://books.google.com/books/about/There_Will_Be_Rainbows.html?id=9_t9aUJBqT0C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
The last line of "High Windows" is for transcendence, and the ambiguity allows for elevating one's thoughts above the fornicating couple completely earthbound; allegedly consequences-less, on the pill.
Elevating one's time and mind is the aim, no matter what society finds fashionable.
The first and last song, for me, by Rufus Wainwright.
https://youtu.be/NRItL62qexg?si=sKuWzY0kLGHku8L3
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