Sunday's Scansion

No, I'm not going to lead you through (what some might see as) the tedious act of scanning, but it's all I've done today. All I know today. And, at the end of this day (which is creeping up on me), I'm still not sure I always get it right.

In any case, I'll share Anne Sexton's poem, which I scanned and analyzed (because, quite simply, I adore it):

The Truth the Dead Know

Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.

We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.

My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.

And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in their stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.