D.H. Lawrence

PEOPLE
By D. H. Lawrence

The great gold apples of night
Hang from the street's long bough
Dripping their light
On the faces that drift and blow
Down the night-time, out of sight
In the wind's sad sough.

The ripeness of these apples of night
Distilling over me
Makes sickening the white
Ghost-flux by faces that hie
Them endlessly, endlessly by
Without meaning or reason why
They ever should be.

I have recorded this poem before on one my blogs, but I felt like it this evening as I came home from a evening function. I looked at the street lights in Daejeon, Korea and the people walking beneath the city lights and the glow from all of the shops and I was reminded of this poem first without realizing it and then when I found it again I knew. Of course, D. H. Lawrence and his gold apples of the night.

It is Sunday evening and it reminded me of the nights of my youth when I walked down street lanes in Chula Vista and watched the sun sink over the Pacific Ocean and the street lights would suddenly come on. I was not yet 13 years old. This was before I had read Lawrence and even before I knew he had existed. I can remember those lights as I walked and the glow from the television sets through the windows of suburban houses lying head to toe and the sounds of canned laughter of the "I love Lucy " and "Jackie Gleason" shows. I was alone as I walked. My father was drinking and on a rampage. It was best to walk in the evening. I was also feeling guilt for leaving my mother at the mercy of my father's anger.

I am also reminded of some Edward Hopper paintings and the lonely people sitting in cafes having cups of coffee, those nameless faces that I saw in my mind's eye in Chula Vista and the actual nameless faces I did see this evening except in Korea no one is alone like they are in the US. Where are all of the lonely people here? In their rooms? Sitting in places filled with family?No one is allowed to be alone. I knew a lady who was mentally ill here and she was always surrounded by her family although she was confused most of the time. She was swept up and carried along because in Korea everyone exists as a unit of people. Even if a family was too busy for their children, there are plenty of other family members who would take them in. No one would be walking the streets like I did growing up because the father was also the tyrant of the family or at least that is the theory.

I walked underneath those metal trees with their fruit of glass shinning in the night as the stars appeared. I watched the sun vanish and the moon glide across the sky. When you are alone, you learn to depend on yourself as your best friend and loneliness is not something to fear but to be cherished. Not a bad thing in itself. Lawrence understood this too.