Poems

Mon pays

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon jardin ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine
Mon chemin ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige
Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

Dans la blanche cérémonie
Où la neige au vent se marie
Dans ce pays de poudrerie
Mon père a fait bâtir maison

Et je m'en vais être fidèle
À sa manière, à son modèle
La chambre d'amis sera telle
Qu'on viendra des autres saisons
Pour se bâtir à côté d'elle

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon refrain ce n'est pas un refrain, c'est rafale
Ma maison ce n'est pas ma maison, c'est froidure
Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

De mon grand pays solitaire
Je crie avant que de me taire
À tous les hommes de la terre
Ma maison c'est votre maison
Entre mes quatre murs de glace
Je mets mon temps et mon espace
À préparer le feu, la place
Pour les humains de l'horizon
Et les humains sont de ma race

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver
Mon jardin ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine
Mon chemin ce n'est pas un chemin, c'est la neige
Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'envers
D'un pays qui n'était ni pays ni patrie
Ma chanson ce n'est pas une chanson, c'est ma vie
C'est pour toi que je veux posséder mes hivers

The Lowering

The flag is folded
lengthwise, and lengthwise again,
folding toward the open edge,
so that the union of stars on the blue
field remains outward in full view;
a triangular folding is then begun
at the striped end,
by bringing the corner of the folded edge
to the open edge;
the outer point, turned inward along the open edge,
forms the next triangular fold:
the folding continued so, until the end is reached,
the final corner tucked between
the folds of the blue union,
the form of the folded flag is found to resemble that
of a 3-cornered pouch, or thick cocked hat.

Take this flag, John Glenn, instead of a friend;
instead of a brother, Edward Kennedy, take this flag;
instead of a father, Joe Kennedy, take this flag;
this flag instead of a husband, Ethel Kennedy, take this flag;
this 9-times-folded red-white-striped, star-spotted-blue flag,
tucked and pocketed neatly,
Nation, instead of a leader, take this folded flag.
Robert Kennedy, coffin without coverlet,
beside this hole in the grass,
beside your brother, John Kennedy,
in the grass,
take, instead of a country,
this folded flag;
Robert Kennedy, take this
hole in the grass.

Notes:

Arlington Cemetery
June 8, 1968

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

Blackwater Mountain

That time of evening, weightless and disparate,
When the loon cries, when the small bass
Jostle the lake’s reflections, when
The green of the oak begins
To open its robes to the dark, the green
Of water to offer itself to the flames,
When lily and lily pad
Husband the last light
Which flares like a white disease, then disappears:
This is what I remember. And this:

The slap of the jacklight on the cove;
The freeze-frame of ducks
Below us; your shots; the wounded flop
And skid of one bird to the thick brush;
The moon of your face in the fire’s glow;
The cold; the darkness. Young,
Wanting approval, what else could I do?
And did, for two hours, waist-deep in the lake,
The thicket as black as death,
Without success or reprieve, try.

The stars over Blackwater Mountain
Still dangle and flash like hooks, and ducks
Coast on the evening water;
The foliage is the applause.
I stand where we stood before and aim
My flashlight down to the lake. A black duck
Explodes to my right, hangs, and is gone.
He shows me the way to you;
He shows me the way to a different fire
Where you, black moon, warm your hands.

Flesh

It’s imperative we keep flesh intact
We don’t want perforations, abrasions
Or undue irritations marring it.
We also want to guard coloration
Of whatever hue hones to its nature,
The smallest capillaries must breathe free.
When a breeze fans it, we love the perk up
When flesh grazes it, we love the perk up
The heat or cold of curiosity.
It’s imperative we keep flesh intact.
Painters, if they ever make the come back
Might plumb flesh, flush out commonality,
Poets, if they ever make the come back
Might suture flesh, restore integrity.

Plum crumb cake

I pluck from your face
a crumb of plum crumb cake.
A tiny press of tenderness.
Away from all ideas
I set it on the fine china of the page.
Let it be recorded forever.
It’s hard to tell when
a draft has blown everything away.
Someone opened a window. Someone
opened a door.
Years later
I still walk among the pastry shops.
It’s a shame I only think you up.
Even the night doesn’t realize…
when we are together.

(translated from Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)

Thorn

I don’t believe
I don’t believe from the moment I rise
till the moment I fall asleep
I don’t believe from one shore
of my life to the other
I don’t believe
as openly
as deeply
as my mother did believe
I don’t believe
eating bread
drinking water
making love
I don’t believe
inside his shrines
I don’t believe on a city street
in a field in rain
in the open air
in the gold of annunciation
I read his parables
simple as a shock of wheat
and I think of a god
who did not laugh
I think of a small
god bleeding
in the white
shrouds of childhood
about a thorn which tears
our eyes lips
now
and at the hour of our death

(translated from Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)

This Is the Dark Time My Love

This is the dark time, my love,
All round the land brown beetles crawl about.
The shining sun is hidden in the sky
Red flowers bend their heads in awful sorrow.

This is the dark time, my love,
It is the season of oppression, dark metal, and tears.
It is the festival of guns, the carnival of misery.
Everywhere the faces of men are strained and anxious.

Who comes walking in the dark night time?
Whose boot of steel tramps down the slender grass?
It is the man of death, my love, the strange invader
Watching you sleep and aiming at your dream.

The Way Through the Woods

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because there are so few),
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods …
But there is no road through the woods!

Goblin Market

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”

Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow’d her head to hear,
Lizzie veil’d her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
“Lie close,” Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
“Come buy,” call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.

“Oh,” cried Lizzie, “Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men.”
Lizzie cover’d up her eyes,
Cover’d close lest they should look;
Laura rear’d her glossy head,
And whisper’d like the restless brook:
“Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes.”
“No,” said Lizzie, “No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.”
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat’s face,
One whisk’d a tail,
One tramp’d at a rat’s pace,
One crawl’d like a snail,
One like a wombat prowl’d obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
She heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.

Laura stretch’d her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.

Backwards up the mossy glen
Turn’d and troop’d the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
“Come buy, come buy.”
When they reach’d where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One rear’d his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heav’d the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
“Come buy, come buy,” was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Long’d but had no money:
The whisk-tail’d merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey,
The cat-faced purr’d,
The rat-faced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
One parrot-voiced and jolly
Cried “Pretty Goblin” still for “Pretty Polly;”—
One whistled like a bird.

But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
“Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather.”
“You have much gold upon your head,”
They answer’d all together:
“Buy from us with a golden curl.”
She clipp’d a precious golden lock,
She dropp’d a tear more rare than pearl,
Then suck’d their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flow’d that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She suck’d until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away
But gather’d up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turn’d home alone.

Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
“Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Pluck’d from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the noonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more, but dwindled and grew grey;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
That never blow.
You should not loiter so.”
“Nay, hush,” said Laura:
“Nay, hush, my sister:
I ate and ate my fill,
Yet my mouth waters still;
To-morrow night I will
Buy more;” and kiss’d her:
“Have done with sorrow;
I’ll bring you plums to-morrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap.”

Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other’s wings,
They lay down in their curtain’d bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fall’n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipp’d with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gaz’d in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapp’d to and fro
Round their rest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Lock’d together in one nest.

Early in the morning
When the first cock crow’d his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetch’d in honey, milk’d the cows,
Air’d and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churn’d butter, whipp’d up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sew’d;
Talk’d as modest maidens should:
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day’s delight,
One longing for the night.

At length slow evening came:
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep;
Lizzie pluck’d purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homeward said: “The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags.
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep.”
But Laura loiter’d still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.

And said the hour was early still
The dew not fall’n, the wind not chill;
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
“Come buy, come buy,”
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds
That used to tramp along the glen,
In groups or single,
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.

Till Lizzie urged, “O Laura, come;
I hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.
The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glowworm winks her spark,
Let us get home before the night grows dark:
For clouds may gather
Though this is summer weather,
Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?”

Laura turn’d cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
“Come buy our fruits, come buy.”
Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life droop’d from the root:
She said not one word in her heart’s sore ache;
But peering thro’ the dimness, nought discerning,
Trudg’d home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent till Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnash’d her teeth for baulk’d desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.

Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
“Come buy, come buy;”—
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon wax’d bright
Her hair grew thin and grey;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay and burn
Her fire away.

One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dew’d it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watch’d for a waxing shoot,
But there came none;
It never saw the sun,
It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dream’d of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crown’d trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetch’d honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney-nook
And would not eat.

Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister’s cankerous care
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins’ cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy;”—
Beside the brook, along the glen,
She heard the tramp of goblin men,
The yoke and stir
Poor Laura could not hear;
Long’d to buy fruit to comfort her,
But fear’d to pay too dear.
She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime,
In earliest winter time
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.

Till Laura dwindling
Seem’d knocking at Death’s door:
Then Lizzie weigh’d no more
Better and worse;
But put a silver penny in her purse,
Kiss’d Laura, cross’d the heath with clumps of furze
At twilight, halted by the brook:
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.

Laugh’d every goblin
When they spied her peeping:
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel- and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter skelter, hurry skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes,—
Hugg’d her and kiss’d her:
Squeez’d and caress’d her:
Stretch’d up their dishes,
Panniers, and plates:
“Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries,
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs.”—

“Good folk,” said Lizzie,
Mindful of Jeanie:
“Give me much and many: —
Held out her apron,
Toss’d them her penny.
“Nay, take a seat with us,
Honour and eat with us,”
They answer’d grinning:
“Our feast is but beginning.
Night yet is early,
Warm and dew-pearly,
Wakeful and starry:
Such fruits as these
No man can carry:
Half their bloom would fly,
Half their dew would dry,
Half their flavour would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,
Be welcome guest with us,
Cheer you and rest with us.”—
“Thank you,” said Lizzie: “But one waits
At home alone for me:
So without further parleying,
If you will not sell me any
Of your fruits though much and many,
Give me back my silver penny
I toss’d you for a fee.”—
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One call’d her proud,
Cross-grain’d, uncivil;
Their tones wax’d loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbow’d and jostled her,
Claw’d with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soil’d her stocking,
Twitch’d her hair out by the roots,
Stamp’d upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeez’d their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.

White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood,—
Like a rock of blue-vein’d stone
Lash’d by tides obstreperously,—
Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire,—
Like a fruit-crown’d orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee,—
Like a royal virgin town
Topp’d with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguer’d by a fleet
Mad to tug her standard down.

One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuff’d and caught her,
Coax’d and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratch’d her, pinch’d her black as ink,
Kick’d and knock’d her,
Maul’d and mock’d her,
Lizzie utter’d not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
But laugh’d in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syrupp’d all her face,
And lodg’d in dimples of her chin,
And streak’d her neck which quaked like curd.
At last the evil people,
Worn out by her resistance,
Flung back her penny, kick’d their fruit
Along whichever road they took,
Not leaving root or stone or shoot;
Some writh’d into the ground,
Some div’d into the brook
With ring and ripple,
Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
Some vanish’d in the distance.

In a smart, ache, tingle,
Lizzie went her way;
Knew not was it night or day;
Sprang up the bank, tore thro’ the furze,
Threaded copse and dingle,
And heard her penny jingle
Bouncing in her purse,—
Its bounce was music to her ear.
She ran and ran
As if she fear’d some goblin man
Dogg’d her with gibe or curse
Or something worse:
But not one goblin scurried after,
Nor was she prick’d by fear;
The kind heart made her windy-paced
That urged her home quite out of breath with haste
And inward laughter.

She cried, “Laura,” up the garden,
“Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me;
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.”

Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutch’d her hair:
“Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruin’d in my ruin,
Thirsty, canker’d, goblin-ridden?”—
She clung about her sister,
Kiss’d and kiss’d and kiss’d her:
Tears once again
Refresh’d her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She kiss’d and kiss’d her with a hungry mouth.

Her lips began to scorch,
That juice was wormwood to her tongue,
She loath’d the feast:
Writhing as one possess’d she leap’d and sung,
Rent all her robe, and wrung
Her hands in lamentable haste,
And beat her breast.
Her locks stream’d like the torch
Borne by a racer at full speed,
Or like the mane of horses in their flight,
Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,
Or like a caged thing freed,
Or like a flying flag when armies run.

Swift fire spread through her veins, knock’d at her heart,
Met the fire smouldering there
And overbore its lesser flame;
She gorged on bitterness without a name:
Ah! fool, to choose such part
Of soul-consuming care!
Sense fail’d in the mortal strife:
Like the watch-tower of a town
Which an earthquake shatters down,
Like a lightning-stricken mast,
Like a wind-uprooted tree
Spun about,
Like a foam-topp’d waterspout
Cast down headlong in the sea,
She fell at last;
Pleasure past and anguish past,
Is it death or is it life?

Life out of death.
That night long Lizzie watch’d by her,
Counted her pulse’s flagging stir,
Felt for her breath,
Held water to her lips, and cool’d her face
With tears and fanning leaves:
But when the first birds chirp’d about their eaves,
And early reapers plodded to the place
Of golden sheaves,
And dew-wet grass
Bow’d in the morning winds so brisk to pass,
And new buds with new day
Open’d of cup-like lilies on the stream,
Laura awoke as from a dream,
Laugh’d in the innocent old way,
Hugg’d Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
Her gleaming locks show’d not one thread of grey,
Her breath was sweet as May
And light danced in her eyes.

Days, weeks, months, years
Afterwards, when both were wives
With children of their own;
Their mother-hearts beset with fears,
Their lives bound up in tender lives;
Laura would call the little ones
And tell them of her early prime,
Those pleasant days long gone
Of not-returning time:
Would talk about the haunted glen,
The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,
Their fruits like honey to the throat
But poison in the blood;
(Men sell not such in any town):
Would tell them how her sister stood
In deadly peril to do her good,
And win the fiery antidote:
Then joining hands to little hands
Would bid them cling together,
“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”

At the Crossroads

A voice called. I went.

I went, for it called.

I went, lest I fall.

At the crossroads

I blocked both ears with white frost

And cried

For what I had lost.

The Princess: Come down, O Maid

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the silver horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow—cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean—headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water—smoke,
That like a broken purpose waste in air:
So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.

A Sunset

The sky tonight on the top of the ridge
Was bruise-colored, a yellow-brown
That is one definition of the word “sordid,”
Which, I think, used to describe
That color, carries neither a moral
Nor an aesthetic judgment. The sky
At dusk was sordid and then brightened
And softened to a glowing peach
Of brief but astonishing beauty,
If you happened to be paying attention.
I could take a hard right here
To the angry adolescent boy in Texas
Who shot and killed nineteen children
With a high-powered weapon my culture
Put into his hands. How to enter
The hive of that mind and undo what
The imagination had done there?
He wore a flak jacket, bought two rifles
At a local store, one of which fires forty rounds
A minute. He had it specifically in mind
To kill children of that age, the lithe-
Bodied young in their end-of-term clothing.
The connective tissue in this veering
Is the idea that it is the experience of beauty,
Not rules, not fear of consequences
Or reverence for authority, that informs
Our moral sense. This may be where
John Ashbery would introduce a non sequitur,
Not from aversion to responsibility
But from a sense he no doubt had
That there was a kind of self-importance
In the introduction of morality to poetry
And that one might, therefore, be better off
Practicing one’s art in more or less
The spirit of the poor juggler in the story
Of Christmas who, having no gift to bring
To the infant god, crept into the church
In the night and faced the crèche and juggled.

Play, beauty, the impulse to reproduce it,
The impulse to evoke and bring to rage
And then to stillness the violence
In our natures. One does not,
The argument is, watch “Lear” and then
Go out and kill someone. The next veering,
Undertaken without cynicism but
In a spirit of frankness (leaving aside
Plato’s originary arguments), would be
To introduce the collection of records
They found in Adolf Hitler’s bunker.
There were more than a hundred
Of them: Wagner, of course, the operas
Especially, but also Mussorgsky,
Rachmaninoff. He must have turned,
To rest his mind, from reports on the success
Of Zyklon B to the concertos of Rachmaninoff.
Monet might be the counter-argument.
I’ve read that, in his distress at hearing
Descriptions of the violence of the earlier war,
The mud and excrement and rotting bodies
And barbed wire, poison gas, the rows
On rows of young men hurled by their officers
At one another’s cannons and machine guns,
He rose one morning, walked down to his studio
By the pond at Giverny, and began
To paint the water lilies and kept painting them
As long as his hand could hold a brush.

It’s late. I need to return to the subject
Of that boy’s mind and the art we practice.
And the sunset—peach to dull gold which faded
To what felt, for just a second, for less
Than a second, a blessed and arriving silence,
And then a pale green at the skyline,
And then dark. And it was Monday night.

Plato’s idea, I think, was that beauty
Was an ordering of elements the world offered
And that the harmonies in that order
Taught the soul the good. A later culture
Would say that boy was taken by a demon
And study ways to exorcise it. The devil
Had a name: it was the love of evil.
And us? Is there a practice of the arts
That would install, inform, would
Deeply root a culture that would form
A mind or heart in which those young bodies
On the classroom floor had become
Unimaginable, from a love of the good
As ordinary as the children’s tennis shoes?
Probably not. Do we need to be able
To touch that mind? At that age?
It could have come from being laughed at.
Once. Or perhaps there was a sexual thrill
In putting on the costume, carrying
The rifle, saying I Am Doom as he strode
Across the parking lot. Is there a way
To undo the stew of computer games
And horror films and superhero fantasies
That gave a language to the moral injury
He wanted to inflict? Or the culture
Of resentment and fear that put the weapon
In his hands? Those people run governments.
Here’s another hard right turn. Think
Of how Walt Whitman loved this country,
Loved the President who died. Imagined Himself as a hand brushing a fly from the brow
Of a sleeping child. In the dark
I thought of a radiant ordinariness
That burned, that burned and burned.

Sofya's Prayer

But what can we do? Uncle. All we can do is live. We'll live through a long row of days. And through the endless evenings. And we'll bear up. Under the trials fate has sent to us. We will constantly toil for others. Now, and the rest of our days. And when we come to die, we'll die submissively. Beyond the grave we will testify that we have suffered; that we've wept, and have known bitterness. And God will pity us. You and I.

Dear Uncle, God will take pity on us. And we, Uncle, shall live a life of radiant beauty and grace. And look back on this life of our unhappiness with tenderness. And smile. And in that new life we shall rest. Uncle. I know it. I have faith. I have a passionate faith. We shall rest.

We shall rest to the songs of the angels. In a firmament arrayed in jewels. And look down, and we will see evil, all the evil in the world, and all our sufferings, bathed in a perfect mercy, and our life grown sweet as a caress. I have faith. Oh . . . Poor Uncle Vanya. You're crying. I know. I know. You have had no joy in your life. But wait. And only wait, Uncle Vanya, we shall rest.

(Embraces him.)

We shall rest.

This massacre taught us how to shrink things, turning them collapsible. The world became so very small that you could carry it on your back. You could reduce the world to one bag, or even to two palms and a naked back!

This massacre taught me how to shrink myself, how to shut up while death was between my jaws, how to listen to its sound as it grew closer, how to train myself to accept the reality of the sudden vanishing of all things, how to accept it without any complaint, without umbrage.

All of what happened, all of what is happening is training us to become everything except a normal human.

~~+++~~

In my head, only one question circles:

What was the martyr thinking about? What was the last thought stuck in his head before a missile smashed it? What were his wishes going to be, if he knew the last moment was coming?

I often think, “If I live to a full age, will it be enough to do all I want and all I wish? And if I die, will all my wishes die with me?”

I am still thinking about this martyr. He came here, was killed, they wiped away his blood, they shrouded him, while none of his family knew yet. But after I left, I saw all their faces: his wife whose eyes were eaten up by tears; his brothers who were in pained shock; and his mother who couldn’t walk any further, hoping she wouldn’t reach him, so she wouldn’t see what she would see. But it was the truth, the fait accompli.

I think about it a lot:

“Really, what was the last thought in his head?

Did he live enough?

Did he die enough?

I don’t know.”

~~+++~~

And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name

You can’t say it that way any more.
Bothered about beauty you have to
Come out into the open, into a clearing,
And rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you
Is OK. To demand more than this would be strange
Of you, you who have so many lovers,
People who look up to you and are willing
To do things for you, but you think
It’s not right, that if they really knew you . . .
So much for self-analysis. Now,
About what to put in your poem-painting:
Flowers are always nice, particularly delphinium.
Names of boys you once knew and their sleds,
Skyrockets are good—do they still exist?
There are a lot of other things of the same quality
As those I’ve mentioned. Now one must
Find a few important words, and a lot of low-keyed,
Dull-sounding ones. She approached me
About buying her desk. Suddenly the street was
Bananas and the clangor of Japanese instruments.
Humdrum testaments were scattered around. His head
Locked into mine. We were a seesaw. Something
Ought to be written about how this affects
You when you write poetry:
The extreme austerity of an almost empty mind
Colliding with the lush, Rousseau-like foliage of its desire to communicate
Something between breaths, if only for the sake
Of others and their desire to understand you and desert you
For other centers of communication, so that understanding
May begin, and in doing so be undone.

Sonnet 71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell.
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I, perhaps, compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.

O were my love yon Lilac fair

O were my love yon Lilac fair,
Wi' purple blossoms to the Spring,
And I, a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing!
How I wad mourn when it was torn
By Autumn wild, and Winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing,
When youthfu' May its bloom renew'd.
O gin my love were yon red rose,
That grows upon the castle wa';
And I myself a drap o' dew,
Into her bonie breast to fa'!
O there, beyond expression blest,
I'd feast on beauty a' the night;
Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
Till fley'd awa by Phoebus' light!

At Ithaca

Over and back,
the long waves crawl
and track the sand with foam;
night darkens and the sea
takes on that desperate tone
of dark that wives put on
when all their love is done.

Over and back,
the tangled thread falls slack,
over and up and on;
over and all is sewn;
now while I bind the end,
I wish some fiery friend
would sweep impetuously
these fingers from the loom.

My weary thoughts
play traitor to my soul,
just as the toil is over;
swift while the woof is whole,
turn now my spirit, swift,
and tear the pattern there,
the flowers so deftly wrought,
the borders of sea blue,
the sea-blue coast of home.

The web was over-fair,
that web of pictures there,
enchantments that I thought
he had, that I had lost;
weaving his happiness
within the stitching frame,
weaving his fire and frame,
I thought my work was done,
I prayed that only one
of those that I had spurned
might stoop and conquer this
long waiting with a kiss.

But each time that I see
my work so beautifully
inwoven and would keep
the picture and the whole,
Athene steels my soul.
Slanting across my brain,
I see as shafts of rain
his chariot and his shafts,
I see the arrows fall,
I see the lord who moves
like Hector lord of love,
I see him matched with fair
bright rivals, and I see
those lesser rivals flee.

The Bridge: To Brooklyn Bridge

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty—

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
—Till elevators drop us from our day ...

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene
Never disclosed, but hastened to again,
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;

And Thee, across the harbor, silver paced
As though the sun took step of thee yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,—
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky’s acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud flown derricks turn ...
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon ... Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise:
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet’s pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover’s cry,

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path—condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City’s fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year ...

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

Power

Living in the earth-deposits of our history

Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate.

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power.

1. Luego hicieron a los animales pequeños del monte, los guardianes de todos los bosques, los genios de la montaña, los venados, los pájaros, leones, tigres, serpientes, culebras, cantiles [víboras], guardianes de los bejucos.
2. Y dijeron los Progenitores: —¿ Sólo silencio e inmovilidad habrá bajo los árboles y los bejucos ? Conviene que en lo sucesivo haya quien los grandes.
3. Así dijeron cuando meditaron y hablaron en seguida. Al punto fueron creados los venados y las aves. En seguida les repartieron sus moradas a los venados y a las aves.
4. —Tú, venado, dormirás en la vega de los ríos y en los barrancos. Aquí estarás entre la maleza, entre las hierbas; en el bosque os multiplicaréis, en cuatro pies andaréis y os sostendréis. Y así como se dijo, así se hizo.
5. Luego designaron también su morada a los pájaros pequeños y a las ave mayores: — Vosotros, pájaros, habitaréis sobre los árboles y los bejucos, allí haréis vuestros nidos, allí os multiplicaréis, allí os sacudiréis en las ramas de los árboles y de los bejucos.
6. Así les fué dicho a los venados y a los pájaros para que hicieran lo que debían hacer, y todos tomaron sus habitaciones y sus nidos.
7. De esta manera los Progenitores les dieron sus habitaciones a los animales de la tierra.
8. Y estando terminada la creación de todos los cuadrúpedos y las aves, les fué dicho a los cuadrúpedos y pájaros por el Creador y el Formador y los Progenitores: —Hablad, gritad, gorjead, llamad, hablad cada uno según nuestra especie, según la variedad de cada uno. Así les fué dicho a los venados, los pájaros, leones, tigres y serpientes.
9. — Decid, pues, nuestros nombres, alabadnos a nuestros, vuestra madre, vuestro padre. ¡ Invocad, pues, a Huracán, Chipi-Caculhá, Raxa-Caculhá, el Corazón del Cielo, el Corazón de la Tierra, el Creador, el Formador, los Progenitores; hablad, invocadnos, adoradnos, les dijeron.
10. Pero no se pudo conseguir que hablaran como los hombres, sólo chillaban, cacareaban y graznaban; no se manifestó la forma de su lenguaje, y cada uno gritaba de manera diferente.
11. Cuando el Creador y el Formador vieron que no era posible que hablaran, se dijeron entre sí: —No ha sido posible que ellos digan nuestro nombre, el de nosotros, sus creadores y formadores. Esto no está bien, dijeron entre sí los Progenitores.
12. Entonces se les dijo: — Seréis cambiados porque no se ha conseguido que habléis. Hemos cambiado de parecer: vuestro alimento, vuestra pastura, vuestra habitación y vuestros nidos ls tendréis serán los barrancos y los bosques, porque no se ha podido lograr que nos adoréis ni nos invoquéis.
13. Todavía hay quienes nos adoren, haremos otros [seres] que sean obedientes. Vosotros, aceptad vuestro destino: vuestras carnes serán trituradas. Así será. Esta será vuestra suerte. Así dijeron cuando hicieron saber su voluntad a los animales pequeños y grandes que hay sobre la faz de la tierra.
14. Luego quisieron probar suerte nuevamente; quisieron hacer otra tentativa y quisieron probar de nuevo a que los adoraran.
15. Pero no pudieron entender su lenguaje entre ellos mismos, nada pudieron conseguir y nada pudieron hacer. Por esta razón fueron inmoladas sus carnes y fueron condenados a ser comidos y matado los animales que existen sobre la faz de la tierra.
16. Por este motivo hubo que hacer una nueva tentativa de crear y formar al hombree por el Creador, el Formador y los Progenitores.
17. —¡ A probar otra vez! Ya see acercan el amanecer y la aurora; hagamos al que nos sustentará y alimentará!
18. ¿ Cómo haremos para ser invocados, para ser recordados bore la tierra ? Ya hemos probado con nuestras primeras obras, nuestras primeras criaturas; pero no se pudo lograr que fuésemos alabados y venerados por ellos. Así, pues, probemos a hacer unos seres obedientes, respetuosos, que nos sustenten y alimenten. Así dijeron.
19. Entonces fué la creación y la formación. De tierra, de lodo hicieron la carne [del hombre]. Pero vieron que no estaba bien, porque see deshacía, estaba blando, no tenía movimiento, no tenía fuerza, se caía, estaba aguado, no movía la cabeza, la cara se le iba para un lado, tenía un cuello muy grande, no podía ver para atrás. Rápidamente se humedeció dentro del agua y no se pudo sostener.

A Barred Owl

The warping night air having brought the boom
Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,
We tell the wakened child that all she heard
Was an odd question from a forest bird,
Asking of us, if rightly listened to,
“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

Capitulo Primero

1. Esta es la relación de cómo todo estaba en suspenso, todo en calma, en silencio; todo inmóvil, callado, y vacía la extensión del cielo.
2. Esta es la primera relación, el primer discurso. No había todavía un hombre, ni un animal, pájaros, peces, cangrejos, árboles, piedras, cuevas, barrancas, hierbas ni bosques: sólo el cielo existía.
3. No se manifestaba la faz de la tierra. Sólo estaban el mar en calma y el cielo en toda su extensión.
4. No había nada junto, que hiciera ruido, ni cosa alguna que se moviera, ni se agitara, ni hiciera ruido en el cielo.
5. No había nada que estuviera en pie; sólo el aqua en reposo, el mar apacible, solo y tranquilo. No había nada dorado do existencia.
6. Solamente había inmovilidad y silencio en la obscuridad, en la noche. Sólo el Creador, el Formador, Tepue, Gucumatz, los Progentiores, estaban en el agua rodeados de claridad. Estaban ocultos bajo plumas verdes y azules, por eso se les llama Gucumatz. De grandes sabios, de grandes pensadores es su naturaleza. De esta manera existía el cielo y también el Corazón del Cielo, que éste es el nombre de Dios y así es como se llama.
7. Llegó aquí entonces la palabra, vinieron juntos Tepeu y Gucumatz, en la obscuridad, en la noche, y hablaron entre sí y meditando; se pusieron de acuerdo, juntaron sus palabras y su pensamiento.
8. Entonces se manifestó con claridad, mientras meditaban, que cuando amaneciera debía aparecer el hombre. Entonces dispusieron l creación y crecimiento de los árboles y los bejucos y el nacimiento de la vida y la creación del hombre. En las tinieblas y en la noche [se dispuso así] por el Corazón del Cielo, que se llama Huracán.
9. El primero se llama Caculhá Huracán. El segundo es Chipi-Caculhá. El tercero es Raxa-Caculhá. Y estos tres son el Corazón del Cielo.
10. Entonces vivieron juntos Tepeu y Gucumatz; entonces conferenciaron sobre la vida y la claridad, cómo se hará para que aclare y amanezca, quién será el que produzca el alimento y el sustento.
11. —¡Hágase así! ¡Que se llene el vacío! ¡Que esta aqua se reitre y desocupe [el espacio], que surja la tierra y que se afirme! Así dijeron. ¡Que aclare, que amanezca en el cielo y en la tierra! No habrá gloria ni grandeza en nuestra creación y formación hasta que exista la criatura humana, el hombre formado.
12. Así dijeron cuando la tierra fué creada por ellos. Así fué en verdad como se hizo la creación de la tierra: —¡Tierra!, dijeron, y al instante fué hecha.
13. Como la neblina, como la nube y como una polvareda fué la creación cuando surgieron del agua las montañas, y al instante crecieron las montañas.
14. Solamente por un prodigio, sólo por arte mágica, se realizó la formación de las montañas y los valles; y al instante brotaron juntos los cipresales y pinares en la superficie.
15. Y así se llenó de alegría Gucumatz, diciendo: —¡Buena ha sido tu venida, Corazón del Cielo; tú, Huracán, y tú, Chipi-Caculhá, Raxa-Caculhá!
16. —Nuestra obra, nuestra creación será terminada, contestaron.
17. Primero se formaron la tierra, las montañas y los valles; se dividieron las corrientes de agua, los arroyos de fueron corriendo libremente entre los cerros, y las agua quedaron separadas cuando aparecieron las altas montañas.
18. Así fué la creación de la tierra, cuando fué formada por el Corazón del Cielo, el Corazón de la Tierra, que así son llamados los que primero la fecundaron, cuando el cielo estaba en suspenso y la tierra se hallaba sumergida dentro del agua.
19. Así fué como se perfeccionó la obra, cuando la ejecutaron después de pensar y meditar sobre su feliz terminación.