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THE COLLECTED POEMS OF ESTHER CAMERON
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THE COLLECTED POEMS OF ESTHER CAMERON
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CONTENTS
Foreword Part I: Poems Part II: Sequences Chronology
FOREWORD
In every literate household, there used to be those volumes of “Complete Poems” —Shakespeare, Milton, Cowper, Burns, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Longfellow, Bryant... Hardbound, generally in small print, with the poems printed continuously. Recently the wistful thought occurred to me, “I wish my work could be printed in that format!” And then I thought: why not put such a collection together anyway, if only as a matter of housekeeping? And perhaps, who knows, someday the collection may find its way into the hands (or onto the screen) of someone who may find it a useful companion.
Here, then, are the poems that have stayed with me from over six decades of writing poetry -- including even a few "juvenilia," written by a child and adolescent who, though no prodigy, still seems to me to have sized things up pretty accurately. These poems are included partly as an encouragement to watch for serious expressions from children. Such expressions are not necessarily to be expected from "creative writing" classes; they come rather, like all real poems, from the mind's solitary confrontations with reality.
The poems are in chronological order, as far as I can reconstruct it, except that it seemed worthwhile to put the longer sequences by themselves, in Part III. I have divided them according to the phases of my own life, marked by changes in geographical location.
Collections of this kind are often preceded by a biographical sketch. In lieu of this, there is a brief chronology at the end. It gives some outward dates that may serve as individual coordinates; these are, of course, to be interspersed with the dates of the larger chronology in which we are all living. Poetry can be a form of history; thanks to these poems, very few of which have been revised since the time of writing, I am fairly sure of remembering what it was like to live through those decades. The disuse of poetry means, among other things, a loss of collective memory, and I can only commit this work to cyberspace with a prayer that this lost dimension may yet be restored. August/Ave Menachem 28, 2011/5771
PART I: MADISON< WISCONSIN, 1948-1961
DO DOLLS HAVE LIFE?
Little doll, I wonder If you each day. Have your hour of work And your hour of play What do you do, When the night is still? Do it in front of me, Do what you will! I want you to do it, you see.
1948 (?)
*
THE FORGOTTEN WORLD
I, the wind, the cold cold wind, I blow over the prairie, around dead volcanos, I sing of a world, A forgotten world, A world long strayed beyond the sight of men.
I, the prairie, The cold, stone prairie Dotted with dead volcanos, Earthquakes have carved crators, Great, rocky crators, Out of my surface I that remain of a forgotten world, A world long strayed beyond the sight of men.
We, the volcanos, The old, dead volcanos, We that remain of a forgotten world, A world long strayed beyond the sight of men.
We are that world, That forgotten world, That world long strayed beyond the sight of men.
1952(?)
*
VENUS
The stars are little campfires In the evening sky Many of these there are, but you Are first to burn, and first to die.
I sit by my own campfire And watch you from afar -- O Venus, lovely Venus, O silver Evening Star!
1952
*
THE DEDICATION
There hangs my star of hope, still bright Against the twilight sky. A year ago I saw that light -- How fast the days went by!
I see the child that I have been And am less every day Brush past me in the evening wind To join the faraway,
Dead past that slips from memory, Do what I will to hold it; The formless future calls to me, And I must go and mold it.
1956
*
I shall cast my heart to the sea, I shall fling my heart to the wind, I shall hurl my heart to the fire, Rather than to my kind.
For my kind have knowing looks, And keen, divining minds, And they learn too quick to despise -- But the rages of Earth are blind.
1957 *
Despair, apathy, Hope, despair -- Is it a circle Leading nowhere,
Stamped in the mind By thoughts without ruth, Or the long, long spiral Down to truth?
1957
*
SUSPENDED MOMENT
I care not what may come; it is enough That day is done, and I am going home. Though birds are whirled by Autumn to the south, Though evening reddens hill and roof and dome, Though time's thin roof, as the next day impends, Shuts out the future now but cannot last, I shall believe this moment will not end; The future seems as distant as the past. The wind is cool with night; a red sun sets, Carrying in its fall another day In my life, and though Earth does not regret, One minute of her span has ticked away. But in this brief peace Earth and I alike Stand still, nor strain to hear the hour strike.
1957
*
LAST RADIANCE
No longer will the sun need all this light, She pours it here between the autumn hills. See, at our feet dark water flashes bright As the great, brilliant tide its basin fills. Light almost dims the brown and gold and red, Even by profusion veiling from our eyes The thick, stiff brush, its leaves already shed, The valley floor, the pale and dazzled skies.
The world lies in a tired sun's dusty beam, Whose light deceives not those who know the fall. This glory is the last; the sun, it seems, Renouncing now light's brilliance, sheds it all. The day almost estranges soul and breath. We wander by these banks and talk of death.
1958
A TREE
Gnarled he will stay until the last, Strong now but warped when he was young; To stagger under snow and blast Was he at Nature's order wrung.
Thick is his bent trunk now, and black; Now it is spring and he must bear On that inflexible, tired back The weight of blossoms far too fair.
Stoic beneath the mad caress Of her who bent him long ago, He can but shoulder loveliness And bear it as he bore the snow.
1958
*
A spring storm rising in the west Takes to lean upon hits breast A tree with last year's leaves, still bright. A woman runs to grasp and fight Clothes flapping in the storm-fresh air That takes her breath and sweeps her hair Into the sun. Some strands are white.
1961
*
He and the moon looked coldly at each other, and he said, "Put the shade down." And they did. Now just beneath the frayed edge of his lid, casting a glare between him and the others,
burned the night-lamp. Into its flame he poured, like some rare oil, the hoarded power of sight; and the light used it all, and there was no more light. And then his eyes closed of their own accord.
1961
*
HIPPODAMEIA
In presence of the bestial race Apart from passions all, her face Has no expression but its own Beauty, inviolate as stone, And Time, to all indifference friend, Justified her in the end: The Centaur and his lust are gone.
Whole, restored, she stands alone. Upon her breast -- would she then deign To see -- two bestial hands remain.
1961
*
JUMP ROPE RHYME
In the curve of the cove bluebells cockleshells Little shells seaweed thing little waves come running in now and then a bigger one eevy ivy over
One by one all in line bluebells cockleshells swinging rope took them in swung and swung and made one turn over each your turn your turn eevy ivy over
Hesitate now no wait bluebells cockleshells the empty line swings endlessly run in run in the children cry but gulls are watching from the sky but there is no one here but I
1961
*
LINES WRITTEN IN A GERMAN DICTIONARY
Listen, guest: the hours are dumb, the cuckoo's flown away from his black house. Here seconds pulse with none to take their sum. Listen, guest: the sluice is raised for unreturning waves.
1961
*
THE EXPECTED GUEST
All morning long she walked about the town, pausing awhile in shop doors, entering consciously, with lashes half cast down, hand upon shoulder-bag; or lingering seconds where panes to sideward glance divulged her image, half reflected, half surmised -- upon her cheek the air was heavy with spring and with vague thoughts a moment long indulged.
She bought a bunch of daffodils, sniffed a flask of perfume, with some hesitation chose a candle (yellow), searched her mind to ask what she'd forgotten; but the air opposed a March-drowsed weight to any clarity: on the crowds hurrying through the vernal gloom the vision of her room was superimposed with someone there, too near for eyes to see.
1966
*
WITH BITTER WORDS
Why did you leave with bitter words? Come back, though love be gone, And speak to me one gentle thing Before you travel on.
Oh, in this town are many roads For to wander to and fro, And one road leads to my true love's door, And that way I may not go.
And through this town the people pass, I pass them night and day, And any of them would speak to me, But you would turn away.
Love is like the falcon That flies away at night, And love is like the darkened sky That cradles him in flight.
Why did you leave with bitter words? Come back, though love be gone, And speak to me one gentle thing Before you travel on.
1966
*
I thought that I had got a harvest in: So rich my store with fruits of air and earth I feared not even your going, feared no dearth, And wake to find all empty, barn and bin, And wander forth to pluck the acrid Now, Harsh fruit, unripened on the wayside bough.
1966
*
Yet I have heard the sea sing in your ear with the voice of a singer of other times: then the sea on the other side was grayer and colder and the last of those that were taking ship stood in the mist on the foreshore and dreamed himself alone.
1966
*
WATERCOLOR
Concealed by archways, awnings, eaves, we watch the unsuspected space revealed in silver faint striations of the air above the square. Later on a pigeon will descend and mate with his reflection in the wet and the mottling of pavements shine like pebbles by the sea. And we shall be able to watch our muddy footprints melt on the new-washed gray. Later they will stay.
1966
*
DEAD SISTERS
Last night they came to me, six of them, in a delegation. A gleam had divided the darkness into black skirts, dark eyes, submissive partings of dark hair over the dead- white foreheads of the dead. They stood in a hesitant wedge at my bedside. The foremost bent her eyes on me --hands wrapped in apron -- and behind her a ghost of gossip stirred. So young, they said.
1966
*
THE GIFT
I would enter your door like a ray of light falling on something already in your possession.
late 1966 (from memory)
*
THE COMPLAINT
Without love there is only time.
Love, the pale saxifrage prizing past and future apart.
Without love, a sky crushes the flowers like a huge gray rock.
Without love the words come out thin like flowers pressed between stone.
1967
*
Angel, on the neutral asteroid of our meeting we touch and our long journeys tremble behind us like wings.
1967
*
when angels shall reseam these rags warp of truth and weft of lies then not until i will confess that earth was less than motley skies
if god will swear the dog of time shall not dig up the bones of love then will i from vigil turn move where crowds and rivers move
where perjury keeps its promise not to pawn old kindness out to whores there i will bid love abdicate and for his consort take divorce
and i will kiss the stone stairs of this consequent universe
1967
*
THE BERKELEY LANDLORD
for Sylvia Plath, whom I first read in that house
Behind his back I call him, my landlord, Herr Tod. His eyes have a blear keenness, his skin looks musty. He wears a broadbrimmed hat. He lives in the rear of the house with back issues of magazines, a plaster Venus, a bed of soiled quilts. You should have seen my room when I moved in.
Once, to startle me, he winked and addressed me in German.
His voice is harsh because he's a bit deaf. Sometimes he gets friendly, telling me about his grandchildren -- my age. I changed the subject. Then he offered me a pot of honey, which I accepted but did not eat, being no fool. I know he keeps bees in the back yard, black bees I've never seen and don't want to see.
The time I came asking could I see the room, he corrected: The question is not whether you can, but whether you may.
1967
*
TALISMAN
for Don Cameron, 14
You were born in winter before Advent, in gray quiet November days. Stars of the archer moved over the fine dryness of woods, frost cracked crystals in the veins of the branches. You were the youngest in the year.
That is why you were always so grayly pale-brown, your eyes the color of winter bark, that is why you can walk through the woods and not look over your shoulder. A shy patience is yours.
You were born at night in November. I and your brother huddled apart in the dark house listening. For your birth among patient stars.
1967
*
The house of the head settles: a crack between mind and evidence.
Cliffs without footbridge, banks without water, the ghost-boat ferries projections,
the railroad tracks rear up, in a landscape Euclidean, without perspective. 1967
*
APHELION
Ein Wort: du weisst: eine Leiche.
Paul Celan
1. Then shut her eyes, batten them down and make for her earrings out of these dead sun-stones.
Her hands are rigid. Here are two seashells: clasps for abandoned shoulders.
Channel like stone the flutings of draped whiteness over the limbs you arrange as you will,
but turn her head sideways, and her mouth: leave it ajar for the stone birds to build in.
2. They found on the threshold that day a mouth opened dumb and on the tongue was laid the flat stone of a voiceless word.
Voices in hollow sky-corridors, noiseless changing of empty hinges, wind --
3. -- dry winds, sanding a time into unsighted eyes:
what suns still turn in the stone, what seas still summon the winds?
(The lips crack opening; now fall fragile, like snakeshells from the dust- uttering mouth: words
moons, waters move in the stone
4. a time when creations's furrow lies still unsealed: strange, mineral grasses sprout there. The planets go dark in a forest of dense and lightless crystals.
You must have been inside the stone the dark moon and all we thought had no entrances.
We are walking now in the zone of broken glass. Underfoot it is lenses, figurines, mirrors, drinking-vessels. We did not know they were broken, we drink from them still. One shadow, one eyeless signpost: over there, the words fuse in black-cold, space-curve, night-obsidian.
1967-8
*
THE MAIDEN
The hours are swept, dust and sounds settle, the world enters a dark still crystal. Now, shade of my sign, you approach, your feet do not disturb the even dust. There is cold as if I had drunk, o virgo, your form's ether.
In my fingertips freezes a polar wind. You had me neither the crown nor the ears of grain. Once I drank the eternal guilt; now it empties my veins. I am dark and transparent: through me shine, I cannot see them, a few single stars.
1967-8
*
A woman, sitting at her window, writes. No longer to her lover; that is lost; now that November counts the garden plants she stares at panes opaque with growths of frost.
Before her, on the paper, the words stand like stubborn messengers: they have turned back at that same wall she cannot see beyond. They stare to say no man can make them talk.
She thinks: a long, thin sounds, like tearing paper. Words that fall, shuffled, a random snow. A silence starts to grow, echoing itself forever. Another leaf gets etched on the window.
1967-8
*
ARTIFACT
Silence. The moving facets of the stream contemplated for irony.
I would not have it said I spun this, gray on silver, out of mere self. Rather
a hemisphere, open, a bowl or cup, with twig and leaf, twine and tendril -- some fraction of the dissolving forest.
1968
*
BALLAD OF A FISHERMAN'S WIFE
Paths meet in the distance, rocks bow down in the spray, and as we sat speaking our thoughts went walking away, Like leaves from under the tree, Like rain we passed to the sea --
Two griefs, and a single cure!
The sky was gray, a dimmed pearl, And our boat seaweed-brown, Midships the sun was couched And gave pale shine, And hard under our keel The flounder sang --
Two griefs, and a single cure!
Wind is cold and soft, Soft and cold the rain, Sea-kine rise and drift Over a gray plain, And the pale sisters drive them down To the sea again --
Two griefs, and never a cure!
1968
*
GARDEN
She called him a beast and, when he protested, said she might not like him so well if he weren't one. He was the beast. His arms went round her like a sturdy fence, but it was himself he enclosed.
Within that wide stockade she was water, forage, was the stake he was tethered to, and the slender, floral figure of the maiden in the background. But what most impressed her
was the troubled widening of his eyes, what they saw -- not her, certainly, it was beyond that fence but there was nothing out there. Until one morning he did not come when she called -- or at all.
It struck her then he must have found the white chiaroscuro form sleeping narrowly and tried to think about her then. Painfully she wondered why he had not wakened her; if they could ever have left that magical unhappy garden together.
1968
*
THE INVADED
They've got those suits now (Oh darling I'm so frightened) that fit you from neck to toenails thick asbestos-filled and very tight. A blow through one of those doesn't leave marks; they take you out, dead and perfect as a bad girl in the gangster movies.
Last night a car passed the border. They took the lids off the suitcases the sides off the car they scraped the passengers down to the tendons and sent them on still with suspicious side-looks for the red on their bones
In a dream I came and sat next to you you did not look at me I took your hand it closed on mine then died was it one of them
the people we cut out of magazines
They walk around there are more than I remembered they are lifesize flat and very brightly colored You must try to tell me if you see one of them I will try to tell you if I see one of them
the last movie was thirty hours long
ARE YOU ALL RIGHT CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW I WANT YOU TO LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY THIS IS IMPORTANT
1968
*
A battle, always repeated because fought on the wrong battlefield
Each night the victorious hero retires to his tent to weep while the opponent slinks back to his black furnace under the horizon
Next morning the hero rises and goes forth to the field which is green and untrampled while the sun a flame-colored circle rises
and the words come stealing to the scene disguising themselves as trees fences ponds so as to watch the combat and appear uninvolved
Pretty soon the sun is standing at the top of the sky shedding down yellow on the ground green trees with their brown stems on the sky-blue ponds with their silver ripples on the backs of birds and on the two fighting in a vermilion mirage
1968
*
black cannon in the field over the hill
In the first winter I found the minute cathedrals under the leaves I touched their spiny spires, wondering, and used them for the mystery plays with small figures
The next year mushrooms appeared in clumps where the little churches had melted I had no idea which ones were not poisonous you could hardly have advised me
without remembering, open your hands where you stand in the shuttered house over the garden
the soil yields rusted metals I want a fragment of your glass heart like a clear lens to look through
there were no leaves this year
1968
*
A HYMN TO THE ANCESTORS
I. Isolde held the falcon's fire
mother grandmother great-grandmother golden-haired paysanne blonde de Touraine lacemaker whitehand weaving the lace trying I am trying to finish this birdclaws tangled breaking greatgrandmother grandmother mother fading rosary chain of images break you I am trying to break you fire opal cold in my opalescent fire mother childhood o cunning green fairytale in the arbor interstice of eternal burning O ladies who wore the Rose of the Fire on your cool green breasts O vanished heirloom rose whose sharp thorn pin sticks me now O igneous demons you whom the green stem of life at last set free -
LET ME FLAME AND FLY AWAY let me go back to a green stem a single place under der linden
II. Green trellis of the Fire I arraign my witchtrials lifted high on a hot draft over San Francisco. Evidence! Evidence! Forty demons press lava faces against my body!
I am not like you. I am the family damnation. Love made conscious, its limbs lashed naked fast with its own twisted deceit --
what say you innocent Isolde?
I will not worship the Fire not chant the words that are sweet in the Jaws I will not give my pain in the lightning of the knife I will burn the flame of hatred in the flame of words Burn the flame of words in the flame of desire BURN DESIRE IN HATRED AND WORDS AND DESIRE AND HATRED
o lords o ladies fair dance now in this fair fire a courtly dance
III. and once more I am home beside the white garage long sold steps crunch on the misty glitter of white gravel the black tracery of the past goes up a tangle of burning brush wires in orange flames 118 Linden Street Ridgewood grandmother fixed in the faded stuffed chair played solitaire played Crazy Eights with us -- vast, rapacious --
I ran away fearing the folding white arms like floured bread dough
the fire the fire
it breaks out everywhere slow between the roses of curling wallpaper faster the cancer smoldering in my grandmother's uterus
she died painfully
my mother who choked as she told me walking the trees red over the white ghost water of autumn
this day almost estranges soul and breath we wander by these banks and talk of death
what was it choked you mother was it tears pity love grief Or burning ashes?!
burn burn I too will burn If fifteen year old fettered fury know it O FLASH FURY O BURST METAPHORS OF WHITE HELLFIRE HIDING
This
that we shall burn the fat dripping off our nerve-ends and pain ravish every brain-center, all love concept faith word all self
cry shame shame
IV. then said that lady standing there go and find my jester's skull and tell in youth I did love did love
1968
*
POET, 23, IS BACK FROM VIETNAM
for Michael
You had been half in love with easeful death for some time
Brown ghosts hovered singing over clipped lawns
You used to speak almost fondly of the face that was a gray spot in the crowd of the ashlight from invisible t.v. live on stoned faces
Well I suppose it was a surgical revelation those jungle viridians the shell-torn clay the different reds soaking the retina Now you are back behind your dark glasses looking at us fitted with the ultimate X ray vision can you see anything
. . .
Where O death is your waxed moustache your umber fantasies of dead fish talking in an undersea room your anger your gray dracula cloak
ripped away like a billboard and i projected into the landscape's green violent NOW
red flowers of love and hate devour one another and spleen heart entrails thrive nakedly --
the cloak the t.v. screen the mirror Time and your face
. . .
What does the woman standing in robes of dark-green patina at the mouth of the western harbor hold
(A jug mouth round and softly darkened)
What does she hold in it for the soldier
(Midwestern street midsummer night the elm leaves' electric shadows down the street a dark snow to walk through
forgetfulness unto red sands keep on spreading across a green desert
no they're singing again 1968
*
MENDOCINO
for John and Maria
Miles following the coastroad gray staves ran, the music of fences
A swallowtail weightless over the yellow weed A hawk pinned to the sun
The blue table down there, the rocks, the white spume-statute standing pointing outward
1968
*
ANGEL
(on a painting by Lucas van Leyden)
"New-lighted"
Not that he has to rise, slowly, pulling himself upright on remembered ladders of muscles,
only the feet are heavy and drag the ground like a puppet's, the puppeteer unpracticed,
and some flesh, stretching under the eyes, learns gravity. Observe
the wings: two great evenings of darkening azure surmount him limned with feathers: so many as a man, all his sleep, can count of dreams.
1968
*
FOEHN
Why is the wind ransacking the bay of trees, torturing them with his senseless questions? They turn up their leaves to him, dead fishbellies, little shimmerless mirrors backed by a sullen summer.
The sky wants no part of this. Its underside is whitish, like leaves, the sun, caught in albumin, coated, like the tongues that begin uttering and uttering
that speechlessness where a thought walks, turning and turning the images not here, not this one, not that one, as a wind, changed in the night, drives other clouds over the bowed forests.
Munich, 1968
*
AUTUMN WALK ALONG THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL TRACKS
for Jim
Stalks shrink and rattle as the sky expands, emptied by birds, scoured by cirrus. Darkness adulterates the potions of the sun, in the field the breathing of the seasons has stopped.
Double blade welded of rust and black azure curving itself round the horizon's shoulder, the railroad tracks, each autumn, draw us out. The family shoulders winter coats, gets going.
I and my brother run ahead. Our parents' faces, at wind's level, erase in memory: I am ten, he seven. We climb the embankments, looking for milkweed to stuff in paper bags.
There the burst pods, lined with brown satin, like inside rooms in ravaged French chateaux, there the green pods' unfledged stickiness -- but these just ripe, a crack
and the stuff swells out. Sap's whiteness returned ready for flight, it cannot be woven. We will find a use for it. We will make milkweed pillows, I sill spin it somehow -- already we know it is to be wasted.
The sunlight mixed with darkness is draining away, they turn, and we, like balloons on a string, must follow them to a room where lamps beat back the nightfall, the winter sky sucking emptiness like a lung.
1968 *
SCENE FROM FAUST
A space -- heart-contracted. Guilt comes true. A stone rolls from forever. You watch it roll right to your feet. It's for you. The tone is the pain which is not real.
It is a minute remembered -- transistorized, its voice still on, quite soft. There's a flash. Your head hopes for a judgment, the whole world's power off,
light to be restored, if at all, on a sugar-=frosted plain, the people, pegs, impossibly white, small, equivalent, clean --
You give it up. You begin bending toward the stone which is hard matter for you alone, the faint unstanchable whimpering -- at your back a broken window. The sun.
1968 *
PFAUENINSEL
Peacocks, mounted on cedar branches, sometimes launched themselves like blue ungainly meteors down to the grass.
You and I -- a faun dreaming of tundras and lumberjack boots, a nymph swinging a camera -- populated the perspectives
(when no one was looking yours the grin dodging from beard to eye-corners). Koenigin Luise, the dairymaid,
did not come out, but behind the Gothic stonefront closing a flight of dust- and mauve-colored willows a door stood wide,
the farmwife gave us news. The English were practicing -- at the water air filled with shell-poppings -- shoreward
over our path, an oak, Beethovenian, maintained its massive cloud- counterpoint.
1969
something vast and imperceptible
out of the space between sill and lintel of the horizon
that is where you came from
1969
*
HOUSE OF SOLSTICE
i.
Whether alone or far from water, stick your key in the masonry put your question.
ii.
Noises of demolition subside: move in to a space structured by absence
there where the shelf was take down some book, read
outside the roses still tangle, the creepers' silencing hands, shadows move upward
then sleep or wake, in the suspended solitudes
warmed by that hearth's scattered ashes
or the fires deep in the earth
iii.
under the leaning weeds at the yard's end, they said, your birthflower
aster
shorn rays, the colors solitudes of descending sun on old planets
iv.
sitting-room red sun under frost crystals
colors come out of things darkness draws into them
the window a wound's edge
v.
No fathers of mine came from your country none of yours dwelt on my land it's said we look alike
if you should ask me I would arrive one morning carrying only the few, mythical flowers of a native valley I have not seen
the rest already in your keeping
vi.
Over all mirrors let fall the third eyelid
now is what moves in there glaciers saurian thickness a forest petrifies leaving bones down in the hole of an open eye
vii.
so things shiver in themselves as in mirrors and i a space between dissatisfactions
a statement to be multiplied infinitely
viii.
i it is one and falls apart
ix.
bituminous illuminations i arrive subterranean stone swept dustless, the scattered rags, clockworks and what make i here i artificer of afternoons
o light slow to travel across a green dial a dream of surface
x.
A star, which I twisted of plantain bark, now figures in your name.
xi.
wachst auch du zu dieser stunde auf denkst wie wir uns auf der treppe dort begegneten wie du fluechtig mir den arm beruehrt hast wie kalt sind diese laken
xii.
each day the light's retraction makes of us islands the days like ice-floes driven
beside us the others eyes gaped open in readiness for the resumption of sight
in a cup at the hearth the final elixir extinguished o breathing bent survival of an enclosed wing
xiii.
A young man with a smooth forehead beneath which the eyes hide like small animals under rocks out in the country.
xiv.
Facade: where the wind stood stone-encurled, like soft gray buds in stone the pigeon bodies stirred.
The pigeon voices' winter chisels chipped a gradual light, the abandoned quiet shone.
xv.
eilth', eilthe chelidon:
it will come again that spring with the swallow flying in and out of the mirrors
and outside the children singing "the swallow, the swallow is here"
xvi.
an ache words cannot raise
sky and the earth its template joined steeled with still violence then
those frail levers of weightless horizons
xvii.
on the thruway alone
road line of sight draws to the horizon silicate mists with brown dendritic inclusions distances dead fields under yonder
half granular wall vague gape yesterdays concrete choked footpressure stone flung to past alive in regression forward inside the shock of speed silent
xviii.
love incline your ear
impose the infinite untouched texture of your listening between utterance and silence
1969
*
CARMINA BUFFALONIANA
Do our words mean when we do not mean them?
Your silence, frames you, feminine, like your grandmother's photograph. Your hands are still, your lips poised above speech like the lifted shaft of a machine stopped in midgesture. Your eyes move like the eyes of my third doll, Annabel, who is queen of the past now. What is that dead glow around your chest? Has someone torn out the heart that said, "Mama"?
No, the half-raised arm which can hold nothing commands me to dream again. Very well. I dreamed of a space that had no such place as here. There was war in all three dimensions but no battlefields. And so on all sides the soldiers ticked to death.
The dreams come out on the teletype of the night and are written down. Or they are found like dead birds in the gutters, they fill the air like invisible billboards. The cars gasp their way along paretic Main Street, scant shadows hurry along under them. Other shadows move behind milk glass doors. A dull red streak in gray linoleum -- blood on crisscross horizons.
Everywhere the inaudible lullaby. Now and then a joint. Something approaches glaring like a speeding car through the wind-tunnel in front of the eyes. No, it's McKinley's hearse. Slow, now. A painting -- "The Triumph of Entropy" -- hangs in the town hall . . .
1969
*
THE CAGE OUTSIDE MARRIAGE
Tonight your picture wanted someone to be in it so I swam against the drifting junk of the streets and played "which bone which beast" in the old shale corridors. At kerbstones, at kitchen windows I calibrated your changes, from the cage outside marriage: Here's looking at you. The contact sticks like wax to the skin of burnt fingers. Miscellaneous recall discs still spin and now and then strobe to recognition. Sometimes it's you I'm running backwards to hold, sometimes a nymph of myself, sightless and shy of knowledge. I knew you halfway, at some amputated distance -- a better catcher would have admitted being drunk.
1969
*
GIVE ME YOUR WORD
Give me your word it will be so: Your birds will find the crumbs I fling them. Their wings are on the wind, like snow -- Give me your word it will be so. Tell me their markings, let me know Which way to greet the winds that bring them. Give me your word. It will be so. Your birds will find the crumbs I fling them.
1970
*
LINES WRITTEN IN THE BASEMENT OF CROSBY HALL
Stormwinds, insatiate, insinuated with sirens, among the sheetmetal carapaces of instruction. Dark knots, congregations of penguin voices, talk of striking.
Against winter? Too cold to stand here. The snow, white as helmets, brings up its reinforcements, wind keeps shoving us along. Let's have coffee.
This white office cubicle . . . Strife of voices and the silent agreements: there will be metal twisted, glass broken, a car turned to a smudgepot, maybe a few broken heads repossessed by the cold:
The leafless trees are skeptics.
1970
*
NIGHT FLIGHT
Voice in the wings of the thorax, voice in the wings of the clenched cerebrum, prisoner within the wings, voice of my voice --
Tendon of pain, limbs scattering out of that one direction --
It overturns all synonyms like a wind among walls that have died standing up I give it your name to play with it flings the name away and goes loudly searching for it in the trees made from its calling
my name it has taken and denies this
yet it has promised me battle and I live by this:
All the ungiven glances like darts in a box all the points of silence sharpened towards the day when I fall vanishing and they fall past me flaring at equinox over the dark sowing-time of an alien earth.
1970
*
at evening shadows link arms, dance away from the sun:
goodbye my straight treetrunks my broad housefronts my polished windows glinting in answer
goodbye my children I have never seen 1970
*
O and to answer one absence I would have dragged all things down by the long hair of their shadows at sunset.
1970
*
RAINIER PARK. RUTHIE
Dogtooth violets, spitting saffron out of a whiteness thumbed back by a concupiscent sun.
We danced on the spreading page of the snowslope like blinded letters. Then spots with sight, and a brown earth glistening, and the pasqueflowers in fisted shoots like tiny towheaded children butting upwards.
In your green shift, old shoes, you ran toward me beside the glacier: sun-poppet, infant priestess, your limbs turned in a dazzle of spruce.
1970
*
Mother, where did you bury the cat? You wouldn't take her to a pet cemetery, you've too much class for that.
Nor would you plant on the grave catnip and morning-glory; I hear you say, "They're only animals -- we mustn't grieve --"
You take a shovel down to the yard's end, pat it level, careful not to stare in.
1970
*
CURSE
A darkness, the most silent of waters, in the jug whose mouth is open expressionless.
The eyes in this head: black holes where the world went through.
Why I am sad, daylight, is none of your business.
Cruelly that bird sharpens his song before dawn, in November.
Now over its own autumns the blood crouches.
Black hands of the east, hold back the sun's head behind the mountains.
Hollow I come, from the hole in the hollow wind.
Buffalo, 1971
I strove with my steps towards one who overtook me. My child was in the world before me.
1971
*
THE ISLAND CASTLE
Prologue.
Wake and dream at evening's dawn! Calm is the bright nocturnal day, Sleeping Fates no more can frown, Weariness is worn away.
The wave is weary of the shore, And of the eye the mortal tear. Weep among the stones no more, Dreaming rise to that pure sphere
Where none are slain, and none destroy, Where none are deaf, and none are mute, Fierce Mockery dares not follow Joy, Nor set his heel on heart and lute.
You have heard the story of how Perseus won the Gorgon's head and saved Andromeda from being devoured by the monster Cepheus; these things are told and done many times. Perhaps you know too that among other names Andromeda is sometimes called Form; the monster, Free Verse; and Perseus, Music. As for the Medusa, one name for her is quite enough.
You recall that it is Perseus' custom to evade her petrifying stare by looking in a mirror when he strikes at her, for the reflected glance has no power to harm. But on the occasion I will tell of the trick could not be used, for to behold this particular Medusa in a mirror was exactly the same as seeing her face to face. Nevertheless, Perseus was brave or desperate enough to attempt the combat. He took the seven most courageous from among his followers and concealed them about the field of battle. They were to watch the Medusa's movements, avoiding her gaze; thus while he himself, blindfolded, attacked her with the sword, their signal-cries directed him.
What dance was danced upon that field, Not the ancient runes can tell; Yet to blind Light did darkness yield, At Perseus' hand the monster fell.
Three of Perseus' faithful companions perished in this fight, for the monster had spied them out and turned her gaze on them deliberately. Perseus himself, grieving, exhausted, and no longer even certain where his opponent was, flung the sword from him with all his might, and it was this cast that killed her.
The consequence of all this was that Perseus returned from his quest too late. When he arrived at the promontory no one stood in Andromeda's place on the rock. He saw only themonster closing its hideous jaws and beginning to sink beneath the waves. Overcome with rage and sorrow, Perseus turned the Medusa's head on the monster, as he had done before, and, as before, the monster was transformed into a huge rock off the coast. But whether because of some peculiar virtue in the gaze of this Medusa, or because Andromeda was transforming the monster from within: this time no desolate stone, but a radiant island castle grew before Perseus' eyes.
This he beheld, although in his despair he had already looked into the Medusa's eyes and was himself becoming stone. Three of his companions had followed his example and shared his fate, and the four stood in a circle at the head of the promontory. Perseus alone gazed past the uplifted head of the Medusa and out toward the island castle, whose new splendor had, at the last moment, drawn his eyes away. So the power of sight was left him, and a dim, slow flicker of thought; but his body was stone.
He had looked upon the countenance of the Medusa, which was like the plains of the moon seen too close, and an air none could breathe. His soul had rushed out of him through the twin dark tunnels of her gaze; then it had gone out, like a candle in an airless chamber. Yet presently he dreamed. He stood with open eyes in utter darkness, and time passed for which there was no measure. Then somewhere a door opened. Into the room stepped the figure of a girl, clothed in a light veil that shone brightly, so that he could scarcely divine her form or features. She led him out into the day, pointed to the castle, and vanished. He woke and found himself staring out through the glass of his eyes. He could not move, but the arm that held the Medusa could feel pain, and the chill emanating from that head was like knives in the flesh. Instead of the castle he saw before him only a pile of weathered stones, so ruinous it seemed doubtful if design had placed them. Yet the memory of the shining castle persisted.
So he stood. After these dreadful events the last of Perseus' companions, his old tutor, went grieving from the scene. In a town near the promontory he had three rings made, one of iron, one of copper, and one of silver. He put spells on the cooper and silver rings and cast them into the well in the town square. Then he died, and the iron ring was buried with him.
When one hundred years had passed, a swan alighted on the head of the Medusa. The hair of snakes changed to a plumage of purest white, and the swan carried it away. And that is why the feathers of the swan have such whiteness. After another hundred years there came a raven. Seeing that the Medusa's eyes had changed to black diamonds, he picked them out and carried them off. And that is why crows have such bright black eyes and seem to know when death is near.
Now the people of the coast town regarded the place with horror. No one could have dared to think of going and removing those figures of ill omen; the spot was shunned, but the statues could be seen from afar, and a chill fell on the heart of every man that passed the promontory. Each feared lest a stray glance from the still living head of Medusa might fall on him. For a long time the people were oppressed by fears which seemed to hide in every shadow. At length they took counsel and built a wall round the promontory, so that the thing could not be seen from the town, nor approached by land. Then they had some peace. At the same time they could see the castle in all its radiance, separate from them apparently by a narrow strait; but this was scarcely less an object of terror.
One hundred years had passed to the day, when one noontide a traveler, a noble youth, stopped in the town square. All was deserted under the hot sun; but presently a maiden came with her pitcher and began to lower the bucket into the well. Moved by a sudden impulse, the youth seized the bucket as she drew it up and began to drink, and as he did so he saw in the bottom a copper ring. This he put on his finger, and straightway he heard a voice singing:
Alas! my lover is not here, Yet sing I will, and call I must; The ring has lain a hundred-year, And yet two hundred years shall rust.
The youth looked up, and saw the castle, and was possessed by a longing to go there. Others had arrived on the scene; he questioned them eagerly as to the name and origin of the castle, but received only evasive replies. He then asked if any would ferry him across, and there was silence. Finally he begged them to sell him a boat, however small and worthless, that he might try his luck alone. One or two seemed to be considering his offer, but an old man spoke: "Who knows what may yet live in the castle, or what would come upon the town, were we to lend this stranger a boat for his purpose? Let us have nothing to do with it!" There was a murmur of agreement, and the crowd quickly dispersed, leaving the youth and the old man alone.
"Be not wroth, stranger," said the old man. "What I have done is for thy good. My house lies outside the town; come, and sup with me, and stay the night; tomorrow thou shalt go thy ways."
The youth's only thought now was to reach the castle, and for this he saw no means at hand. Will-less in all else, he let the old man lead him out of the town, nor saw aught of what they passed, though the way was steep and difficult, and it was twilight before they reached the old man's dwelling. It was but an earthen hovel, halfway down the cliff; within an old woman was stirring porridge at a rude hearth. No word was spoken when they entered. After a time she gave them porridge in wooden bowls, but the youth, though he took the spoon in his hand, did not eat. At this the old woman's curiosity was aroused, and she asked what ailed the stranger.
"Some enchantment has fallen on him, I fear," replied the old man. And he told her what had passed at the market place. When she heard how he had advised the townspeople, she said: "That was ill done and well done. Why do you and the townspeople not know that a princess sleeps within the castle these hundred years, and the copper ring is the sign of her deliverer? Yet it is well for him, for we can lend him our boat which always returns to shore, and in which no ill came come to him who rows, if he take not his hand from the oars."
"Woman, all this I knew," the old man answered. "But we shall not lend him the boat, for the time is not yet." The old woman disputed, but to no avail.
The youth gave no sign, but he had heard what the old woman said. When they had done eating, the old couple lay down on the bare earth floor to rest, and the youth did the same. But he did not sleep. From the finger which wore the copper ring a strange sensation invaded him: a wakefulness sweeter than sleep, yet tormenting; he felt that it was wearing him away, and that he could now perceive the castle's radiance through the very walls. Presently the breathing of the old couple gave sign that they had fallen asleep. The youth rose up and stole out of the door. In the radiant night he could see a little path that led farther down the cliff, to a cove where a small wooded boat was moored. He stepped into the coracle and pushed from shore. As he seized the oars he felt a sharp pain from the ring finger; but it passed, and he began to row toward the castle.
The unearthly radiance was no longer evident; indeed it might have been only the rays of the moon on the delicately chiseled stones that shimmered toward him. But it seemed very close over the water, and for some hours he rowed with a will.
Yet he could not approach his goal; for though the shore dropped away and disappeared under the horizon, the castle seemed no larger. The night wore on, the stars rose and set, and morning began to glimmer up behind him. The sun rose, and as its rays grew stronger the copper ring began burning. At first the youth overcame the pain and rowed as ever, but at midmorning he could bear it no more. Letting go the oars, he seized the burning ring in his left hand, drew it from his right, and flung it over the side; and a swan came swimming by and seized it. Immediately he saw the castle, as though not a stone's throw away. On its highest tower a beautiful lady appeared and raised three cries of grief so prolonged that a wave woke in the sea and cast the lad from his boat and drowned him. But the boat returned whence it had come and so his death became known.
From that day on the townspeople noticed that the castle no longer shone as before, though in sunlight and moonlight it was still far fairer than any mortal dwelling. They became accustomed to it as it was, and ascribed its former splendor to the exaggeration of legend. The body of the youth they never found, for it was washed to the base of the forbidden promontory; there the swan buried him, and wept over the grave. And another hundred years went by.
Once more a noble stranger appeared in the town. He had heard the story of the copper ring, and as he asked the girl at the well to draw water for him, he felt a strange thrill as of remembrance or anticipation. What was his wonder when raising the bucket to his lips he saw the silver ring gleaming through the water! For a long moment he held it in his hand, gazing at it with a delight in which some ancient fear and sadness mingled. Suddenly through the uplifted ring he saw the castle and heard a voice singing:
The ring has lain two hundred years And yet a hundred-year shall rust, And my deliverer is not here -- Yet wake I will, and sing I must.
And he put the ring on.
Now all happened as before. The others came; he asked about the castle and was given confused and conflicting legends. He asked if any would take him there, and all refused. He tried to purchase a boat, and might have succeeded, but one old man, after remaining a long time in silence, said, "The copper ring brought no good to the wearer, and this silver ring will bring no good to us if we help or harbor this man. It is best that he depart from this place without delay." And all concurred. The youth, seeing that the people opposed him, left by the road they pointed. When he had gone some distance and the town was no longer in sight, he flung himself down on a stone at the side of the road, and wept.
Immediately he heard someone calling, and when he lifted his eyes he saw the old man who had turned the townspeople against him, and he stood up in anger and shame.
"My son, I am sorry," said the old man, "but it was for your good that I did it. You may think us fools or cowards, yet we have acted rightly. Come, for it is near evening;you will be welcome in my house tonight."
The youth was silent. At length: "I do not have good reason for trusting you, but something tells me that I must. At any rate it is of little importance what happens to me, if I am not to reach the castle."
"That you may think, my friend, that you may think," his companion replied. "But your life may be worth something to you later, after all. Who knows where the silver ring comes from? It is not good to listen too much to old stories." Here the old man, seeing that his words only gave pain and offense to his guest, fell silent and conducted the young man to his house on the cliffside. It was a poor cottage, but clean-swept and orderly, with a bright fire blazing upon the hearth. The old woman received the youth with kind words. Supper was put on the table; the old people began to eat and to talk of their affairs; but seeing the young man distracted and downcast the woman asked him what the matter was. The young man burst out, "I must reach the castle, or never leave this place alive!"
"My son," then said the old man, "you may leave this place alive, but reaching the castle would be another matter. I myself believe it to be a mirage; our fishermen are superstitious and tell all sorts of stories about it, but never go there. At best you would be venturing into uncharted waters, and you, I think, are no mariner."
"I wonder," suddenly spoke the old woman. "Do you know that not far from our house, in the bushes, a path begins which no one can have used for many years? It leads to a cove where no fishing boats are moored, only a small craft seemingly of ancient make, yet sound and new. When I saw it I thought of the boat in which he who wore the copper ring is said to have set out for the castle!"
When he heard this the youth begged the old woman to show him the path and told her of the silver ring. But at the old man's bidding she refused. The youth disputed them vainly, then fell silent for a moment. "I must go," he said. And he rose like a drunken man and stumbled outside.
"Wait!" cried the old woman. "If you go that way, you'll fall over the cliff! Come back, I will show you the path." So he returned into the cottage. The old woman made him sit down, and the old man said: "My son, your journey will end badly, for all this is folly. It would be better for you to remove the silver ring now and cast it into the sea. But if you are resolved to begin the quest, resolve to finish it also, and do not remove the ring in the course of it, come what may. For some say that when the body of the wearer of the copper ring was washed to shore, he no longer had it on his finger; perhaps, if you guard your ring well, it will in some way preserve you."
The young man replied, "I thank you, old man. Not to add a hundred years to my life would I take the ring from my finger now. But thanks to your counsel I shall watch the ring jealously, for it may be some enemy power will try to wrest it from me."
Since he was resolved, the old man sighed deeply, embraced him, and took leave of him as a son; then the woman took him outside and showed him the rocky path which led down to the cove. He did not hear her farewell, but climbed straight down to the water's edge, seated himself in the boat, and began to row just as the moon was rising.
Once again the shore receded, and the castle grew now nearer, though he could see it more plainly under the moon. He saw for the first time how ancient and deserted it was, though only the first marks of ruin were upon it. He rowed and rowed through the night, and a great fear began to oppress his heart. He fought against it, but towards dawn he began to feel the hand with the ring growing cold. None the less determinedly he clenched the oars, though the rays of the rising sun did not warm him, and at noon he had almost reached the landing place of the castle; but his heart had scarcely rejoiced when a black crow, with a cawing and flapping of wings, settled on the bow. In his fright the youth's numb hand let go the oar, and the silver ring fell into the bottom of the boat and the raven snatched it away. Immediately on the topmost tower a beautiful lady appeared and lifted three long wails of anguish; and a wave woke in the sea and snatched the boat from the shore and drowned the youth; but the raven found him on the shore of the island, and buried him there. The boat returned to the cove, and the old woman found it; but as she decided to keep this secret, the wearer of the silver ring was soon forgotten.
From that time on the townspeople began to perceive the decay of the castle, and as the next hundred years wore to a close it seemed utterly ruinous.
But the wall that hid the promontory was also beginning to crumble. This was scarcely noticed; for a long time people had avoided the place merely out of habit. When through the broken wall three statues were revealed -- for the fourth man had crumbled where he stood -- no one was much surprised or frightened. At last someone took the stones of the wall and built his house with them.
On a cloudy night three drunken men were walking on the road past the promontory, and one of them caught sight of the statues. "Say," he exclaimed, "if we hadn't been drinking, we'd be cold tonight; but who knows how long it's been since those fellows have tasted meat or drink?" And they walked tipsily out onto the promontory. They went up to the statues, looked them in the face and poked at them; tiring of this, they left off and looked over the edge of the promontory toward the island. "Twenty years ago," said the first drunken man, "I could throw a stone halfway to that castle."
"Ten years ago," rejoined the second, "I could throw a stone that would fall into the water not a yard from the landing."
"Friends," cried the third, "I am surely as drunk as you are, but this very night I shall strike the castle with a stone I shall pluck from the air!" And before the others could speak or laugh, he had stepped up to the stone Perseus and snatched from his hand the head of Medusa. It shrank and became a common stone; he flung it over the cliff, and it turned to a vulture which vanished immediately into the clouds.
Then all was softly illuminated with a golden radiance, and the drunkards, so terrified they forgot to stumble, fled back to the town.
The light came from a golden ring which had appeared on Perseus' finger when the head of Medusa was snatched away. He and his companions stood all night in the light of the ring; in the hour before dawn the clouds dispersed and out of the western sky flew a raven and placed the copper ring on the hand of the one companion; when the morning star appeared a swan flew out of the east and gave the silver ring to the other. At sunrise the first ray touched the ring on Perseus' finger. Without a word they left the promontory and started for town.
Perseus remembered nothing except the radiant image of the castle, which had brightened through the years of his enchantment until he saw nothing else. Now he looked across the water and saw there an island surmounted by a pile of weathering stone, and he wondered what place it was that appeared so desolate and so strange.
Before he reached the town an old man came out to meet him. "The time has come," he said. Then the light from the ring was bright as sunlight, yet soft to the eye, and a voice was heard in the air:
Spent are thrice one hundred years, Now all sorrowless I sing: Rusted is the iron ring, My deliverer, he is here.
"Wisest of men," said Perseus, "how may I reach the castle?"
"That I can tell you," the old man replied, "for we saw it in a dream this morning, both my good woman and I. There is a path that leads from here across the cliff below the town; take it, and do not turn aside until it ends in a small cove under the rocks. There you will find a boat, but do not loose it from the mooring until the evening star appears. Then step with your companions into the boat, and wait until the waves take you from the shore. Only two things matter: put no hand to the oars, and whatever tolls are demanded of you, pay them. My good woman sends you this." And he gave them a loaf of bread and a flask of sweet wine and turned back toward the city.
The three took the path and arrived at the cove. There in the shade they ate and drank and waited until the evening star appeared. Then they stepped into their boat and the waves carried them out to sea.
The shore receded and the castle came no nearer; Perseus gazed up at the stars and saw them move in their circle round the pole, and it seemed to him that they completed the circle, not once, but countless times, and still the night lasted. Bread and wine remained, but they ate and drank no more. At last they saw that they were approaching the harbor. The waves carried the boat until gently it touched the landing.
Just then with a rush of wings a huge vulture alighted on the shore ahead of them and barred their way. Perseus called out:
Bird of carrion, give way! What thou askest I will pay.
The bird answered:
A copper ring, Or all, and everything.
Then one of Perseus' companions took from his finger the copper ring and flung it to the bird, and it shrieked and fluttered upward until it stood before the door of the castle. And again the hero called out:
Bird of carrion, give way! What thou askest I will pay.
Then the bird flapped its great wings, craned its neck, and answered,
A silver ring, Or all, and everything.
And the other companion flung her the silver ring, and she screamed and flew away over the castle.
Then they entered the castle and walked through mouldering corridors until they came to a tower with a staircase which could still be climbed. On crumbling stairs they mounted to the top. Perseus felt that never would he descend the staircase; but he remembered everything, and felt no pain.
So they reached the end of the staircase and stood on the platform. In the east the sky had begun to turn grey, while overhead the stars were still bright; below them the sea was tranquil. Then Perseus looked down and beheld the vulture rising toward him like a hideous shadow until it circled just opposite them, cawing,
Despoiler of the night, give way! Else thou a golden ring must pay.
"It is the ring of my beloved!" cried Perseus, and despite his companions' fearful pleadings he would not surrender the golden ring. So that battle was joined. Perseus' two companions fell; then Perseus and the vulture fought for about an hour. The vulture struck with beak and claw, and seemed not to tire in the fighting; but Perseus, though he received no wounds, felt his strength beginning to fail. Seeing this, he gathered what force he had left and rushed forward once more, calling on the name of Andromeda.
Just then the sun rose above the horizon, and the vulture disappeared into thin air. The copper and silver rings fell to the ground, and the swan and the raven came down and swallowed them. Then Perseus heard someone call his name, and when he turned around Andromeda stood before him. What words they spoke then I cannot tell you, for I do not know.
With great difficulty the two descended the broken stairway. They wandered together through the deserted corridors until they came to a small chamber in the very center of the castle; there was a bed made, and a table set with food and drink.
While they ate they told each other all that had occurred during the time of their separation. Andromeda said, "When I saw the monster approaching and knew that you had not come in time to save me, I fainted away with terror, and dreamed I ran through dark corridors, calling your name until I fell, and lay in a black swoon which lasted I know not how long. After this a little thought returned; I slept, yet knew I slept. I dreamed that a ship, all of copper, came toward me over the sea; but midway between the shore and the castle a storm came up and the ship foundered, and I was overcome with sorrow. But after this dream I awoke for one instant, and a swan flew into the room and placed on my lips an oaten wafer and three drops of water, and I slept again. But now in my sleep I saw the castle wherein I lay; in my dreams I could wander among the halls of precious stone and the flowers and fountains of the gardens; until at last the splendors wearied my solitude, and I dreamed no more. But then I saw a silver ship, and it seemed to me that it came straight to the landing of the castle, when a storm came up and dashed it on the rocks. This grieved me so that I woke again, and a raven flew in through the window, placed three drops of honey and a wheaten cake on my lips, and departed. And again I slept; but now my dreams were of the shore. I saw the doings of the people in the town, generation after generation; I saw the promontory where three statues had stood since time out of mind; and I saw my own dwelling, black and ruinous, from across the water. After a while I knew all that had passed: why you had come too late to deliver me, how my other deliverers had perished, and how you would be tried when you awakened. A voice said, "A wise man will advise him; but woe unto you all, if he follow that counsel to the end!" For know, beloved, had you given the golden ring to the vulture Medusa, she would have had us both in her power forever.
"Last night I dreamed that a golden ship came sailing from the town. It came into the harbor and reached the landing safely; then one stepped out, and I awoke. At first I heard only an indefinite tumult and was filled with fear; but then I heard the sound of battle coming from the tower. I heard the cries of the swan and the raven, and your voice called my name; and I climbed the tower, and found you."
So they talked until they were weary, and then they lay down to rest. When they woke all was transformed. The floor and walls of the room were of precious stone; the curtains of the bed were of some faery texture, and shone with an unearthly light. They rose and walked through the palace, wondering at each new splendor that met their eyes; they went out into the gardens, where fountains played again among beds of immortal flowers. So they wandered together, and talked, and sang, for the space of three days.
On the evening of the third day Andromeda spoke to Perseus: "Beloved, our time in this place is spent; tomorrow we must be gone. Before dawn we must go out into the garden which overlooks the western sea. The sun will rise in the west, and he will take us with him."
Next morning the song of the swan and the harsh cawing of the raven penetrated into the inner chamber where the lovers slept. They rose and found at the bedside two pairs of winged sandals; they put them on and went out to the garden overlooking the western sea. There they stroked the heads of the swan and the raven and bade them farewell, and when the sun rose they set their feet on the first rays, which bore them like a golden highway.
Of all this the townspeople were ignorant. None had seen the stranger pass to the cove, nor the boat put out from shore. The drunkards' tale at first provoked mere incredulity and laughter, but when it was reported that the men of stone were indeed gone from the promontory, the people began to fear. All day the rumors flew; no one slept that night, and on the following morning the sun did not rise. Now arose a weeping and lamentation which lasted until the town bells rang for evening. The people were somewhat comforted by this familiar sound; they retired into their houses, and the night passed in deep silence. When again the morning bells rang out but no light appeared, they continued to sit in stony despair.
But after some hours -- no one knew how long -- a man began going about from house to house, waking the people with new hopes. He was a man of some learning, though of not quite spotless reputation, and it was said he knew more about what had happened in the past than any man alive. When the people were gathered at the marketplace he addressed them, saying that there was a way to lift the darkness; at the time when the stone men were formed certain rings had been thrown into the well, and the copper and silver rings had already been drawn out; now the stone men were gone, but the golden ring had not been found and was doubtless still lying at the bottom of the well; this was the cause of all the trouble, and if the townspeople would but retrieve the golden ring from the well, they would not only dispel the darkness, but the ring would bring them great good fortune.
The people grasped eagerly at this good news. All crowded around the well while the mayor of the town let down the bucket; but it came up, and there was only water in it. They let down the bucket again, and the same thing happened. They poured the water on the ground and emptied out the well until it was dry; they sent men down with flaring torches to look for the ring; they scraped in the mud of the bottom until they reached the bare rock; but they found only water, mud, and rock. The last man was drawn up from the well; no one spoke; in the crowd a few began to weep. Then the bells rang -- whether for evening or morning, none knew. The people wandered aimlessly in the marketplace; none thought of returning to their houses; slowly a murmur rose among them: "The sun will not
rise again; why should we cling to miserable life, like worms in the dark earth? Let us bring out our stores of meat and drink, and feast until they are gone, and then let us set fire to the town, that we may at least have light by which to die!"
These voices grew louder, and finally a meeting was called to decide the matter. When all were assembled a child stood forth and said, "In matters of life and death the children too should have a voice." Then several said this was but just, and the rest being indifferent agreed. When all had been heard on both sides, there was silence for a moment; then the old man spoke: "Townsmen, this matter has been laid before you, and you will do as you like; but tomorrow the sun will rise in the west."
No one believed the old man, except the children; but they outnumbered the adults by one. However, the adults did not accept the verdict of the children. They brought out their stores and took to feasting, and soon they and their town were ashes.
But the children slipped away unnoticed. They hid themselves in the forest and wept until they fell asleep. On the following morning the sun rose in the west, and they saw a beautiful golden ship come over the water and sail into the cove under the cliff. They all forgot to weep for the great wonder of it and ran down to the cove.
The old couple were there to meet them. They led them into the ship, which floated out again and sailed to the castle. All the time the sun shone upon them, but its rays were never burning, and they could not have said whether the time of the journey was long or short. They landed, and there was no one at the landing; they entered the gate, and none met them; they walked through all the gardens and the shining halls, they heard the plash of fountains and the singing of birds, but saw no human face until they came to the innermost room. It was empty, for bed and table had vanished; but on opposite walls hung two mirrors, and in them were fixed the images of two human forms; and the children were struck dumb with wonder, for they had never seen beings so fair; and no one spoke for about an hour.
Finally the old man said, "Your time in this place is short, my children; come, and may each remember what you have seen here." Then he led them to a hall near the gardens, where a long table was set with dishes of gold and knives and spoons of silver; and the food was such that, if any were very hungry in times afterward, they had only to think of it in order to be satisfied. And each found by his plate a precious stone, carved in the likeness of a bird, or an animal, or a fish, or a plow, or a spinning-wheel, or a musical instrument, or some other shape. Each amulet conferred some particular kind of good luck, and all had this special virtue, that everyone was pleased with what he had gotten. So they feasted and sang and talked until the stars came out and their eyes began to be heavy. Then they heard the voice of the old woman: "Children, now you must depart; the golden ship will carry you back to the shore. My husband and I will remain here to keep the castle. On the longest day of every year the golden ship will come to your harbor, and you may visit us again. Yet if you wish you may come from time to time in your own wooden boats; for the spell of distance between the castle and the shore is lifted."
So they sailed away, and slept, and when they reached the land it was morning. Then they took counsel on the shore and decided not to rebuild the town. Instead they made themselves shelters in the woods and fields, just near enough so that they could comfortably visit each other.
Since then not so very much has happened, though doubtless many a century has come and gone. The castle stands, beautiful as of yore; the old couple still live there, attended by the swan and the raven, and I think they may be immortal. It is good to look over the water and see the castle shining; it is good to row there alone on a starry night, or to sail there in the golden ship on the longest day of the year. Yet it is also sweet to return to the shore, to set foot on the beach, and greet the simple flowers that grow in the rocks, and the creatures of wood and field. Each year some are born, and some die. The amulets are passed from hand to hand, and the old songs wander from mouth to mouth. In the fields the wheat rises and falls; and the sun sets in the east and rises in the west.
1971
*
IMPRIMATUR
"If all may buy, then some may read, sighed the Fly.
Spider smirked, "Indeed, no reason why the flies shouldn't read.
1971
*
EARTHWAKE
in memory of Paul Celan
1.
All winter the scholars kept their houses, went out rarely, discussed "the death of literature." Ash of predictions kept sifting into the bread; trees, turned to stone, stood in a stone-eating sky.
No yeasty poems poured through the open doors of libraries that cancelled equinox, though midnights babbled of a tongue torn out like a telephone cord before all metronomes ended.
Then there was July: along streets with their new constructions, glass and concrete -- matter itself gone grey and blank with pain like the face of a clubbed peasant telephotoed from Asia.
2. (Shore Rocks at Corea)
Pegmatites. Over this edge: ice-cataracts, then as now unheard.
Under our feet, exposed, the granules, the quartzes, the feldspars, grown to eye-size, stopped against sight. Sea urchins' bequeathed fragilities, gull-strewn, blanched from their patterns. The tide-pools: green algae glares to the cloud.
Tidings, O tiny far-traveled tsunami, here curl to simile, die in the unrecorded surf-gardens: a mind, stranded and stemmed against absence, beats in itself.
Cross-currents, there, the times race through each other, kanntet ihr mich --
3. VAE V--
I rock a grief far older than my heart, like a pale relic in the mortal shrine: many are they who pause here, kneel and depart, to view this pride, which I cannot call mine. I would not have suspected how your name fits every grief, rings in each evening note, this reach of dusk is quiet with your fame, the clocks of autumn have your runes by rote --
What poultice now, of plaster or concrete, could ever stanch that singing wound of song? Ah, on all stages where poor slaves repeat the lying, barbarous words, the ancient wrongs, over the scene your cyphers now appear: in these signs the cries shall be made clear.
4.
"Beyond humankind --" Have you a smooth sheet of white paper wide as the galaxy, a pen of stars to write with? Can you see this miniature earth, like the paperweight on Montale's desk, with its distant dark-red flicker of inferno? No need now to hear the cries: we are burning -- even the tears you gave could not quench our greed.
5.
This be thy journey's lore, after all, whom praise cannot restore nor grief recall: we mourn one, when we mourn for all. Mourning one, we mourn for all, in mourning we recall and in recalling, praise, and praise shall all restore after all: these be our works and days.
6.
Friends, if you wander among stones again, cast not the dice, lift not your hands for rain, carve clearer runes upon the gates of hell: Earth, hold this kindly, for one loved you well.
1970-71
*
NOUVELLES CHIMERES (I)
1. Dulcinea
Falcon, fly where you will! I know the way: A feather, a drop of blood each thousand-year, And I'll find out your track in oceans drear, And steer through all the dolphin-crowded bays. Though but a leaf, a snake, a bird betray Which way you turned, surmising no one near, Yet I will climb to where your eagles veer And sing your star at morning and noonday --
Dawn breaks. I feel the movement of the wind, I stand on peak or on wave-cleaving prow, Foam-, cloud-white garments flutter out behind. Image of victory, en route from one Show to the next -- the waves like barkers run -- But if I live or not, I do not know.
2. Giovanni
Look on the mirror which I hold for you, Not on my face, which is not fair to see: It is the dark waste where no man may be, The wandering tomb, the sprig of withered rue. Don’t look behind you, as the poets do, Else my reflection never shall you see, But this time, please, refrain from killing me: If is my false reflection that is true.
Yes, that mirage along the ashen curve of hill, called by my name: it is the light That now is faded from a poor man's face Coming to meet you where the highway swerves, The road, the crumpled wreckage sinks from sight, And you are rising into light's blind space.
3. Legend
Yes, there dwells a monster in this stone, But you shall slay him. Enter without fear. The inward path you shall find out alone, After the deed the outward way lies clear. Above the door there hangs a spiderweb, But brush it not aside as you go by; See in your hollow hand the ball of thread: Arachne, Ariadne -- it is I.
It is the castle of enchambered Grief. Enchanted songs in jeweled silence stand Along the walls, and stare with strangers’ eyes, But in the vaults there grows the herb Belief. Descend, and pluck it with a reverent hand, And in the joy of manly stature rise.
4. Proserpina
I am the bee that plies the fallow rose, Yet nonetheless my mother’s name bear I: Call it not harsh though many summers die, Though many times the hollow petals close Before the nightingale bleeds to the thorn A sigh of embers wasted in the night Because the watchful votaress was not born: All hovers in this humming of the light.
I sing the pain of her who bore me, and lay long in darkness, dreamed me lost for good, Of him who long ago, with trusting hand Laid on the world, touched stone and missed the wood: The shining letters on the Darkened Light - I kiss them, as he kissed the words, good night.
5.
BE DAVID, not Actaeon; for the hounds That kenneled near Diana's spring have fled, They howl around Goliath's feet instead; It is the iron, and not the wood, resounds. Artemis' magic fails. Her orb still rounds And shrinks, but moonlight in the streets lies dead. Scarred is the sacred face with impious tread: Therefore the tides of hell have burst hell's bounds,
And fiercely bright and ominous dawns this day. See there a forest shrine: the votaress Comes out to greet the traveler on his way Toward meetings darkened to a woman's guess -- Desiring but to hear a tale, and bless Some hero's arms against the oncoming fray.
6.
IS IT THEN TRUE: that he must wander hell And I in rainless heavens count the rains That fall on earth's dark furrows, and still in vain Bind the dark land with many a healing-spell? What echoes will I hear from that deep well? To hold the star that lights that ear of grain My hand grows cold; and will that crust of pain Wash to the sky-shore as a perfect shell?
No; I am exiled to a puppet-show, Mocked with a name, gloved to a mad ghost-hand, Imputed to a voice I do not know And gesturing what men will not understand: Yet I will sing, though I see never again The eternal smile between the poles of pain.
7. Chiaroscura
I ask for sleep, that I may wake again, Not stare a madness into gentle eyes, Not as a torrent shall this sorrow rise, But clear the wine of night be poured for men. They don’t know what they’re doing, don't see how The threads as tangling between lip and tongue, They have not thought of how the night was wrung To free the trembling orb that rises now.
This thread will hold, wound upon spools of stone, Those hands will read the patterns which we weave, This night shall last until the work be done, These words shall be the grain, shall be the sieve. We shall not treat with Time. We shall not die. Blind to the end, we pass the Ancient Eye.
1971
*
POST- PENTECOST depression: on the beast- forehead the black fingermark of inferno, bitter was the taste in my mouth, bitter the tongue. 1971
*
LA MAISON DE LA POETESSE
for Janine
1.
Windchimes converse above the lintel, she is not home. In the yard fallen plums small moons eclipse into the soil under pale weeds. Within are seashells, cool stones and a round clock paying off the silence. On the porch two cats will preside over their shadows until sundown.
2.
This night police sirens lash round the block. We're cut off. Inundated -- the brambles of your harpsichord like a birdcage caught in the ocean.
This lantern, this bunker, this stone sticks in the throat of that wind. The light on the chair-arm says all tunnels end here.
3.
Morning opens one eye. The cottage hauled up like a fishtrap
darkness draining
4.
Cats, sleeping deserts,
stretching
to motion, the sand-dunes, feeding themselves to, receiving themselves from
a wind these eyes inhabit.
Berkeley 1971
*
IN IRONS
I sailed once, in a dream, off distant coves: Fair was the day, bright emerald was the sea And glittered; yet whichever way we drove It seemed the wind came round and thwarted me. After a time I saw upon the plain Sails scattered, which did beat and run and reach To every compass-point, yet none did gain: That wind, false in itself, played false to each. Then I beheld -- what terrified me more -- We could not move; but the green scudding floor Was moving with us, dragging toward some ledge, And vast jaws rose to snatch from the sea's edge The frail ships, while a great voice without sound Beat on the sky: "Fools! Fools! The world is round!"
1971
*
SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME
I recall the time your mother got for her birthday a doll, dressed in the prettiest clothes, which a friend of her mother had taken weeks to make, with finished seams, delicate embroideries, bonnet and sash, collar all trimmed with lace, and the first thing your mother did was to take the clothes off the doll, and put them on the cat, who leaped to the windowsill, dived, and was never heard from again.
I remember also how a friend of your father's family arrived as a guest, after a day's riding, and before he had even dismounted somebody asked him "When are you going to go home?" "Right now!" he answered, and gave the spurs to his horse, and that was the last they ever saw of him. That was how I learned to ask always "How long can you stay?"
"But what of the doll?" "Oh, the doll by itself was nothing special . . ." Forever, sphered in your recollected voice, Great-grandmother leans, horrified, out of the window, wondering what on earth she will tell Mrs. Himady, while Grandmother cries in fright and because an action in the logic of play has had such consequences, and the friends stand with arms and mouths agape, staring at the retreating dustcloud, hearing the hoofbeats fall over the edge of dismay, and Uncle Al, who saved his money for fireworks and on the dawn of the Fourth sneaked out to light just one, and the whole bag caught fire, remains transfixed in the rockets' day-bleached glare, the sputter of snakes, backfiring roman candles, while the family windows, blooming with sleep and astonishment, behold him, not magnifico, but fool.
What is it clamps on laughter like felted hammers, a glove from behind, Mother? What is it neither pity nor time repairs?
1971
*
CASCADE PASS
Late. The mountain wall already dams huge shadows. Along the roads bright autumn poised like a diver.
Step off the trail: frostfire clings to weedstalks. A small transparent fly grips, rigid as a yogi, the whitehaired nub, the tiny late composite. Flick the resinous stalk, he'll scarcely stir.
Something is barking on the opposite slope, where the white soiled glacial tongues loll down. You eye tastes their cold. At your feet one woolybear has haste.
The trail is marked but you'll not follow it to the end. That repeated, toneless whistle: a signal to winter, not meant to be overheard.
1971
*
HE HAS GONE to live in a continent of his own making: the past.
All those years he held up his eye, that obsidian lens by which the dark was focused.
In the sky-split tunnels he walked, in the Ile de la Cite, in the blackened rose. On the dark walls Israeli slogans flashed their survival.
He picked up broken glass in No-Man's-Land, where the voices still came seeping.
And the words formed: a sandstone with the ripplemarks of his brain.
Now you may tease the earth with roses -- she will not speak of him.
1971
*
BALLAD
Strange word, strange word was spoken About my christening: She will marry the Kingfisher, The Fisher-king.
My mother wrapped me closely In pain and fear, She kept from me the story I must not hear,
Her eyes whispered the meanings I dared not think, And ever she would draw me From the well's brink!
When I was grown they sent me To a starless plain Where never ran the river Nor fell the rain,
No joy was there in waking, No rest in sleep, All night beneath my eyelids Cold tears would seep.
One day where I was walking The earth cracked apart, And water gushed, as the blood springs From a struck heart.
Pure and clear was that water As the light of day! I knelt down in the desert, To drink, or pray --
I know not; but beneath me There in the spring Was the face of the Kingfisher, The Fisher-king.
Now Mother, put by your laces, Your silver veils, And tell you beads no longer, For their magic fails.
Sisters, sisters, make bright your spinning, For the time has come For the moon to stand shining Before the sun:
Aye, with a crown of water, With a river-ring, I have married the Kingfisher, The Fisher-king.
1971-2
*
DEVIL'S TRAIN
My father was an honest man, He rode the devil’s train. At the window high I saw him stand, Saying, "When will we meet again, dear man, When will we meet again?"
He said, "Dear girl, I do not know, You way is long and hard. Remember that I loved you so -- Remember who you are, my child, Remember who you are."
And in a year there came a man, He drove up to my door. He said "I've news going to make you sad, Your father won't come no more, my child, Your father won't come no more."
He said, "Climb in and drive with me To a land that's green and fair." I said, "Before I go with thee, Tell me is my father there, good man, Tell me is my father there?"
He looked at me and shook his head As if to answer, "No." "Then you must leave me now," I said, "To my father I must go, good man, To my father I must go.
"My father is an honest man, He rides the devil's train. I intend to follow through this land Until we meet again, dear man, Until we meet again."
1972
*
NOUVELLES CHIMERES (II)
1.
Aye, stuff your pipe and lean back in your chair, Tell me once more that it is sweet to live, Although the bees starve in the stifling hive, Although the angels shudder in their sphere, Although my ancient name is made a jeer, Although the buzz-saws shriek in all my groves, That eye is pierced that sought my eyes with love, That voice is choked that called me more than fair --
No, not my tender eyes nor my fair face I weep, whom love's name lured here to the knife: I weep the spilt seed and the tangled wit. I brought the silver of my lord's sweet life That they might gladly take, who gave him praise, And this they said to me: Look thou to it.
2.
Thou who didst whisper through my earliest night, Who held'st me fast when all else cast me out, Mad'st soft for me a bed in thine own blight, Gav'st the rose refuge in the shrine of Doubt: The silence of my prayers shall never cease To plead thy love, and to beweep thy dearth: Cassocks may speak of victory and release, I cannot but beweep thee, being earth. O I have dreamed that we might meet again, Though but to lay my hand against thy breast And take my share of the unending pain To know not all I was could bring thee rest -- And thou art not! I cannot say: Thou'rt free -- Thou wert my soul; O hadst thou peace in me...
3.
"Rest, rest, perturbed spirit --" I might betray, But this my sorrow speaks, and she is just: There's not an item in this world's display To check one tear from falling on thy dust. The wide world wears that heart, those eyes no more -- Before what vacant mirrors should I pace? Call me no better than the frightened whore; At the dull eyes whose blindness quenched thy light I stand unknown and by the years defaced.
And yet -- if words have voice to make this known, If tears have virtue yet to cleanse men's sight, Then -- the world young once more, and I a crone, The passing stranger in the street might see Whose friend I was -- and thus remember me.
4.
No, I am not Cassandra, though I gave not to Apollo that which women give; A hand outstretching held me from the grave, And at the forked road's side a voice cried: Live. Further I heard him cawing from the sky, "Tell them a fair beast's carrion lies and reeks Upon their plains; this let them quickly seek, For he who will not eat of it must die!" That is my news. I am the Death of Time, A dryad whom the dead tree took to wife; This world's account, forged in your fortunes' chime, Lies as a sword between me and my life -- Blessed is he who calls my rightful name! He shall undo those paths by which I came.
5. Ismene
Sister, upon whose lips, as upon mine, Drifted the coldest kiss, the saddest name, Put from thee with strong hand the anodyne, Take on thy tongue the wafer of my pain. Shall all the loveliest pass, nor we regret, Nor call Lament to mend the rent i' the air? Sweeter is this than all we are like to get From this dulled world, that will not say: Thou art fair. Teach man to weep again, and call the dead! For there be gods among them; shall these wait Till we have nibbled the last moldy bread And the last empty doorframe cry "Too late"? Know: he who lay beside me, in the tomb, Took from my neck a chain of tongueless doom.
PART III: 1972-1979
MONODY
What shall I tell you, child of my childlessness, little fish swimming downstream in my tears: I don't know the riverbanks, I don't know the rapids. I don't know the tangles of the bottom-weeds or the hours when the rivergulls hover. I do know this: such rivers meet no other rivers, find no sea. They circle back, they flow down to their source in the highlands. In the next season the dart of your death will pierce my eye from behind.
1972
*
A MON SEUL DESIR
I praise not love: a god like all the others, As all the others treacherous, and to blame For unendurable and lasting shames That lie upon us, and the deaths of brothers;
I call not man my god, whose envious will Was ever foe to his own loveliness, Nor lady Nature, by whose leave much ill Must argue; but one being let me bless Whose name (herein concealed) is fragrant still...
1972
*
RECRUDESCENCE
My mother sighed, telling me of the blight That fell upon the eastern woods to seize Only the loveliest, the great chestnut trees, That martial summer before she saw the light. She knew them as those great trunks, weathered white, Fresh saplings danced around; but even these Sickened in few years of the old disease: Lately we heard: some lived, in its despite.
Lives then the single Soul of man's great race? -- A rain-bleached trunk, and yet a stubborn root That keeps on sending up shoot after shoot That we forget not quite the primal grace But hope, and weep, and hope again, till one Shall live, and strengthen, and attain the Sun...?
1972
*
Listless I mourn, for my love was hound and hare, And I the empty, the fern-hung, the unrevisited lair, Cold, cold and forgotten, hollow to the notes of the horn And the baying of hounds and the shouts of huntsmen deaf to prayer.
Listless I mourn; for my love was hare and hound, What though the air is still now, what though the hunt is down? Hound came under the hooves, as hare by the hound was torn, And I am earthed in the silent lair and the sanguined ground.
1972
*
As the wan priestess on the Taurian shore Counted the waves and waited for those friends To bear her home, as long-deserved amends For priestly lies, that laid such trails of gore, Then saw how truth and safety stood at odds, How hate drew breath to sweep her from her goal, And flung herself between, crying, "save me, gods, Save me, and save your image in my soul -- " So I, who pace within these chains of rhyme, Shamed as a prisoner in a market-throng, Cry out for trust against a truthless time: Though the wrung soul speak through an empty mask, Call me not false, do not yourselves that wrong, Give me your hands, my journey, and my task!
1972
*
AUGUST MOONRISE
for Don
Whippoorwill calls from the corn. In the twilight my brother stepped in amongst the cornstalks; the shadows clasped him, made him one with them.
Larger than last month, the gold round moon is something removed from behind a saint's head; it stains faint clouds with liquefied dust.
My brother moves behind me along the rise; the moon moves behind his head, in my right eye. He says the burrows of darkness in green alfalfa are deer-trails, says the air on the hills is warmer, still, from day, asks if I can focus the moon. I cannot.
This thought beats at my head like owl's wings: that, blinded, my sense feel through his the cloth into which they are woven. When I pull, things come loose.
How can I tell him what number the angel jabbed in green ink under the furrows of my backbrain? How can I get the moon on my side?
1972
*
PRAYER
from the German of Else Lasker-Schueler
I wander all lands, seeking long and late A town that has an angel at its gate, And often at my shoulder-bone I've felt his broken wing's great weight And from my brow his star, his seal has shone.
And always and again my steps are turned Towards night . . . I have brought love into the world, That every heart might blossom a blue flower, Have as a watchman worn my lifetime's hour, In Deity my breath's dark impact veiled . . .
O Lord, enfold me warmly in Thy cloak. I know I am the lees in this glass globe, And when the last of men pours the world out, Far from Thy might suffer me not to grope, But let a new earth compass me about.
translated 1972
*
AN OLD TIBETAN CARPET
from the German of Else Lasker-Schueler
Thy soul is worked in, with mine, To this tapestry's Tibet design.
Ray in ray, enamored colors, Star and star, that heavenlong were lovers --
See how precious where our four feet rest and ride, Meshes meshing thousandthousandwide!
Sweetest Lama's son upon a muskplant throne, How long has thy mouth kissed my mouth do you suppose, And thy cheek my cheek, brightly-knitted times agone?
translated 1972
*
Take this pain, I said to the words, carry it away.
And when I looked up they stood again at my shoulder. I saw then that they had come to conduct me through unaltering twilights:
past where a man stood singing alone in a field of grass, past the dead crouched like urns, like beggars without hands, along the raw-ripped road down to the blue underground passage -- There was a woman guarding your chamber, I gave her a letter for you,
did you hear, O did you hear.
1972
*
QUASI UNA FANTASIA
It seems as if someone set me here as a reminder and then forgot everything. Was it you, you? Does my hair grow from undiminishing thought? I seem to consist of glimpses and discomforts.
I am still turned toward that spot on mind's horizon where you went out, shutting behind you the door that cast the one beam of light. Something else has got to come back through, soon.
Is it true, prince, what I thought just now: that time is just like a mud covering flaking off a wall of pure gold?
Then eternity -- must be that fresco in Novgorod, a patch of saint, the rest so clearly palpable behind the veil of having been eaten away.
1972 *
I held my love in the cold morning hour, In the cold morning hour I held him and spoke his name. His hands were soft, limp as the frost-bitten flower, And his breath cold as the winter windowpane.
There was none but me to hear him, and he spoke so low, And I sang so softly, for only him to hear, And he told me all that I ever wanted to know Of the shape of my lips and breasts and the fall of my hair.
Then I laid my head to his breast, and I heard a sound, Heavy and dark, like sobbing that started again, And I heard a piteous cry, and jeers and laughter around, And then I saw bent figures walking mute in the rain.
O my dark shell! tell me where in this withered land Shall I find a sorrow that flows as deep and wide -- Answer me, rains. Gleam, ring on my hand. My love he came from the dead, he lay by my side.
1973 *
REHEARSAL, WITH ECHOES
On the stage before the scattered cast, Santuzza is singing. Black as ebony, white as snow, red as blood. It is not enough to say she believes her emotions. It is as though she had never been consulted. Perhaps she isn't in pain. What a fuss she makes! Shall we forget she was the farmer's daughter? Aren't there enough worse things to cry about? Is this the way she moved, behind Verga's story of a sharp-tongued girl, a quick laconic revenge? Watching her, one might say: here is man's folly avenging itself through the madness it releases. One could also say: she took him for this occasion. She needs his coldness, to forget him as she sings. Or: the split rock reveals unweathered minerals. Her voice, her meaning pour from the gash in her existence, how, without hammers, without wedges, would we have known this color? But her cry flings itself beyond comment and the orchestra gives full nineteenth-century support like a cabinet that cannot tell its extravagant ruler the treasury is empty, and out in the back country they are hanging the tax collectors.
And in the audience sits Credulity, that spectre Brecht threw how many inkwells at, a worn girl sits there with tears in her throat, no irony can kill her, watching her apparition. (That time in the corridor, that voice, not hers, and calling beyond him to something whose approach frightened her as she felt it in the tremor of her own vocal chords -- if he'd only opened that door in his back! His shoulders, heavy and stopping, could have borne the wings; but he shook himself, the winged one turned back, the man fell from her sight like pieces of mosaic off a wall. It was not the time, it was not the meeting-place.)
Evening after evening . . . Turiddu's throat is sore, he isn't here. Santuzza sings alone. Should we, having read the Duino Elegies, act surprised at the improvement? The other way it didn't look right when she broke from him on the high note, hands spread apart, eyes lifted, but this makes it all clear, and credible, even to you, Credulity -- may we hope? Grief seeks not wholeness but a mate for Grief, that is to say, Absence. Search without an object, shall we not call you Vanity, and be done with it? Smile at this dream. Nobody feels any pain, and elsewhere everything is completely different. Look, there's a break. In speech with the director Santuzza is laughing. (I hear you. And you too, my Angel, will even you deny your words chartered me as figurehead of all sorrow? You filled my arms with ashes, and half smiled. But the eyes, those eyes of the men in the photographs, were not gay. Is it that the joy of this my willingness betrays them, or that my tearful insistence wrongs you? What do I hold? A slip of paper, and the script is fading. Now I stand still, they surround me and fasten their streamers, they dance, my eyes are covered over, my mouth, only the hands are still free, for me to gesture with.)
Mask, chill and rapt, receptor of astral cries, interpret me.
1973
*
ORDEAL
As one whose soul is absent, so am I: They ask me questions, and I answer slow, They'd ask my name -- I'd say I do not know, And recollect it with a doubtful sigh. For on the scales of strangers' thoughts must lie Today the words I wrote two days ago, And I am absent where the arrows show Whether in them my being I deny.
If these, once friends of him to whom I have sworn Honor and life, receive me in his name, Then from a hateful bondage I am freed; But if they quit my words with silent scorn, Deaf to my tears, averse to my high claim, Judge me -- O love! this world is dark indeed.
1973
*
THE PROMISED WEB
Time stands, accomplished, in a face insistent twinges challenge me to mend. Last night I dreamed we were in jail, with bars between us; now, with you across the city, thoughts toil along the nerve-ways, bringing yarn, under the supervision of the dead.
I had not thought there were so many dead as I saw yesterday, along your face, twisted into each other, like fine yarn How did your mother and grandmother mend their lace together, in that time-bound city, draw threads across the rents, in soft white bars?
-- Sunday morning. Across the street, in bars, huddle our secret kindred, the long-dead- to promises, marginal notes of every city. One tunneled face leans to another face and, into crevices no one thinks to mend, dribbles bits of landlocked sailor's yarn.
Fat, dull-eyed, too dull to wind the yarn, in my dream, behind the iron bars, I cannot think what I came to mend. Am I to pick the runner-trails of the dead up off the snow, follow them to a face where mistrust of me has built a strong city?
It's true I dreamed of trying to cheat the city: forged a set of documents, concocted some yarn. There was a look in the librarian's face which said I deserved to be put behind bars for taking out a book that belonged to the dead and lying, when it got too torn to mend.
But it was the book that kept crying, "Mend, with what you can tear out of me, this city!" In my cell I frantically plucked the sleeve of the dead man who unravelled, as though made of yarn. Now I lay down my steps, crisscrossing bars -- how will the patch show up, and on what face?
Mother, signal me the face I must mend beyond these gates that bar me from the city, and help the bringers of yarn, help the dead.
1973 ANTHEM
Sister, sister, can you hear me, Are you sure that we're alone? Am I talking to your husband Or the job you have outgrown? You can go back to them later, Be alone just now and hear -- All my words are shadows groping In the hope that you are near.
Sister, sister, you are marching On the road to God knows where, There are chains upon your ankles, And your head is shaved of hair. I who run along beside you Singing like someone who's free -- You are free and I am captive, For they've hung your chains on me.
Sister, sister, if you're married You must still know right from wrong; You are married to a chained man And he's got to move along. Will he put his mind to planning Against the man behind the line Who still holds the whip and swings it And drives us on like swine.
Sister, sister, do you know me? Does this ring some kind of bell? I was told one man once saw us Outside man's self-created hell. When they lift their arms to heaven It's to us they really pray. Bow your heads and say the words now -- If we remember, so might they.
Sisters, sisters, speak together, Tell each other all you know. We can build the town of Wisdom That shall have no earthly foe. Speak the word just to your neighbor Till one thought in every brain Builds the city we inhabit At the breaking of the chain.
1974
*
SUNG AT UNCERTAIN HOUR
The screen of vision, wet with inward tears And fogged with weariness, does not allow Clear seeing; but among the hidden spheres I think the Wedded Saints are rising now As once on Escher's page, where brow to brow, Each is the other, and the bond between. Their eyes are fixed upon some nether scene -- Surely united wisdom sees our grief, And twice-paired eyes, with vision doubly keen, Track beneath clouds the pathways of relief.
When to the canopy the minds are brought To make for hopes and fears a common name, Each moves, the echo of the other's thought, And in their various fields intend the same, And hand in hand, unarmed, go gentleness and fame, That love no more may blunder in the dark Which loveless ingenuity diffused, Nor intellect's devising miss the mark For love's one counsel in the aim unused -- I keen the long delay: that love must still Make bulwarks, chiefly, against those without In the dark wasted landscape round about. -- Did no gleam fall on me, across that sill Before which I remain in blindness and in doubt?
1974
*
I walked through this world as one of the dead. Your eyes were mirrors in which I was not reflected.
1974
AUTUMN OFFERING
I feel the sinking year, and hear that voice That will not sound again for mortal ear; To a cold mouth I speak this: do not fear I ever could regret my ancient choice. I only grieve that in your praise my voice Is faint and soundless, finds not living ear, And I am still the captive of their fear And the condemned of their most ancient choice.
The day is dark; and now all floral crowns are sere Except that one of asters, which you wove And placed upon my hair, while I knelt low. You dreamed that lifted up one would appear Dream-crowned, amid the battling frightened droves, and they would drop their weapons and be lulled; was it not so?
1974
*
A CAROL WITHOUT SONG, FOR WINTER TURNING
Another year -- we'll fix a star with one more point atop a small pine, but leave it in the woods.
Another year -- we'll search our minds for stories, for new truths not yet told, and give them to each other, in a corner where nine or seven candles burn.
Another year -- we'll take the boards away from the opening to the highest attic. The dead will descend, something in their hands: We'll trade them smiles jeweled with tears for their dreams of quiet crystal.
The unborn, tall, will turn like angels above candle-flames. We'll clasp hands with the holly and with the ivy. Between brows a pure mirror will be unveiled, and the doors behind foreheads swing inward --
My love is wandering still.
1974
HEXAGRAM
The world alone is the mother. Visible in the shattering of a mosaic. Her hands -- empty of hands! Her eyes -- empty of eyes!
Lift this stone, sister, brother. Light -- the effort is in bending. Fasten it here -- the bit of darkness, so she can see.
Don't care for me -- care for the world and help me find my place in it. I love you as I love the ring on my finger, the menorah in my front window, the pattern of which you're a part.
Keep what I give you, later you'll find what it matches, what you lost before. We appear congruent to one another, we gaze through each other at strange polarized light.
On all ways you can still hear the humming of light from a center outside the air. There is still, on a bookshelf, the shell -- sign of the inner ear in the outer air.
The ring, the shell, the moment when the eyes flared up in answer, the sound that unrolls like a clew when you walk from this door: You will return, the door out of space, we will find it, look you, the inner ear is the way.
1974
*
BEACON
You invent strange returns. On landings where only your footfall stacks tread on riser through the spiralling dark your hands shuffle receipts for how many worlds. Deal. Elsewhere, hands at the dial, tilting you into focus, turn transparent to the elbow, the room, burst into by a congruent solid, staggers and gets its footing in a crouch, -- they freeze into sleep in a box on the shoulders of a troll striding.
O morning bright and calm. All that, confined to a package delivered on the doorstep, the ground is printed in sunlight with bracts of locust. Flats of maple leaves stir for the last time, camps of the dying. But blindsight primes the eye with storm, stomps the mind in rhyme, and the stories will whirl up, to inscribe the missing lighthouse.
1974
*
DAL SEGNO
Everything is explainable, like the sun. Time has stopped, but things keep on turning. Unnoticed something has slipped behind your will which whirls round, but the holsters are empty.
At the threshold of your heart did you pause aghast? Did you not remember it as an empty classroom? A blind friable with sun, a tapping of flies -- where are the drapes, the dark paraphernalia?
The first snow, and a memory of music lessons and acorns on the playground, perhaps suffice to explain this; but more important is the fact
that the contracts are written into the palms of our hands, we see each other all the time without looking, and I know you well, without being introduced.
1974
*
"C'EST LA CONSIGNE"
Orders. On this small planet My light blinks on and off.
The orders do not change, My arm does not get tired, The oil does not run out.
They don't tell whether To the vast planetarium I see in the night-times
This says, "Can you hear me?"
1975
*
IN MEMORIAM
Flowing past this white stone, which I place on the brink, it is still the same river.
1975
*
THE HATE STORM
They were swept away from me in the hate storm. I held onto them, I called to them, "Hang on," but they were swept away.
The high wind came, the dark water my calling could not quell, my singing could not calm,
or was my calling the wind? or was my singing the water?
A darkness came bigger than my arms and full of snakes that squirmed.
"Hang on," I cried. I held onto them, but they were swept away.
1975
*
BIRTHDAY OF A COURIER
The high-relief of something in the mind almost forgotten, remembered not by name but rising, shedding water from bright flanks:
Follow the trails of water to their source, enter the source, and speak. Let your eyes protrude from tree-trunks, your hands appear over intersections, in the air.
You companion is a thought that keeps pace with you, dodging among the mirrors of the air, surfacing in eyes, in eyes, ringing voice after voice like a set of untried chimes.
Your credentials are: the constellation and the leaf, the tokens under the tongues of the unborn, and you are shod in thankfulness of the earth.
1975
*
INVITATION
We gather here to see faces from which we need not hide our face, to hear the sound of honest speech, to share what dreams have etched upon the sleeping brain, what the still voice has said, when heavy hours plunged us to regions of the mind and life not mentioned in the marketplace: to find and match the threads of common destinies, designs grimed over by our thoughtless life -- A sanctuary for the common mind we seek. Not to compete, but to compare what we have seen and learned, and to look back from here upon that world where tangled minds create the problems they attempt to solve by doubting one another, doubting love, the wise imagination, and the word. For, looking back from here upon that world, perhaps ways will appear to us, which when we only struggled in it, did not take counsel of kindred minds, lay undiscovered; perhaps, reflecting on the Babeled speech of various disciplines that make careers, we shall find out some speech by which to address each sector of the world's fragmented truth and bring news of the whole to every part. We say the mind, once whole, can mend the world. To mend the mind, that is the task we set. How many years? How many lives? We do not know; but each shall bring a thread.
1975
*
NICE LITTLE POEM
A nice little poem and a sad little fact at opposite sides of a table sat
One hid a tear the other a smile and the sun looked down at them all the while
One thought abandon the other thought hope though neither reached a hand or spoke
Neither hid a smile nor a tear they sat reflecting as mirror and mirror
What came of that is still unknown to the sad little fact and the nice little poem
1975
HOW YOU KNOW
(please memorize)
If the horse's leg is really healed If the prisoners are really freed If the woman gets her man and he doesn't hate her If the sisters look at each other and smile
If your best friend says I can't deal with this If acquaintances give you strange quick looks If a stranger comes up to you six weeks later and says he's started bleeding If you find yourself turning to stone after you've spoken
If the king really relents If the people are really saved If the bureaucrat tells you a secret passageway If a statistician starts dream in words
If you noticed the gorgon was crying If a man made of water advised you If they found the buried treasure by your map
If you've started thinking of things for people to do If you can make out the city in the distance If presence and absence no longer confuse you If the whole thing begins to make sense
Your poem is good.
Keep going
1976
*
EXPOSURE
Supine in the rough grass, above you gray-white emptiness. Around you the smoke-trails climb the sky; some optic makes them seem to converge before vanishing.
Somewhere, not far off, there is shouting, they are sorting the others, some to the right, some to the left, some to gradual, some to immediate death.
How is it they overlooked you, lying here like old iron, like a piece of slag from their ovens, unidentified object with fused glass eyes?
Those whose faces in the archived photographs will show grainy, neither horrified nor stigmatized but like any crowd in transit, and who will be bent, broken, injected with foreign substances, taken apart -- they are the extras, the properties. It's those others who are the persons of this drama, they are acting out the lives of the gods like battered children who break their toys, like children who act with their dolls what they see done around them, in all loud parliaments were mute life is disposed of.
Will you rise, throw yourself between? You know when you walked among them you had neither hands nor voice. Lie here for dead. Stare upwards. If your mind can bear the emptiness no longer let your madness rioting in the clouds create gods to slaughter, instead of human beings. This lying here pinned by knowledge, this staring upward into gray-white emptiness where the smoke-trails seem by some strange optic to converge before vanishing: this is your destiny, your vigil, your service. 1976
*
THE PEOPLE WHO SOLD THEIR EYES; OR, THE NECESSITY OF NEGATIVE THINKING
Have you heard about the town where the people sold their eyes?
It was not a backward town nor a town of extraordinarily foolish people. It was simply that one day in the market square there appeared a man in a handsome blue wagon in which there were trans and trays of eyes, all the same deep, bright blue. A display of these wares very soon attracted a crowd, and the man began to praise the virtues of his product. Not only, he said, were these eyes of such an attractive color, but one could see twice as well with them as with one's own natural optics. Indeed, if one looked through these eyes one would never see anything bad.
The people listened, tempted, but a little uneasy. All day they hung back, discussing the matter among themselves; from time to time someone would wander over to the wagon where the merchant of eyes stood, genial, to pressing anyone to buy, but on the other hand not looking as if he intended to stay for a very long time. Toward evening a man in late middle age, who was mayor of the town, walked over to the merchant's cart, and made his purchase.
This broke the tension, and one by one the other townspeople followed his example, finally standing in line beside the wagon of the merchant of eyes. The price asked was very reasonable: one's own eyes, and a small payment in addition which, the merchant made clear, scarcely more than covered the cost of the fitting. And they color of the eyes was so beautiful: just the color blue that everyone had always wanted to have, only even a little bit finer. And then, never to see anything bad would certainly be a considerable gain.
By the end of the day everyone in town had the new eyes, except for one little girl who refused to be fitted. Everyone spoke to her angrily: did she think her own eyes were so remarkable, that she wanted to hang onto them while all the rest of the people were exchanging theirs? But she was afraid of the new eyes and raised such a fuss that they finally gave up. The next day the merchant of eyes had left town.
For a while things went on quite well in the town, really much better than before. Because they could not see anything bad, the people were contented and did not quarrel with one another. If a man had been hired to paint a house, and he left a few spots, the owner of the house did not see them, but cheerfully gave him his wages. Similarly if the hem of a dress someone had ordered did not hang quite straight, or the horse someone bought was not quite as young as the seller had said. In fact the whole town looked brighter and neater, the people healthier and happier, because only the good things were visible.
Of course, the little girl who had wanted to keep her own eyes remained to them as a constant source of irritation. They could not see anything bad; but they could see her face, and they could tell when she was seeing something bad -- which happened oftener and oftener. Pretty soon they started throwing stones at her whenever they saw her coming. It got so that she could no longer live in the town; she had to go and hide in the forest. Every now and then she would come back to town under cover of night and make her way to her parents' house, and her mother would give her some food. Her mother, of course, had bought the new eyes, because she did not wish to be different from the others; but she could not refuse to feed her. So she survived.
With the little girl driven out of town, the townspeople thought they would finally be completely happy and content. It is true that shortly after that someone came and cut down the fine grove of trees that stood just outside the town, near the main road, and carted away the lumber and built something hideous there in its place. But the people did not see that, because they could not see anything bad. Where the grove had been there was simply a blank spot in their vision, but they could not even see the blank spot; it was just as though the grove had never existed and nothing was there now at all. So it worked out quite well. It also happened that someone came and asked the mayor if he could buy the handsome statutes that adorned the front of the town hall, and the mayor, after visualizing all the good things he could do with the money, saw nothing wrong with it. The removal of the statues left quite an ugly hole in the facade of the town hall; but again, this was not noticed.
After that there was quite a parade of strangers -- afterward no one could remember what they looked like -- passing through town and getting things. They got the remaining trees in town, the decorations on the front of people's houses, the things they had inherited from their ancestors, sometimes for money and sometimes because no one saw what they were doing. I don't know what had happened to the people of the town. Perhaps the new eyes had some property of which the merchant had not informed them: perhaps along with the ability to see bad things the people had lost the ability to see really good things, or to see them for what they were.
At any rate things went along in this way, until one afternoon somebody got a ladder and climbed up and took down the sun. Stole the sun right out of the sky and put in its place another sun, a sun of inferior quality that showed everything in a very bad light. Then no one in town could see anything at all.
By calling to each other they managed to assemble to talk about what should be done. But no one could think of a way to get the sun back, if they could not see to search for it. Finally the little girl's mother spoke up: perhaps her daughter, who could still see bad things, could be persuaded to undertake something, if she returned to town soon.
At that moment the little girl herself arrived. She had seen the man steal the sun and put a bad sun in its place, and she had come back to town because she was worried about her mother. The person who had stolen the sun, she said, looked very much like the merchant of eyes, and she thought she knew which way he had gone. She offered to go and look for him and try to persuade him to give back the sun, and also to give the townspeople back their own eyes.
The townspeople agreed that they had to have their own eyes back they perceived what a trick had been played on them. But how, they asked each other, could they persuade the merchant to return the eyes? They had little left to offer him. So they told the little girl to tell the merchant that if he would give them back their eyes they would work for him for a number of years. And with this the little girl set out.
The merchant of eyes had left a fairly easy trail, and it did not take her long to find him; and after a certain amount of bargaining he agreed to take back the new eyes, and give the people back their old ones, and return the sun, on condition that the people pay him a certain sum of money over the next twenty years. The eyes he would return immediately, he said, but the sun only after the sum of money had been paid. Meanwhile they would have to live with the sun he had given them, by which, after all, one could see to do one's work.
The people had no choice but to agree, little though they liked the bargain, and over the next twenty years the sum of money was paid. Those were hard years, for they now had to see all the bad things that had happened during the time they could not see anything bad, and there were few good things, because everything had to go toward paying back the merchant of eyes. And when the twenty years were over and the sun was finally restored to the sky, they were still poor and the town was still a mess; it was a long time before things were the way they had once been.
As for the little girl, she lived for a long time, and she worked with the townspeople to help put things back together again. It's safe to say that with the exception of her mother no one ever really liked her; she was a constant reminder to them of how foolish they had been, and sometimes they muttered that she really could have driven a better bargain for them with the merchant of eyes. But when it came to important matters they always asked her advice; and it was generally right.
1976
*
Not wide the chasm was Though none could leap it, Richly the harvest grew With none to reap it, Not false the promise was, Though you did not keep it.
1976
*
MANUMISSION
Now, my sister, you are free, Free to be the same as me.
Free to conquer, free to tread On the victim's bloody head.
Free to ravish all the earth Till you come to your own hearth.
Free to coin your words for lies, To compete and advertise.
Free to turn aside and sneer When a sister sheds a tear
For such foolish things as love, Childhood shelter, roof above.
Free to tear yourself a piece, Banqueting on other's grief.
Free to grow a pseudopenis Like the female hyenas:
Thus shall you assert yourself. Buy this freedom, lady -- OR ELSE!
1976
*
ELEUSINIAN
1. (Persephone to Demeter)
Where are you, Mother? The grounds are dark here. I walk on cinder paths through ashen gardens. Trees of charcoal twist riven branches, holding red globes, their fruit, the only color. Pale knights, pale ladies walk the labyrinth, turn aside from meeting. In the house the death-king circles me with his arms, not clasping. It has been longer than two seasons.
Can you not hear me, Mother? I see you entertaining Jupiter, he praises the beverage, you laugh at his stories, not mentioning me. Pluto, you agree, is a good enough fellow, only divine, like the rest of us.
Here tears of the earth fall on me, salt and sterile. There was the spring -- Love was more -- Will you come, Mother?
Dark in my mouth these seeds.
2. (Initiation)
after C. Kerenyi's Eleusis
Eleusis o elusive
blackens under the chimneys beside the highway to Athens elusive
"these mysteries hold the human race together"
the host of gods came to fulfill the rites the day men fought at Salamis
"a cloud of dust, shining, as from a mighty army" (the dust, dust lightless now on the ruins)
man or woman they veiled you made you the goddess seeking her daughter
these mysteries hold the human race together
seated you, veiled at the poor man's hearth
in the courtyard, under the sun, of sunlight, she built herself
once in the year Persephone, Kore, the Maiden rose from the dead and from the living
one was hierophant who had no right here who was not of the Eumolpidai the sweet singing ones next year the men in dark garments came
-- condensed to black sign on papyrus the drumbeat, the chant, the voice, still imploring
Lead Persephone back beneath the stars
1976
*
You speak of sisters marching strong.
In the dim light on an unbounded surface I see
shapes, isolate, hunch, slow moving,
the women with battered bodies, battered minds,
each struggling to drag herself to a quiet place.
1976
*
YIGDAL ELOKIM CHAI
that’s you, Mona – you’re the only living God I can see – that’s going to upset them, like the joke, you know – “She’s Black.” I heard the door clang shut and the key splash in the moat, Then in the dark I heard your laughter starting up like a motor. VRROOM! Did we get the hell out of there! […]
No, I can’t believe it, just can’t believe it Even that I would dance again – But you put on your music And drew my soul out through my fingertips – I saw you coming down through the hole in the gallery ceiling Along those spiral glass stairs With a black cat by your side, You perched up there instructing the dancers, The only person I know who can talk of love Without a speck of falsehood showing. Amazing Grace.
And in the gallery there’s this shelter Crammed with holy images – Masks, ithyphallic crucifixes, A picture of someone meditating by a lake That lights up,
Bearskin on the floor, Whoever comes here has to tell the truth. Outside – portraits on the wall, Souls scrawled in black lines and primary colors, Faces. If my face were half that rea. And idols, idols, Saints and Buddhas, totem figures, monsters out of nameless rivers, Beasts like continents – You burn incense before Buddhas,
You will put one in the front window to bless the world You are Jewish, African, Buddhist, Catholic, American Indian –
Come one, come all – Here these are all given up for safekeeping, Live again, like dolls in their own houses; When we borrow and think to buy them, they play dead
It’s the inside of the memory of the world, Stocked with images dense as jungle fronds. Oh Mona, how could they go out of here Build those gray halls Made of forgetting and ruling everything out…[…]
Things talk to you – You touch one and know who has touched it. You read our minds like an eye_chart. You command the angels of coincidence, We arrange ourselves around you In a pattern of meetings, You are the web and the rock.
And you too have seen, seen the worst, Couldn’t eat in the vicinity of Dachau, Saw – saw – the past could not hide from you, Screamed your head off getting out Of materialist university barbwire round the braing, Known liars, seen people cross the street to avoid you, Been to cities where they don’t believe in ghosts Though they’re so thick you can hardly see anything else, Got people out of crazyhouses, helped psychiatrists, Stood by helpless while beautiful humans killed themselves –
Helpless. You too. And yet – even so – the stronger. You climbed the stairs after telling us the news, Step by step with your pain like an adagio partner: “Sing. There is no sorrow.”
If you leave us, Mona, You’ll have a fiery chariot. We’ll beg for a portion of your spirit. No one will touch your home. Instead it will hunch down, bunch together In the dark of some night, tugging at the city From within, like a moon it has swallowed, And long before morning Presto! Changeo! We shall all be inside of you.
*
THROUGH A GLASS, CLEARLY
I'm on the outside, You're on the in. You're with the people Who think they can win.
I'm on the inside, You're on the out. I'm in the truth here, You ramble and doubt.
1977
*
If I could become dead enough, true enough,
the centrifugal mechanism
would break, and the distant
heart-galaxies
come in, come in.
*
TO A NEWBORN DAUGHTER OF ISRAEL
May you grow free. May superstitious slanders never darken the clear light of your inheritance.
May the world be pretty for you, extend to you warm winds and flowers. May you see its flowers and its sorrows as a pattern woven by the Divine Presence. May you know what sorrow is without tasting it.
Even in the city where the buildings tower over you with the might of ingenious ignorance, even in the shadow of war, even if human faces should show you fear or ignorance or coldness, may you not be afraid.
May you remain serene in the knowledge of your nature, steadily shining until eyes can gaze steadily upon you. May you never bend your mind for favor nor darken truth by speaking it in anger, but be the truth before them as the blossoming branch, as a tranquil blue-veiled sea.
May the wise of all generations address you, and forgive their ignorance, child, if they knew you not. May the old stories teach you the name of every pain, and where the herb grows that cures it. May the dream instruct you. May the word flower soon on your tongue.
O may you find friends who speak and listen gladly, answering song with song, wise words with wisdom. May those who do not understand you trust in you, may you heed and be heeded in counsel, may the one you love behold you unchangingly in the mirror of his soul.
And may you bear yourself to yourself again, planted in the world like a tree that cannot be uprooted.
And may you not forget what was before you, this the ones who dwell in darkness have spoken: even the ones who still lie bound in sorrow, even the ones whose silence warns the living from deeper night:
and the light shined in the darkness, shamor ve-zachor. 1977
*
They live in houses shuttered blank and gray. They study nights on how to never give. They do not let the children out to play.
You can't get through. Whatever you may say Lies like a stone against an iron sieve. They live in houses shuttered blank and gray.
From house to house computer wires relay Reports on every passing fugitive. They do not let the children out to play.
Their window-blinds admit the light of day The way a coat of mail admits a shiv. They live in houses shuttered blank and gray.
Despite their armor's cumbersome display, It's rumored that their young are born alive. They do not let the children out to play.
Friends, let us deeply swear that, come what may We will resist their chill imperative. They live in houses shuttered blank and gray. They do not let the children out to play.
1977
*
FEVER SEQUENCE
condensed to one outcry that escapes leaving something floating in space
___
(from the Russian of O. Mandelstamm)
In the mists ahead my eye could not quite seize your wavering, tormenting shape. When I said "My God" I did not mean to say it -- said it by mistake.
But the name of God, like some huge bird, struggled from my lungs and flapped away. Ahead, once more, the mists thicken and swirl. Behind -- a cage, its door agape.
___
There are two who return and are always returning, as if they stood on a wave when it breaks. They are teachers who come at the end of our learning, they are gamblers who come with impossible stakes.
I try to recall: do they speak to each other or are they just spoken, like shapes in the wind? I call them my sisters, they call me their brother -- a mistake which no one remembers to mind.
What it's actually like when they come for a visit? Everyone's with you and no one is there. They divided a cake with a care so exquisite Each child at the ends of the earth got a share.
It is all somewhere else -- they have told me to tell you -- The wave broke, the word was lost; but there's a change in the look of gray billows when you know that the sea has been crossed.
They do not come. This is only a groping in fable. Neither by night nor by day.
Then why am I constantly flinging doors open -- "Osip and Paul! Can you stay?"
1978
*
CONVERSION
Eternal People, my life is yours. You princes, whose crowns the Torah wears, I stand before the holy Ark, the testimony of G-d's speech to me, and, laying all rebellious will aside, subject myself to His will, and to yours. O may it be your will, and His, to look, not to disdain the gifts of one who comes from Lebanon... Well I know these gifts must seem a toy of peace proffered in hour of war, this hour when crowding hates possess the earth, man's soulless creatures fill the skies, the folk disperse, its elders have no counsel but day by day to bargain, at a loss, with what reveres no right, can hear not word, and none would know, to contemplate this world, that the word Wisdom ever pierced the night. Now it behooves us all to pray for might, not listen to a song that seems a dream of lonely hearts in separate nights, an unarmed man's delusion as he falls; who heeds it takes a moth's wing as his shield and makes a blade of grass his spear. O friends, so it may be; it is not mine to say; I go where you go, share even to the end this people's doubt, its fate. To Israel's G-d I offer up a voice that came -- from whence I do not know -- to say those towers of hate, those arms of doom are not more invincible than the slighting smile with which men heard me; and what seems to frail --Beauty -- is G-d's mercy and power combined, the mother of Discernment, Judgment, Skill: the gift without which prayer and righteousness are as a scepter in a sinking hand --
and with this thought shall Israel's strength renew.
1978
*
A SONG OF SONGS
You would touch me, but I am silent, like an instrument whose strings are broken. The strings are the souls of the faithful, that should be tautly strung and tuned together, each giving forth its own true note to your fingers and causing the others to sound in sympathy. Brutal hands have raked across your instrument, it has lain outside in the rain, and the faithful have broken away, those that remain are slacked from their pitch, loosened so that they give no sound. O love, you are the player, and you are the master craftsman; in your hands are skill and wisdom. Mend, I pray you, the strings that are broken, make them as new, re-join them to me, re-tune them. Then your hands will move upon me and I shall respond, and your voice too will be heard singing -- the voice of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride.
1978
*
VITAL RECORDS
The sound of papers being counted and women's voices, subdued laughter, our comments like computer messages, always the same: the names people choose, the carelessness of doctors, slips of strange pens, the prices of things and the reasons of decisions somewhere higher that sift down on us. We order the numbers of the nameless, the names of the soulless; we keep track of what is not understood. In the hot afternoons time swells, eternity knocks between the typewriter rattle, and the high fans turning this way and that, like heads, have within their soft whirring a ringing sound like bells chiming no hour, far off in the wind. The doors here open and close each day at the same hour; we are here; we leave to give birth, we return to tend the vast memory that forgets us and await the coming of the Messiah.
1978
*
TO A FRIEND, BEFORE HER MARRIAGE
I struggle to remember you -- not now but as you will be, in a future that will not be; for I must take the full flower and the spreading bough from this first faint green that's scarcely there to see. I saw you among women -- O no toy of vain desire, but wise and making wise; I saw you in the shadow of a boy, softened and wary, shrinking from my eyes. Man sees but part of woman; but he takes that part for all, and will not hear of more; she shrinks herself to fit his grasp, and makes small timebound wiles of her eternal lore. So Wisdom's forests vanish from the earth and the fair world's destroyed before each birth.
1978
*
CASSANDRA
What ails you, Cassandra? You're young and beautiful, a child of the royal house, loved and protected, your sleep is curtained with gold, your tunic is purple, your hand never touches a needles except in pastime, when you've tired of your women's tales, or the song of the handsome young men. Isn't all this enough? Must you court notoriety by such outrageous conduct at public sacrifices, tearing your hair and ranting about Apollo, who certainly never mentions your name to his priests? Ridiculous! As for this band of Achaean marauders, who've been with us now so long they're almost like neighbors, their taking this city is just about as probable as that pretty story you tell about being sought by a god. It would be foolish to think they're the cause of your trouble -- no, there's some other reason, deep in your troubled soul; perhaps the diviners could tell you, or some wise physician; I cannot. But this a simple person like me can say, and I know it would help you if you could only hear it: Stop thinking so much of yourself. Look around you each day. You live in a wonderful city, where thousands of people, far less well off than you, tend to their business, morning and night, and make the best of it. Look at the blind man, his hand outstretched for an alms, consider the women who stoop at the mill and the loom all day, and come home to ragged children at night, the men whose backs are bent from the buckets of water they carry, even the prisoners, who do their labor against their will. Not one of them all wears that hunted, tragic expression or ends every conversation with dreadful foretellings. No wonder you feel alone; and of course that makes everything worse. Cassandra, I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings; you know I'm your friend and would like very much to help you; but friendship has limits. You're not going to get me thinking you're really a prophetess, sought and inspired by Apollo, and those stragglers from Aulis out there will soon be killing and plundering within these walls, unless we all go as crazy as you! Be calm, Cassandra, and smile. See how the children are racing, excited and solemn at once, to take their positions, while to the music of flutes the priests come solemnly pacing, all dressed in purest white, followed by dancing maidens, leading a heifer in garlands to far-designing Apollo.
1978
*
DE PROFUNDIS
They are more bound than I, that tread me down; they that would not be valor's slave are fortune's clown.
They that would stop the ear to golden words must fill it with the listless din of news and numbers, hollow tunes that pall while nightmares cage them in.
What they have made of Your great world I must, with eyes the sight wounds, see; and yet this pain is memory of the good, is liberty.
O G-d, amid their worse than futile work, their faithless talk, their homes that have become as market-squares where sellers hawk,
grant them one hour to know Your wisdom is, for all they do, a source of counsels, flowing from Before, which perils but renew,
and though for many years they still must toil in falsehood's pay,show them even now Truth's sanctuary in time, Your Sabbath Day!
Aye, they would know, could they but cross that sill and leave all lies without: Your Presence fills the world from end to end and leaves no room for doubt.
And from that insight is endurance born, and joy, and awe, and constancy, and truth from mind to mind, and acts which speak Your Law.
1979
*
O LOVE RETURN
O love return, love return and comfort those who await thee, O love return, love return to faithful hearts that wait thy coming.
Dark is the night, without a star, without a moon, the sun forgotten. This night is long, is morning near, O send a ray to those who dwell in darkness.
Shall we forget and be as those who never knew thy shining vision But walk in fear and live for gain and never feel thy springtime breath upon us?
Shall earth be bathed in blood and tears once more and drown all hope of better? Is there no light on some far shore to guide us home across these waters?
Show us one thing we can believe, one rule to guide, one path to follow, Show us the pearl of such rare gleam we'd gladly give for it our mortal burdens.
O make us glad to do thy will, not rebels stand where the ground is burning, O help us trust in thy sure hand that gropes for ours amid our blindness.
O let us see thy face at last, and in thy light let us see each other, O let us dream and let us wake to make this earth the temple of thy dwelling.
O love return, love return and comfort those who await thee. O love return, love return to faithful hearts that wait thy coming.
*
YAHRTZEIT
for Pesach ben Freide
The promise that brings you through sleep and remoulds your hands each time, out of nothing, is the breathing of the dead, which our own covers, is a candle burning down in the airless chambers. Absent guest, amid feasting and singing the day of your going opens a dark eye. Into your name you have gone. Let death, then, divide like the sea! Let us, dryshod, walk the way of remembrance toward your vigil that beckons in the radiant, knowing Beyond, while that voice, which is yours still, proclaims: zman herutenu.
1979
*
YOM HASHOAH
for Sam Gordon
The old man's voice was like an ancient scream wrought into words by years of brooding rage. As if from beneath blows the words still came and still might issue, age on lightless age.
What they had done to him in that far land he told; then, prophet-like, he turned and roared against those here who lent no helping hand, who saw his need, but coldly it ignored.
The audience said nothing. As of old when prophets chided them, their silence said: "The human heart is frail, it cannot hold the massive sorrow of the living dead.
"Where is the G-d of might, that promised aid? It was not we that made, nor we that broke that covenant. Our dues of guilt are paid -- why are we more rebuked than other folk?"
But from the service, still, a young girl's prayer "A better world -- to work, and not to die--" though she herself had vanished into air, perhaps returned, a listener, and stood by.
Grown now through years of death to angel's height and Wisdom's form, it pleaded with the throng: "Sisters, brothers, hold fast in man's despite To hope; abandon not the world to wrong!
"Know: Love still speaks, and still gives laws to men; These heed, and save what yet remains of worth -- O Israel, lift your arms and gather in The suffering multitudes of all the earth!
"Wherever flower struggles against stone, Wherever song through brutal shouts is heard, There seek us, Israel, and find again Your hidden G-d, Who mends His broken word!"
But in that hall to every mind discoursed Another shape: "You fools, why gather here? The master of this world -- his name is Force, To him you bow, and him alone you fear.
"And have you come to weep what he decrees? Weep not too much! beware! Or have you come to plead that what he is He ought to change (and also what you are?
"What will you offer to this King of Kings? Your hearts in prayer? He seeks but to destroy Whatever hopes, or prays, or blooms or sings, Till all the earth is like him: bare of joy.
"Shall tears deter him, who delights in pain? -- Go to your homes, avoid each other's eyes, Shut out the world, forget as best you can Those upon whom the sun no more can rise!"
Dark was the April night, when they went out, No star discernible, if any shone -- A night that shrouded Heaven's gates in doubt And veiled with tears the glory of the Throne.
1979
THE EYES WITHIN
Along the bramble-path, past the wolf's eye, a moon-tear: others have seen. Your shadow irradiates the world, those who silenced you, the faithful, have heard your song in the twilight, Lilith rides the Red Heifer into their dreams, round her shaven head flames the corona.
The tears, again, each one a world, for the song whose gentle note ignites holocausts, for the burnings in the midst of which the soul, if G-d is just, must distill; for the rose that costs more than riches: these have my sisters seen in the candleshine.
Their muteness, later, the seventh day, and afterward, while the children pour from the Song of Glory and fill the world, groping along bramble-paths, by the light of those eyes within the corona, behind day, behind night, always.
1979
*
PERSIAN CYCLAMEN
Surely you too have seen rakkefet, flowering in crevices between stones, in Yerushalayim, in late winter, early spring, the petals pale, then seeming to deepen their tinge of purple as days lengthen though leaves, heart-shaped, tatter and rain spatters them with dust: the stalks stand together, small figures with heads down, their dawn- colored hair streaming upwards as in a mighty wind from beneath the earth.
O you who have shown me such things, and whose names I here enumerate, in fives, like these corollas, and scatter on silence: may this word, your word take root, and may some spring flower us together, that we stand under mild suns, turning still around each other, like this rakkefet's earthbound ascent. 1980
*
[a fragment]
Has then the night no messengers for me? Is there no voice to go to her and say what my too trembling hand perhaps obscured, no angel to appear behind locked doors, saying "fear not"? Is the hand closed that strewed my path with signs, to warn and reassure, and cannot set before her one small thing to speak of me? Has this holy city no stones to cry out as she passes by? And you, whom I felt move behind this world, the echoes of whose footsteps I have followed beyond the mortal gate, who spoke to me when I despaired, to say you were still there? Can you not go and gently touch her life, tell her that you are more than a remembrance, speak to her of me, as of some comfort? ... I grieve that hates so easily conjoin, and evil wills soon reach an understanding, while love is fenced from love by its own will, and hands that yearn can seldom join to save. I, an unheard lament, dwell in the world
1980
*
JONAH
Now Jonah writes from Nineveh that he's having a good time. There is quite a lot to see and do; the climate's warm, but fine. There were certain things he saw at first that kind of freaked him out, But you can't go around down all the time; that's not what life is all about.
Yes, when he got here, just out of the fish, he tried to spread the word, He tried to tell the people how they were living was absurd. He prophesied destruction, but he found nobody cared, And he came to see their point of view, though sometimes at night he's still kind of scared.
One day someone heard him preaching and said, "Come work for me. You have got something that we all need, it's called integrity. But you've got to know how to sell it, or it won't do any good." And Jonah thought it over, and he said he guessed he would.
From that time on he did all right, just living day by day. He found you can be effective, if you just don't try to have things your way; And Jonah's writing a book now, it soon will be on sale, And everybody wants to read what it's like being inside of a whale.
Now this story has no moral, so don't even look for one. In the end it really all depends on what you consider fun. The wicked city it still stands, as I'm sure you’re all aware, And if you want to go and live there, well -- I guess that's your affair.
1980
*
HERE
I would not want to grow rich here nothing could be poorer than these hills balding to limestone nor to decorate a house rather this room's gray walls like a hamsin sky
the people too grow plain as the stones I shall become like them
and the words remain external something you put on each morning and take off again at night or if inward a fading of images from elsewhere
almost I do not want to learn here only to merge with the sorrow of her darkest streets
1981
*
AMONG THE ROCKS
from the Hebrew of Simon Halkin
How dear you are to me, O outcast soul of man, how lovely in my sight, here in this exile, where none can spy out your deformities nor follow, alien and arrogant, the stunning tortuosities of your chasm. How well I know them, soul, how well I know them, those prying eyes, so open and so sealed!
They saw you shaken -- their gleam exuded cold. Your maimedness, still a riddle, even to you, glittered, a frost that stupefied their greyness. Cruel to your nakedness, you stood before them, exposed to the salvation of their gaze, and they, like to a mist that madly roils and melts away, looked on your nakedness! Alas, you begged at dead men's doors, and waited with mummies for the dew of resurrection, when you aspired to snare a passing glance, that it might linger and behold one moment what was laid bare in you, a joy accursed: pain, mingled with the splendor of the silenced! Despised and sweet, my miserable darling, a little girl among the barren harlots, vainly you cried your beauty, stuttering, like to a pedlar-woman in the market, heavy of speech and burdened with disgrace. Who heard your stutterings, felt your disgrace? The play of pallor and of crimson flush in your complexion who discerned, poor thing? Were there not times when even I stored hate against your muteness, never comprehended? Did not even I at times, in cruel tempest against what lay so obdurately concealed, long to tear your veil from you, as if thus to expose to view that nakedness, itself a lie, veiled, as it were, in you.
Yet now I'll show you mercy, outcast one: in your disgrace, your silence, you are mine. In exile, with no stranger by us now to rule us with the fear of his cold gaze, you shall confide in me, we shall unite. I shall behold the heaps of your dark ore, its gold no longer dimmed for me by dross. I shall give ear to your primordial sadness, your formless sorrow I will not deny. These grey and ancient rocks my soul, are strewn, like princes of the spirit, on this mountain and valley floor. Let us go out to them and in their dark clefts utter our lament; to their still heart-voice let us lend our ear, that we may learn from them a moveless life; for they have taken everything around them into their fullness which cannot be known. Magnanimous are these rocks to you, O soul! The silence of their life, an eye that sees and is not seen, an ear alert to listen from deep concealment, and a hidden heart -- deaf and exalted, it will surely answer the wingbeat of an autumn butterfly, the shadow of an alien bird flung northward, the seeping from a bent and wind-stripped bush, the muteness of the outcast soul of man.
These rocks, my sister and my bride, my soul, will hide us, we shall sink into their night. Their wrinkled folds are marks of birth, their beauty lives sealed as in their childhood, and they know and live it in their rigidness, the splendor of their oblivion is unceasing song.
2.
O my grey rocks! It is not man I flee, for who would flee the sorrow of a thing so downcast and forlorn? Nor do I make complaint of man, that he has turned from me; how should the pine-tree on the northern slope complain of futile longing for the palm that faints among the deserts of the south? It is a stern decree of God for man that pain should weight on brothers all alike, yet brother not know brother in his pain; that every soul should long for its companion, yet longing fall forever short of grasp; and even though one soul should kiss another for one brief moment, never in that moment may it be kissed by the other in return. And if I stand here in accusing prayer before you, rocks so mutely rich, it is the prayer of one bewildered beyond prayer I pour into your ears that understand such murmurings: the prayer of all men, struggling in muteness, orphaned generation following on orphaned generation, I entrust to the deep understanding of your crannies. Each heart has its own mute and separate grief, and yet the mother of all griefs is one: the prison of silence that confines the soul.
O my grey rocks, my grey, my graceful ones! You will not thrust me from you. I will ponder with you by day upon the undefined, confide, like you, my being to the night. I will lie down in your moist echoing clefts, call soft your bosom's sharp cold edges, breathe the coolness of your tender scentless moss, and learn from you to slake my thirst in secret from the autumn azure, open as eye, from the gloom of the sky as it goes blind. I'll lose myself with you in wastes of twilight, playing a twilight game of consolation, stumbling upon the outcast soul of man; the interpretation of the darkening silence I'll drink with you to still a thirsting soul which the creating kiss of God ensnared.
The creating kiss of God ensnared my soul, implanted in my soul its own deep thirst, that it should long for all that it beholds, and yet yearn, for the holiness of beauty, to change all it beholds. The green of spring, the whitening gaze of dying eyes, the smile of wondering love that curves a young girl's lip, a raven's croak in dusk somewhere unseen -- All these beseeched my soul: swallow us up, tell of our beauty! And my soul swallowed up all that surrounded it, till the oppression of life's immured mystery entered into her, was buried in her. A dear and speechless burden, a foetus in its mother's womb, that richness shuddered within the soul that, filled to choking, travailed and could not bring her burden forth. For with his kiss God caused her to inherit the hunger that was his; but he withheld from her the strength to satisfy that hunger. O soul -- rich, yet the poorest of the poor! O human soul, drenched like a field with blessings of dew and light from heaven, yet vainly waiting for that one drop of miracle to fall upon the treasures of its seed, that they might sprout, be lifted towards the gazing sun. A magic spark the heart of man entreated, a spark that might ignite the smoldering heart till it became a singing conflagration whose flashings turn the very night to splendor -- And spark there is none. The heart is sealed, daubed shut, and cannot leap beyond its mute confines; it cannot bend the knee, nor force the cry of "Holy" from man's throat. In fields of spring filled with the rustlings of all intuition, in time of melting snow, the spark is sought, and in the longing after woman's love, and in the dream of striving generations that climb and pass from sight -- yet what is sought is never found, and song itself is helpless to break the fetters of the mystery.
Grey rocks of mine! What do you know of this, the grief of song that cannot save from darkness? I have known the blessing of the tender azure, veiled in a muslin of transparent clouds, a feathery birch. To all ends of the sky the azure reached, was woven, flock by flock, into the heart of heaven, and showed down its alms, spring's blessing. And the land around, an earth of trusting and believing fields, laid bare its thawing furrows, black with fatness beneath the melting snow: our mother Earth joyfully giving suck from age to age. O ragged mother offering your full breast, how my soul pines for your secure embrace, how my soul craves the eternal faith you hold! break forth, song of the universe, that knits in me! Hymn of annunciation that throbs, that shakes the heart of me, break forth! Silence. My soul within me melts away, is lost, The universal song is mute.
And I have hearkened to the song of ascents that streams from man's heart through all generations while he strives to ascend the mountain peak, stumbling upon the obstacle-strewn road, rising and going on. And high above them the peak, a radiance that cannot dim, beams and beckons to the few that go before the throng that crawls along, dismayed, confused, like frightened sheep that have grown weary amid the sandy plains: the herds of men are led along, up to the mountain's foot, but cannot lift up their bewildered eyes to where the mountain's summit beams and beckons; they turn their weary heads around and gaze in the disconsolate sorrow of farewell back toward the desert plains through which they passed. Of little faith, they plod along like mourners behind their leaders, and their eyes are full of treacherous murmurings against the few who with sure step and with straightforward gaze have set their feet upon the mountain slopes and between crags go skirting the abyss, like sons of giants among the human sheep, to blaze a pathway for the stumbling throng. The distance widens now between the climbers and those of erring heart who in their thousands go groping on the path of their confusion and, hesitant, ascend against their will. The distance widens, stretches out between them, until I see the herds of men all tottering, stumbling and falling in a straggling line on slopes, in valleys, in the plains of sand -- until I see the few that climb ahead halting their climb and turning back a moment. O song of man's ascent past the abyss! One moment stand those strong ones, gazing back on those who stumble there, by cliff and crag, and fall, each man's hand raised against his neighbor -- and all at once those who ascend tear forth their hearts from out their breast, for burning torches, a signal fire upraised before the eyes of the stumblers down there, shedding forth a splendor unquenchable as the dawn, that beams and beckons: Near is the mountain summit, within reach! O song of man's ascent past the abyss, grant me to be a mouth to you, O song! Your might has filled me till I burst in flames, your fire I have drunk in until I choke. Silence. My soul within me melts away, is lost. The song of man has ceased, is mute. And what, my grey rocks, what is woman, that my soul should tune its strings to her, as if it were a harp which unknown fingers play? And what the living God in me, whose goodness I praise both day and night to win His mercy, and day and night, as one whose strength fails, fling words toward him: O my God, my unknown God! Take from me, I pray, these frozen riches, take from me this desire to turn to beauty all that I feel in me, and feel in you, this storm that rage is in my blood and finds no peace save in an outcry? And God's wonder, silent and wakeful, comes to me again to quench my soul's thirst with more thirst, and muteness; and woman's eye, where love and sadness dwell, still longs to comprehend, and never can. The prison of silence, where each soul's confined -- who knows that prison, my God, as I have known it? Rocks great in lovingkindness, to your clefts I have brought this day my weary soul. May she learn at your knees to take delight in silence, learn at your knees that frozenness is joy. Wrap her in shadows, princes of the spirit, refresh her with your hues, that bloom in cold! Though she is but a child that does not know how to grow up, accept her as your child, so that her sobs may slowly die away in the desertion of your clefts, at nightfall, the wing of the Shekhinah bring her sleep within your bosom, deep sleep fall on her in your dream-strewn captivity; may she find in you the interpretation of her dream. Soft be your teats to her! In prophecy and in sweet revelation my she clasp you, whispering, My mountains, O my lovely mountains . . .
3.
A single seed, winnowed from mouldering heap that it at least may live, carrying with it the future harvest in a distant land, I have fled from man, who wallows in man's blood, who kills, whose soul is faint with love of killing! Blood, blood, blood. And only I am undefiled, I and these disconsolate rocks around me. Why do I vainly weep for man's shed blood? What moves my soul with longing to return to her uncleanness? How shall I return while yet love's law is mute in me? descend, while yet my hand is powerless to lift up my falling brothers? Woe is me, their lewdness has grown so dark that no song can redeem therm -- woe is me, for there is in me no song that could redeem them. Would I had God's strength to purify my brothers and redeem them, or else that my own purity would perish so that I could defile myself with blood, become as one of those unknowing mourners, and holiness in me no more bewail the victims! Woe is me, that I love man, woe is me, that I long for holiness!
Leaves blanched by frost and blasted by the wind and seized as if by thought, come to me now, trembling as if with understanding, come! The bitter torrents of the rains have torn you, the tameless whirlwind ferried you to me, the wanderer, bewildered, hid in cleft of rock: I bid you welcome, rest with me! The living dead are you, that gaze on death, and I am blind: I know not my own soul. The hard rains struck you, tore you from the tree, and ere you settled here among the rocks, how far you saw, to what heights you ascended in grey-veiled space! How far and wide you saw, you visionary dead, that mutely, mutely you have returned to earth here, seized by thought, embracing mystery, at last consenting, forbidding not the wind to set you down, refusing not to fall discarded here! As for my soul, it is yet linked with life, bound up with all the souls of all my brothers: I fear -- O how I fear -- my future fall; I fear the future autumn-time of man. Rest here beside me, leaves that gaze on death! Your thin backs shivering in the chill, your rustlings -- for these my heart has some interpretation:
"Who we are we do not know, know not what our lives may be; only this we know: our days lengthen to eternity.
Tremors of a hidden life wandered, wander, and once more will be plucked up, take on new form, and be stripped to bare life's core.
Tremors of a hidden life wandered, wander and again, till they have found a new disguise, wander, seeing and unseen.
And when they've put their new clothes on, they are seen, but no more seeing: they with their disguise are one, as in fixed and stable being.
And in disguise the souls congeal: fixed and rigid, blind and cold, each makes its littleness its all, hides itself within its folds.
And thus wrapped up in littleness, enfolded, hidden and secure, each yearns for liberty -- yet less than it holds its fetters dear . . . "
Who are you, soul of man that yearns -- who are you? What is your thirst for holiness, for man?
"Tremors of a hidden life, strayed and straying, evermore to be plucked up, and find new dress, and be stripped to bare life's core.
And see: a timorous cricket hid in the wood, a cloud, a leaf, a foaming wave, a flowing spring, a soul of man consumed by grief.
And all, all of them are naught but these tremors deep-entombed, sparks of life that found new dress and are now immured, embalmed.
Even as it strays, the soul congeals, still living, and goes blind, condemned to long for liberty even while it seeks to be confined.
Yes, it will grieve lost liberty, yet love its garment wondrous well, until its garment comes to seem, although a jail, the choicest cell.
And from their prison none break out: the atom of life, the secret spark weeps without voice, with none to hear, like a convict in the dark.
And suddenly the door's flung wide, and, all reluctant, forth they go -- plucked up once more, against their will, they stray and wander to and fro.
Tremors of life they are, no more, condemned to long eternally: first they long for prison cell, then they struggle to break free. . . "
4.
Open your gates, my soul, and let the glory of your spring enter in! O drenched in mourning, open your gates and let the spring descend upon your plains with all their generous seed, the sun embrace you: O appointed spouse!
Open your gates, my soul, and let the glory of your spring enter in! The living God -- Listen! -- knocks softly at your door and whispers: Let me in, let me in to your recesses to dwell there in eternal love, and spread my wings within your refuge, soul of man! The living God, the mighty one, seeks shelter in you, seeks shelter in a merciful soul: Open your gates, my soul, and let him in!
Bow down, my soul, bow low and bend the knee, master your trembling, open-eyed, and say: God of wonders, Lord of life, here am I! You called me -- weak and trembling, now I stand before you, God. Who am I, how have I deserved to come before you? Who am I that you should seek a sanctuary in me? And the merciful living God, who thirsts for mercy, will slowly enter into your recesses, my soul, without your knowing -- as the image of the beloved steals into the heart of the unknowing lover, till he wakes and deep within him feels the silence quivering with mute and pining melodies, that die away and, fainting, wake unending waves.
And as he enters your recesses, soul, whisper to him: My God, I pray, forgive me for that I love my life, my prison-dwelling, and fear the day when I must leave my prison and shed the outworn garment of my life. I and my littleness -- what are we but sounds, notes in your wakeful playing, floating isles bathed in the ocean of your life, adrift upon the ever-swelling tide of dreams? Forgive, I pray, this isle, this merest islet which loves the small circumference of its shores so much that it forgets its father ocean. forgive the soul that loves its prison walls and fears the day its prison will be opened. And then the living God will gently laugh: I did not know that you had sinned against me by loving the dark beauty of your prison. You and your prison, both, are dreams of mine, I am the dreamer and I am the dream, and all my dreams are precious in my sight: you, and your prison's pain, are dear to me. And while you pray for my forgiveness, I within you likewise pray for your forgiveness, and I am the forgiver, even I. Sing, soul of man, for you are purified, you shall descend to man, and I with you, your being shall be radiant with God's beams; and know: if man bows down to you, he bows only to the divinity within you; but if he turns away from you, it is that he has not yet beheld your God. And do not mourn, nor feel yourself as orphaned: the pain of man is God's pain, but as yet the pain of God has not become man's pain. Sing, soul of man, for you are purified, you shall descend to man, with God in you.
Great with love and compassion, you shall stand where he has set you, and shall keep your vigil: a day will come when every single soul will heart to God's soft knocking at her gates: Let me in, let me in to your recesses to dwell there in eternal love, and spread my wings within your refuge, soul of man. And every single soul will yet throw open her gates, and be a refuge for her God, a basin for the ocean of his dream whose tide's forever at the full. Yet silent now, not pressing for the end of wonders, you stand where he has set you, keeping vigil, sustained by hope till your relief arrives: another human soul will take your post, your sister, future's child, will come, although you will not know her coming, nor she you. And after her still other souls will come to keep the vigil for their generations, hoping, like you, to see the end of wonders, the eternal spring when every single soul will open to become a tabernacle for the living God, will widen to contain the waters of the ocean of his dream, full to the vast horizon's edge for ever.
translated 1982
*
BEATRICE IN JERUSALEM
I am a memory come to life. -- Franz Kafka
Among these stones, both ancient and new-quarried, one substance underneath the dark and light of varying time, bespeaking the one source to which I have returned (I say returned, 5 though I know none whose blood is in my veins that walked here, yet here certain words were written from which, though mingled and transformed, descended this more-than-life) I, Beatrice, pass, living and yet a shade, a dream undreamt, 10 like her whom Faust waked from unfathomed sleep to hear her own life told, a stranger's tale, yet unlike her, much praised and not desired, not maddening men to burn each other's cities, but shunned by them, as weeping at mid-day. 15 And not for a magician's brief delight was I awakened, if the murmuring voice that pierced my sleep of formless dreams spoke true, but . . . I know not. To grope, to wander here, to stand beneath the closed skies which they say 20 were once Your face, to sit at Your sealed gates, to lift up Wisdom's voice, and be called Fool, to see You, or to be forever blind among a blind race groping toward its doom.
How long, how long, O Father of all wisdom, 25 sole guardian of the knowledge stored for men, how long have I been wandering in this world? When did my feet first leave upon its dust their traces, soon effaced? when did my voice first echo and die out among its stone, 30 when were my eyes first lifted to its stars to ask if they remembered my high parentage and knew me still? outside whose fast-shut door did knowledge of Your ban first come to me? Was I that Helen Simon Magus found 35 (as evil tongues told) in a stew in Tyre, whom he, who called himself as You, proclaimed his own First Thought, that ere time was leaped out and in the nether realms gave birth to those who, being ignorant of the Father, still 40 hold her captive in their jealousy so she cannot return, but ever again is held a prisoner in a female body suffering humiliation? Methinks I see myself stand in the market, a wordless show, 45 while he, half barker and half preacher, speaks a tale some priest preserved to rail against. And had he who first penned the praise of Wisdom once glimpsed me here, in street or palace hall? Was it even to my footsteps Orpheus tuned 50 the lyre that beasts and trees and stones obeyed? Was I indeed the form that Dante glimpsed in the dark streets of a barbarian town, did I return his glance, and know he knew, did I receive him in the World of Truth, 55 my rightful home, with those companions gathered from all time beneath Your primal light, in the great Rose where now my place is vacant, I being banished, though for what fault there, where no trees can grow, 60 or for what task here, where no hope can spring, no thought divines . . . ? I have no memory; all these are strangers' tales. Only the voice that murmuring woke me, gave me the name again, and when I read, methought I knew 65 the gestures and the keen, delighted speech woven of swift thought, the gaze upturned in gladness or downward in indignant sorrow bent, the joy in that creation which I was, reflection of the Creator's greater joy -- 70 Riguarda qual son io! -- these things were mine, this was myself, before the woeful change and for the first brief moment of recall. This was the form that hatred has bowed down, this was the joy that envy brought to dust, 75 and this, ah this, the spirit that was seen in the dark forest like a distant light, for which spoke reason, among the woeful people who have lost the good of the intelligence. O poets! vain and unbelieving race, 80 so puffed up with the pride of mere invention that none can see what his companion sees, nor hear when his companion speaks the truth, nor love with a whole heart what was before him: therefore the Word is as a window painted 85 with opaque semblance of what lies beyond, and therefore none since Dante entered Paradise except the last, who cast a look and died.
Think not, O builder of the visible and the invisible worlds, I think to break 90 by speaking here, the bars, not forged by man, that fenced me even from the one who called me while yet he lived, and now that he is hidden are more the barrier than death itself. It was a mortal hope, although the best: 95 that grief for all he was might blaze a path through the blind hearts of men, for me to pass; that in the world lived scattered souls like mine, of his love's will co-hearers and co-heirs, known with me, and to each other known, 100 who, meeting in his setting sun's last rays, might for our life on earth devise a form that should become our oneness, and prepare for those who spring from us, a world not dark with war and ignorance, a little space 105 for wise play under the eternal eye. O reverie of an over-learned child! Not the dark might of armies, nor the snarl of the human beast, dispelled thy golden gleam, but the withdrawal of extended hands 110 in hope's last stronghold, here. The wisest and the best, and among those the wisest and the best, counselled me to renounce my word's high aim and play the fool to those who sell the word, to make my peace with falsehood, act a part 115 in the weary play which surely none believes but all keep up, as if 'twere life itself. And against this avail, I know, no tears, no reasonings, and no melodious song, no warnings, no impassioned stern rebuke, 120 neither his name, nor any one of Yours. Even their kindness is but mockery: they see me, then they see me not; they see in me that part which they themselves have chosen and minister to that. And I, alas, 125 from human need beg and betray myself till I seem a worse fool than all the rest and take at last from their contemptuous hands the portion I could not accept from Yours: the solitude, the obscure and lowly path. 130 So be it. Only let me learn at last the wisdom I myself pronounced on high and not, more foolish than a fledgling bird, mist by the first arrow, await the second. Since the most just among the living could 135 not judge my cause, let me not then appeal to lesser hearts; and if indeed You hear, then hear it not as prayer, but as the song of one in prison, as the words of one who seeks not to appeal, only to be. 140 These make me present to myself, these bring the dark chaotic world into my ken, these make illumined spaces in the dark and gird the world I sought to fashion here in the vast spaces of nonentity.
145 Yet even now my mind entreats to know why I was sent here in this midnight hour, drawn forth with words and driven forth with violence, to the sore-troubled remnant of Your people who in their need of Wisdom's grace yet find 150 my consolation harsher than their ills. Your very Law forbids them hear my song; custom would have me serve, and speak no word; and how should I, a stranger still, rebuke them over the blood of their kin, shed by mine? 155 Had you but left me in my mother's house and in my mother's mother's house, continuing in word and deed the song that gave me birth: had You but left me hands, to do some kindness, and hearts to echo what you placed upon my tongue, 160 surely my will was peace, and would have reached to these, even here. But You have cast me out: my people know the song, the name no more, what mercy was in them -- it was but little, but scattered islands in a cruel sea -- 165 they have cast forth. Violence rules utterly, the truthful word is voiceless now among them. The peace of home, the mother's sheltering arms are mocked; the hounds of envy, cruelty and lust are set on beauty, love and wisdom; then 170 oblivion swallows up their memory lest any should, remembering, feel remorse; the blood of innocence is sold for gain. I have no name and no memorial there. In grief for sisters vilely slain I call 175 to those who mourn here what my people did to strangers, ere they turned against their own -- They do not hear. Being gathered from destruction they mourn their own dead, guard what life remains, they build against the hate that builds without, 180 by guilt unchecked, by sorrow unappeased -- O God, they speak of miracles, yet none believes: the seas divided not for those most innocent; dreadful are Your designings, if design they are. I know that there are tribes of men 185 in hate begotten, without a spark of faith, who live by killing, for the joy of causing pain; these shall inherit earth. Woe to the last seed of the just, that shall be born among them!
O chains of fate! I see their entanglements, 190 I see their twistings, back through generations, I see how that has come to pass which is, and what must be, if these same laws prevail. I see the one point where the whole is fettered, but do not hold the key, nor have the strength, 195 to break those chains, even at their weakest point. I see, far back, the naked seed of life, scarcely escaped from the inanimate or in it still, like a candle in the wind, already binding to its preservation 200 the missiles launched against it; building shells, forms that have left their impress even in stone, organs, limbs, till the first form's blind will became a flame of cunning, fed and shielded by ever ampler provender, higher domes, 205 until at last it built itself a shelter even beneath the heart of its own kind, enlarged itself to shelter more than self, and love and grief with the first young were born. And ever wider compass sought the mind 210 in which to play and keep itself from harm, houses and camps and circles of the wise, and all the arts by which man's world is framed, until was cast the mirror of the spirit in which life saw itself, and knew itself 215 as image of a larger will and purpose. And last the dream: that from the mirror stepped the image into the arms of that which cast it -- so life returned, and its long journey was a tale to while away eternity -- 220 But all that light cast shadows long and dark, and every peace was bought with greater pain; the smiles of child and mother brought the hand grown cruel with feeding and protecting them, possessing that in which it had no share; 225 the hand that fought against itself and grew more cruel with every victory, proclaimed itself its only purpose, forced mind and love into its service, bred itself a world in which inanimate force once more was aimed 230 at all life had created, and struck true, guided by life's own knowledge of itself -- a world as dark and merciless as the void from which life sprang, to which it must return -- So it must end. The spirit was -- was not. 235 A signal-fire from a world consumed in strife, signs that meant briefly love and peace and honor, whose meanings melt like the tender mist of flesh while the letters, and the bones of law, remain, and even my barren course must bear it out. 240 Law without justice! mock me, if you can! Say that in every generation some knew of the hand, and covered up the breast, only to leave the world to fiercer broods of those conceived by violence and deceit; 245 their words none heeded in the rut and bloodlust, their sacrificed inheritance none grieved, so that the light they saw by did but thicken the dark in which the others struggled on. Accuse me thus, and mock us all together, 250 O serpent Time! for if the spirit's nothing, who then can mourn which way the flesh is driven?
Had You but led me to Your covenant with gentle hand, I might have learned to live in silent peace with those whose fathers saw 255 Your glory tear the curtain of the world and heard their King's voice overthrowing all man's power, yet granting him a little space in which to live, and exercise his sway -- saying, "Thus far, no farther" to the tides 260 of violence which would destroy the world: with these, that lived to witness against kings, I might have lived and given life, transmitting the memory of Eternity through time. -- You did not will it. From the sheltering home 265 I stepped into a world that knew no law but that of might, no code except betrayal, a prison-world whose reasons chained my mind and made me doubt my soul, and long for madness. Before me vainly human love was praised: 270 shunned and despised I lingered among men, and only strange dreams visited my cell, bringing the air of lands beyond despair, and vanished, leaving words half-understood, images unexplained. Till he appeared 275 whose tokens they had been: the prince of song, the orphan child of Israel's greatest woe. He too had grieved in exile, and had seen in dreams the one prepared to comprehend him; had called me by a name none spoke in earnest 280 these seven hundred years, to rise and shine for men. Not earthly love, he offered, nor I gave; cold was our meeting-place, beyond this world; only when he had set could I arise and sing the song of praise and grief in one.
285 Then, only then, did I acknowledge You, believe that You are King, and men are fools pursuing Time's decoys, while from the door they shun to enter, beckons eternal joy. Then did I laugh at Time, and men's designs, 290 at Death itself, whose power they uphold -- were not the laws of Might a crumbled tower? Surely now all would wake at last, and hear their names, and issue from their hiding-places in the mechanic thicket of man's world; 295 now they would call to each other, and make plain the paths through Your creation, once so fair, and gather in Your presence and each other's to speak the spell of reconciliation as I once heard: "We gather here to see 300 faces from which we need not hide our face, to hear the sound of honest speech, to share what dreams have etched upon the sleeping brain, what the still voice has said, when heavy hours plunged us to regions of the mind and life 305 not mentioned in the marketplace: to find and match the threads of common destinies, designs grimed over by our thoughtless life -- A sanctuary for the common mind we seek. Not to compete, but to compare 310 what we have seen and learned, and to look back from here upon that world where tangled minds create the problems they attempt to solve by doubting one another, doubting love, the wise imagination, and the word. 315 For, looking back from here upon that world, perhaps ways will appear to us, which when we only struggled in it, did not take counsel of kindred minds, lay undiscovered; perhaps, reflecting on the Babeled speech 320 of various disciplines that make careers, we shall find out some speech by which to address each sector of the world's fragmented truth and bring news of the whole to every part. We say the mind, once whole, can mend the world. 325 To mend the mind, that is the task we set. How many years? How many lives? We do not know; but each shall bring a thread." Still I can see them meeting there, a circle in the night, crowned by the listening stars of a great hour, 330 among them many I have known, whose words, whose deepening gaze, whose silent dignity confirmed the voice that spoke our greater being, and at their shoulders stand the dead, not feared, but welcome guests, that entered with your Presence. 335 O would that hour, by Your will, but strike, here, among those that vainly wait for signs they cannot see, and know not to interpret! Then they would learn new laws, renew the old' then they would understand Your ways, though dark, 340 perhaps be reconciled even with the spark that fled their midst, when in half-learned tongue one stammered of the soul's supremacy, of love transcending law and domination, of one soul reconciling all, forever. 345 What though that word was cast into the night of those who scorned the discipline of peace, who took love for their scepter and their sword and built an empire that seemed made to mock the one whose word had given it foundation? 350 Even that darkness labored with the light: for this might he who traveled hell and heaven and saw at last the light beyond this world, for this might he who traveled earthly hell and called me from the other world, bear witness. 355 O could that dark's one offering be accepted by those who stood so long against its sway, then, with the souls of all this world has lost, I might return in truth, and purify the house wherein all nations shall bow down.
360 O God, what is this world, that it can stand so firm against Your power that shakes the soul? Not as my people's offering do I come bearing the tokens of Your messenger: a cast-off thing, despised more than before, 365 driven forth by violence denying all that gave me birth, I reached Your people's shore. Where are those creatures, fair beyond belief, from which Your image shone, that tutored me, who made sing in my soul the words of greeting, 370 for whom Creation's garden seemed to wait that they might tend and dwell in it again? Their faces; light went out when called upon, for greetings rude denial, weak excuse, and back they turned to man's destructive work, 375 to mutual pleasures bought with bribery, invoking their souls' freedom to resist not the world's power, but Yours. Can I believe in my own soul, when their they so disprove in whom I saw myself? And these Your people? 380 is it their righteousness and their obedience that makes them turn away? Have they not taken of unrighteous gain, my sisters' spoils, to build their refuge with? Have they not made Your law a spade to dig with, do they not turn its eyes from present truth 385 and take their pay for silence? Can I judge them, burdened so with grief and fear, must I not even for compassion's sake admit that Force is king? So I may well have grieved, unheard, in every generation. 390 O Lord, I fear this world's not Paradise, nor yet the spot on which it might be built; thought fails me to believe that I once played beside Your throne, joying in Your all-knowledge, so freely given; nor was it I that shone 395 where difference is but the sweet reflection of light upon itself, and shadows come only to give light form and rest; where each lives by the ceaseless effortless imparting of all all know to all. A mortal mind, 400 circumscribed, and not with widest bounds; a mortal soul, that surely seems to others a darkened thing, even as they are to me -- I am but this. I think I see now that to take shape each thing must cease to be 405 what there it is; that Heaven reflects itself upon our Hell; and what is willed up there is this our fall, and that which cannot be. O let them live at peace with this who can, Father! and keep the laws which You once gave; 410 me You have torn beyond that hope of peace!
Yet this is new beneath the bitter stars: that he was here who called me by my name. Never in all the generations past did man's tongue hold his language, did man's eye 415 so seeingly admit the world men made and what they did not make, and had not seen, nor was the secret dream so truly spoken amid the praises of assembled men, although they still dissembled what they praised; 420 and though I came and went in flickering dreams for many, none before turned to me living to pray for the fulfillment of the dream. So it may be that I too, after all, stand for the first time here upon this earth, 425 knowing myself, the beginning, and the end; that while I was for men an apparition remembered yet not sought except in dreams, I but half knew myself, as in those years when anguish of half-knowing seared my brain 430 and images of him I knew not yet, strange figures from an unknown ancient tale of Silkie, unicorn or Fisher-king, a torn god worshipped even amid the hunt, came through the night, invaded even the day, 435 severing me speechless from the common life, until we saw each other face to face and learned each other's names. What though all others forsake the mystery, and earth prolong its fall beyond my arms to utter dark? 440 Were we two not the halves of Primal Man that struggled from the wreck of First Creation through tales and histories, through lives that were like fragments of distorting mirrors case upon the earth, till in its final hour 445 we met beneath the shadow of destruction, burdened with flesh, with guilt and shame and wounds and with the manners of a lying race, that once the secret message might be written, the title given to this world's spectacle: 450 Bozhestvennaya tragedia. Then let the curtain fall, the characters disperse, the audience emerge into those streets illumined by the nearer, kinder stars, speaking in whispers, and with quiet tears 455 for Heaven's shame. The end is surely hear. Yet I am I, and he is he, and knowing was perhaps, after all, the goal -- attained.
O unseen Presences! O heavenly Father! Forgive these words! Prophets were ever tempted 460 to wish the doom of those they came to save; and those with whom Despair has come to live have not the strength that can forbear to paint its ghastly face with colors of delight. Shall I be true to love, yet false to hope? 465 Still will I hope. your sages' words I heed: "Believe not in thyself until the day thou diest." Since faithfulness until the grave I promised, let me not claim the reward of faithfulness -- belief -- until the grave 470 is sealed above me, and all know that I, changed by eternity into myself, no longer can betray. Till then, let this body in which I am confined, that knows fear, weariness, and anger, be my tutor. 475 Let me not give offense to any creature, nor lift my voice in arrogance, nor put forth my hand to take what is not rightly mine, nor draw it back from giving what it should, lest it be said my dreams were wickedness; 480 but grant me sustenance in patient toil that I may learn the laws of Your Creation -- as much as may one human intellect too limited, alas, for its soul's vision -- and leave behind, perhaps, some better gift 485 than those I made before. I cannot cease to pray for miracles: that through Your grace I might even now, while in the turbid flesh, be changed in all men's sight to what I am, or better, that the word you gave, Your word, 490 might wake in all, and Wisdom's spirit shared might comfort, gather, lead us in this time. Then might so many tears that yet must flow be stanched, and many a lovely thing be shielded upon which now the hateful storms bear down; 495 yet all is in Your hand; I can but trust. I will believe that, though my voice be silent to reach its heart, Jerusalem still is; that mortal, weak, corruptible though we are, flawed with this world, and burdened with its hate, 500 yet there is here some stronghold of the spirit the deluge of this time shall not submerge. Let those who plot against us foil each other until the nations see Your hand sustains, and not the merits or designs of men! 505 Then even envy might seek peace with us, and in Your people's heart the knot of fear be loosened, and their eyes and ears admit forgotten things, of which I shall be one. Freed from the weight of doom, they might then see 510 the world before them, and once more light in plans of tending and of restoration: so might the dawn come slowly over earth, and the receding cloud of violence show Your sky whose sun and stars are moved by love, 515 as men have sung, and You at last must prove. 1981
NOTES
Line 1. The opening phrase, and the immediate impetus for the poem, I owe to Simon Halkin's "Beyn Sela'im (Among the Rocks)." The opening also recalls the first lines of Part II, Act 3 of Goethe's Faust, spoken by Helen of Troy, whom Faust has conjured from the dead: Bewundert viel und viel gescholten, Helena, Vom Strande komm ich, wo wir erst gelandet sind (Greatly admired and much berated, Helena, From shore I come, where even now we landet) In Goethe's version of this legend, Helena is unaware that she has been summoned from the dead, and is thrown into confusion by Mephisto-Phorkyas' narration of her saga. 21. "Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice?" (Prov. 8:1) The figure of Beatrice in the Divine Comedy is often interpreted as an allegory of either the true Church or Divine Wisdom. 24ff. The complaint "How long have I been wandering in this world" comes from a Gnostic text; I do not remember which. In Gnosticism Wisdom, or Sophia, is often portrayed as the exiled "daughter" of God. This portrayal harks back to the depiction of Wisdom in Proverbs 8 and 9 to Athena, sprung from the head of Zeus; the Kabbalistic Schechina and Dante's Beatrice are further avatars of this figure. 34ff. In the first century C.E. one Simon of Samaria, traditionally identified with Simon Magus, claimed to be the incarnation of God the Father and introduced a woman named Helen, said to be a former prostitute, as his own First Thought. Lines 37-43 are taken almost verbatim from the Simonite Hymn to Helen, preserved by Irenaeus in his polemic against the Gnostics. 43-45. The image of the barker is taken from Paul Celan's "Meridian" speech. 47. The author of Proverbs, identified by tradition with King Solomon. 51. Cf. the opening chapters of Dante's Vita Nova. 56f. Cf. Paradiso, Cantos XXX-XXXII. 69. Cf. Par. XXX, 19-21: La bellezza ch'io vidi si trasmoda non pur di la di noi, ma certo io credo che solo il suo fattor tutta la goda. ("The beauty I saw not only surpasses our measure, but I surely believe that only its Maker has all the joy of it.") 70. "Look, and see me as I am." Par. XXIII. 75-76. Cf. the well-known beginning of the Divina Commedia: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura che la via diritta era smarrita (Inf. I, 1-3) ("In the middle of the road of our life I found myself in a dark wood where the true way was lost.") And see also Virgil's address to Beatrice, Inf. II, 76-78: O donna di virtu, sola per cui l'humana spezie eccede ogni contento di quel ciel c'ha minor li cerchi sui ("O lady of virtue, through whom alone the human kind surpasses everything within the smallest circle of the heavens") and also Purg. VI, 45: "Che lume fia tra'l vero e lo'intelletto" (Who will be a light between truth and the mind). 77-78. Virgil, who at Beatrice's request guides Dante through Hell and Purgatory, is identified by commentators with human reason. (Though since Virgil is after all a poet rather than a philosopher, it would seem that the "intelletto" for Dante, whatever it might have been for his sources, is inseparable from poetic vision.) The damned are characterized by him as "le genti dolorose c'hanno perduto il ben dell'intelletto" (Inf. III, 17-18). 79ff. The critic Harold Bloom has diagnosed the "anxiety of influence" which leads poets deliberately or semi-deliberately to distort the vision of their predecessors in order to appear "original" to themselves and to others. "E tu che sol per cancellare scrivi" (and you who write only to cancel out) (Par. XVIII, 130). 87. "The last": Paul Celan (see also lines 16-17, 62-63, 91-93, 274-6, 353-5, 412, 445-50). The line also alludes to the Talmudic story of the four who entered Pardes (i.e. the realm of mystical speculation). One, Ben Azzai, "looked and died" one went mad, one became a heretic; and only Rabbi Akiva "came out in peace." I first heard this story in 1970, after Celan's suicide, from a friend of Orthodox Jewish background to whom I had ventured the surmise that Celan had attained some insight that was too much for him to bear. Several years later I heard a Reform rabbi, Marc Gelman, read his original variant on the "four who entered Pardes," substituting four contemporary Jewish thinkers marked by the Holocaust for the four Talmudic rabbis. In this version, Celan was substituted for Ben Azzai. 122. Cf. Purg. XXXIII, 10-12, which in turn plays on John 16:16: Modicum, et non videbitis me; et iterum, sorelle mie dilette, modicum, et vos videbitis me. ("A little while, and you will not see me; and again, my beloved sisters, a little while, and you shall see me.) 130ff. Cf. Purg. XXXI, 61 Novo augelletto due o tre aspetta; ma dinanzi dalli occhi di pennuti rete si spiega indarno o si saetta. ("A young chick waits for two or three [shots], but in vain is the net spread or arrow shot in the sight of the full-fledged bird.") 151. Rabbinic law forbids a man to listen to the song of a woman other than his wife (some authorities permit it if the woman is on stage and personally unknown to the hearer, if she cannot be seen, or if the voice is recorded). 173. "Unto them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name." Isaiah 56:5. The name of the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Yad va-Shem, is taken from this verse. 259. "Thus far, no farther" is the rabbinic interpretation of the Divine name Shaddai. 280. "Arise, shine" (kumi, ori) -- Isaiah 60:1. A poem addressed by Celan to the community and the representative reader closes with the Hebrew words. 274-284. In an essay entitled Folie a deux I attempted to trace this otherworldly encounter through a number of poems, in most of which the motif of cold is present. 383. "Do not make of Torah a crown to aggrandize yourself, nor a spade with which to dig." Pirkei Avot 4:7. 406-7. See Inf. III, 95-6: vuolsi cosi cola dove si puote cio che si vuole ("It is so willed where will and power are one.") However, in the words of Deborah Gorden Friedrich, "Everyone knows that love is pain,/ That which is cannot be." 411. Cf. Ecclesiastes 1:9; "...and there is nothing new under the sun." 412. In the Scottish ballad "Silkie" (which I heard in the version sung by Joan Baez), a being who is a man on land and a silkie (seal) on the sea fathers a child on a mortal woman and leaves her with the prophecy: And ye shall marry a gunner good, And a right fine gunner I'm sure he'll be, And the very first shot that e'er he shoots Will kill both my young sun and me. For the unicorn (sometimes understood as a symbol of Christ), see Rilke's treatment in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. The figure of the Fisher King is studied by Jessie Weston in From Ritual to Romance, cited by T.S. Eliot in his notes to The Wasteland. The "torn god" refers to the ancient Near Eastern cults of Adonis, Attis, and Tammuz, predecessors of a certain aspect of Christianity. 440. Cf. Genesis 1:27: "And God created man in his own image . . . male and female created He them." Primal man: the Kabbalistic Adam Kadmon. 441. This refers to the Lurianic myth of the "breaking of the vessels." 450. Bozhestvennaya tragedia: Celan's words to me on August 4, 1969. 456-7 is the final formulation of the Gnostic position which alternates in the poem with the Jewish hope of an earthly redemption. 459-60. As in the story of Jonah, who is angry with God in the end for not destroying Nineveh. 466. "Do not believe in yourself until the day of your death." Pirkei Avot 2:5. 467. The hero of Wagner's Flying Dutchman can be redeemed from his eternal wanderings only by a woman "faithful unto death." Apparently Wagner got this idea from Heine -- who, however, suggested it with characteristic irony. 471. This is a translation of the first line of Mallarme's sonnet, "Le tombeau d'Edgar Allen Poe": "Tel qu'en lui-meme enfin l'eternite le change..." 510. Cf. the close of Milton's Paradise Lost: "The world was all before them.." 511. Cf. Genesis 2:15: "And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it." 515. Cf. the last line of the Divina Commedia: "l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle."
*
[untitled]
An unidentified remorse like a lost needle somewhere, seeking the heart.
1981 *
THE LADY OF THE DARK CHAMBER
There was a wizard in Paris town, And a cunning man was he: He called the Lady of the Dark Chamber To come from beyond the sea.
He has seen her in a midnight glass And written her name in sand, He has summoned her up by candlelight And whispered her his command.
The lady tosses on her bed, She has not peace nor rest. She dreams all night of a falcon dark Lighting upon her breast.
And all she did to banish this, It was of no avail Till she went down to the cold sea–side And for Paris town set sail.
And when she came to Paris town She heard a man was there Who could summon spirits to do his will And walk upon the air.
She went unto the wizard's house, She would not say her name, But the wizard bade him let her in, For well he knew who came.
"Thou cunning wizard of Paris town, Know'st thou who I may be?" "Thou art the Lady of the Dark Chamber, Whom I called from beyond the sea.
"I have seen thee in a midnight glass And called thee by night and day, I have bound thee with the Threefold Spell, And thou canst not get away.
"But fear thou not, thou Lady dark, For I mean no harm to thee –– I mean to be king in Paris town, And thou the queen shalt be.
"Thou shalt sit upon a golden throne And wear a golden crown, And even I shall do thy will, And thy words shall be written down.
"Thou shalt be mother to all men, But thy children shall be seven; They shall be fair as the sun and moon And wise as the stars of heaven.
"And all the people in all the realm Shall to each other say, 'Well to the Lady of the Dark Chamber And to those beneath her sway.'"
He has taken her up to a window high And shown her to all the town, And his face was like the moon at the full, And hers was like the sun.
And when those two lay down to rest The bells of the town did chime, And when he kissed her rose–red lips, The clocks stopped at that time.
And never a clock has struck since then, All is as he did say. Well to the Lady of the Dark Chamber, And to those beneath her sway!
1982
*
SONG
If you must indeed return there, pray speak of me to the cyclamen, To the lavender flowers on the chinaberry trees, To the evening star as it gleams in the sky at twilight, And to the asphodel; for I found none faithful save these.
And it will be when you lift your eyes to the twilight Sky with the evening star, that you will remember again, And I will be the evening star to you, and the scent of the chinaberry trees, And you will not lose your soul amid the sons of men.
1982
*
In a dark night I lay in prayer, while cruel armies gathered round, for God's arm flashing in the clouds, for splitting seas; but even more that one small star of selfless love might pierce the murk of sordid strife, that one white flower of mercy pure might blossom from earth's stony ground.
1982 *
THE ROUTINE OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
It is no secret. You may feel relieved of any weight of confidence incurred by the hearing of a total stranger's life, its deepest moments and its gravest sins; no do I hold out an importunate hand for friendship. You may see in me no more than the seatmate whose chance garrulity doubles the journey's length; and I, too, know no more of you than that you must hear this. If one could tell it, and be done with it! Such things occur. And one is not absolved until the words have picked one's bones and those bones are hung up somewhere, as a warning. So, Wedding Guest. I hope this does some good. I take a deep breath, fix my glittering eye, and lift this weight once more, in front of you. 1982
*
STARLINGS, KIRYAT YOVEL
Bird cries arise, in a crowd. It is yet light. They are waiting for darkness to arrive, like a train, while I lie here waiting for an evening that will not arrive this evening when the bird cries will arise, in a cloud, and take me with them into darkness.
*
A MEMO TO THE MESSIAH
Heal the sick and raise the dead And levitate in air; Break for crowds twelve loaves of bread, Fell walls with trumpets' blare; See yourself ten lives ago, What is done at ten leagues know, Never shall you overthrow The iron reign of circumstance.
Check but one man's flight from love, Give one cold heart regret. What the stricken would forgive, Make one who struck forget; Of dear-bought folly wean one mind, One broken faith by all arts mend, Cure one whom envy has made blind -- Then you may shake the centuries' trance.
AMULET
This will protect you though all betray you: the word keeps faith though it be broken. Though friends fall silent the unseen tokens will lead you home to the House of Song.
1983
DROUGHT
I wake and cannot sing, my throat dry as this land. O G-d, what curse has clenched Your hand thus to withhold rain and the spirit's power? -- Over my head the clock that struck the hour is striking with uncertain, random chime, as if, in a daze, it sought to ring the end of time.
Was that an answer, G-d? Did the prayer born of my spirit's fear despite numb heart and tearless eye reach to the harpstrings of causality and wring from them a chord of prophecy? ... What need of sings? Whoso has not the wit to see around this world Your tightening net, for him in vain the very stones would cry.
Silence again. O G-d, You are my witness: I have tried to strike the word like a great holy gong to fill the air with humming song calling the spirits to one place. In vain. Shall I then say the tokens lied? No; it is humans who betray Your voice that calls within them every day: "Gather and hear, gather and hear my will!" You speak; but it is we who must fulfill. Are not our hearts, too, in Your hand? Then for the sake of this beloved land let them understand .. That I do not weep now, is very ill. Yet what can I do, Lord? I trust, and call out still...
1984
*
THE CUTOFF
Fallen basswood, rotting bridge over the oxbow: ripple-stroked sandstone slab where the gradient, freshly steepened, makes the stream murmur: this too will wear away, wear away, in the water's lapse, till the endlessly- downdrawn current passes silent here too.
Madison, 1984
*
AU SEJOUR DE LA MORT
Wide are the grounds of death here, high the stern symmetric gates, gray the late heaven over this deserted ground, bronze-dark its edge of maples standing at a distance, and black this stone, which fourteen winters now have worn.
Death, be hence forth this stone that covers one whom life's own strictest logic hounded to such end, and I the ever-shattered slowly-scouring wave which those same laws now hurl against your base again, again, again.
Orly-Tel Aviv, 1984
INTERCHANGE
for Ruth Blumert
The block of events comes towards us rarefies to let us through as everything is atoms, spaces, flocks of birds, galaxies of nothing stochastically swirled and swung by shaping–reshaping will. So, when we talk, our word–swarms wing through each other. Say it: even the spring is autumn here and our thoughts gather for flight over the world's edge far into dizzying depths but not alone.
1984
*
THE SIGN-BEARER
While passing through the Ben Yehuda Mall during the Ten Days, I was struck by one who leaned upon a signboard's pole,
two further signs covered his chest and back: inscriptions from the Talmud and the Bible proclaimed it right to love hard work
rather than alms and idle speech and quarrels. The man stood silent, upright as his staff save that his neck was bent at a right angle;
he was thin, not young, shabbily clad. Facing him in a semicircle stood some ten or twenty people. Did they laugh,
question, or ponder? As for me, I strode too quickly past, stung by some arrogance or pity, to have studied their expressions, or to have read
all the sayings. Yet now it seems fitting, seeing he had the majesty of the absurd, to draw from him an image of the poet's velleity of standing humbly beside his word.
*
JAMMED into the breach of faith peg your way up the word-wall
muscle-prayers, breath-prayers, gut-prayers,
where you were evaporates behind you,
there's no going back.
*
I-AM
Concerning I-Am, do not say "You are this." "You are that."
!O road, hedged in with mirrors!
I-am is an ocean and an eye looking at the ocean.
*
THE UNWRITTEN POEM
The poem I have not yet written whose first line would be the doorsill to another space
The poem I have not written yet whose form would be that space domed for meeting filled with its own darklight like the shine from invisible candles
The poem I have not written whose words would be humans met in understanding
The poem not yet written whose voice would be the inner voice of all
that poem I would send you
*
THE BOUNDARY
Two separate countries, these, distanced by a body of water whose width is disputed: a vast gulf, say some, a narrow rivulet, say others, and crossed by odd emissaries, chance couriers: leaf from unknown tree, random phone call, figure of waking dream lured to candle–flame, revealing, deceiving, concealing: a rift, in the end no other, perhaps, than that which sunders our two minds, here.
ECHO
For your the quietest song: ripple rarely lapping the lakeshore, breath barely stirring the pine-boughs, a call, caught at the verge of hearing, saying (or was it the water, the wind?) "I am here."
1985
ON FINISHING AN ACCOUNT OF HER LIFE
Farewell, thou richly-furnished room, My workshop, dwelling-place, and tomb: All that I was and am is here. I close the door and go: not free But as a shade, by some decree Still banished to the earthly sphere.
1985
*
TO THE UNSATISFIED
for Paul Celan
Report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied Hamlet, Act V
"You live here, in the impossible, surrounded by fires. The hate of the world is focused here; its hope also
"Yet you live, as far as possible, the life of the world: love and the raising of children, friendship and quarrels, making a living, maintaining status. Sometimes against the world you bristle together; sometimes the name of the city is felt as a hostile presence, asking too much. "To live in language is another impossible: is to belong to the names, unconditionally. To speak from their dream and then walk the path your words have pointed. The dream said the life of the world might have to end. I came here and saw no contradiction, so I went back to my post and walked the path of the dream to an end which was my own.
"And if I had stayed here? I would have been one more who took refuge in human company, when I had heard we must go beyond the human for human life to be renewed. My name would have been a boast to you, now it is a grief and a challenge -- and is it not better this way, Jerusalem?
"Yours was the last name I spoke. I come with the light from beyond. Let me speak to you now, in your doubt, let my word come home."
1985
*
THE EDITOR
(a morality play)
Persons: The good angel Misery Genius Vanity Cleverness The Editor The bad angel
In the middle of the stage is a large, empty desk.
Enter the Good Angel. White robe, wings, epicene appearance, businesslike manner.
Good Angel: Ladies and gentlemen, and poets true, We come to bring to you a judgment scene -- Not the last judgment, true, when it is said The heavens will be rolled up like a scroll -- We merely show the judgment which decides What word, of all that flow from hopeful pens, Will be dispersed and honored in its time And reach the ears of coming generations -- A minor matter, as most men agree. Therefore be of good cheer, and watch our play Which aims at tendencies, and not a persons, For each of you owns stock in all the others, And all of you I think are well acquainted With me, as well as with my colleague here.
(Bad Angel steps onto the stage from the opposite side, makes a mocking bow, and quickly steps back. He is dressed like an old-time gambler or confidence man, in a flashy suit; his face is smoother than the usual devil's mask, but a sneer is never entirely absent.)
Enter Misery, a shuffling, vaguely female form dressed in rags, holding (as will Genius, Vanity and Cleverness) a large white scroll.
Misery: I come to bring the editor a work Which I have written out of pain and sorrow In which my spirit found no consolation Except the thought: Someday this might be known. And I have done the best I can, although My pen does stutter, and my brain finds not The metaphors to wing my personal grief And lift it from my heart into another's -- But this I do not know. Because these words, Poor though they are, have soothed my spirit, how Can I not think that they will speak to others? Here, then, upon the altar of the future I lay the testimony of my woe.
(She approaches the desk, lays her scroll upon it, bowing nervously although no one is there, and goes out. In so doing she brushes past Genius, who has been standing near the wings -- both of them came out from the same side as the Good Angel -- and overheard most of her speech. Genius is an adolescent figure, who could be either male or female; in a pinch she/he could be played by the same actor who plays the Good Angel.
Genius (looking after Misery): Poor brother, sister! I have heard your groans, And often your despair has dragged me down To depths where I believed that I was lost; But always in the darkest depth a ray Gleamed from a jewel which on the miry floor I found, and gasping to the surface brought, Where it still shines, and still delights my eyes, As if I'd snatched a star from farthest heaven. Not from my own distress alone I write; How could my hope be for myself alone? Just heavens! how many foundered in the night To weep that bitter sea in which I plunged; And if I can return to you one star Will its light fall into afflicted hearts?
(Looks down at the scroll in his/her hands; then slowly turns his/her eyes toward the desk, walks slowly, solemnly, as if fearfully toward the desk, places the scroll carefully upon it, next to that of Misery, turns swiftly and goes out.)
Enter Vanity, wearing a frilly pink dress with puffed sleeps and a wig with flaxen corkscrew curls, around her wrist a bracelet with jingling bells. Curtsies elaborately, to the right, to the center, and to the left.
Feeling a lack of other occupations And wishing for more praise from those around me, I've taken to making verses; and indeed, I think that I may say I have succeeded. Such pretty images and rhymes! Not all apt or exact, of course; but that's no matter. And, to be sure, I've left out everything That might disturb the readers, make them think Too much -- for I don't want to think, myself, Only to make a little noise to fill The emptiness -- Oh! (Jingles the bells) I didn't mean to say that. Jingle, bells, jingle -- doesn't that sound nice? Now everything's fine. And won't my friends be jealous!
She prances up to the desk, places the scroll on it next to that of Genius, prances out. On the way out she almost bumps into Cleverness, who shrinks back with an air of disgust; noticing this, she flounces out with her nose in the air. Cleverness brushes off his suit where she brushed him, straightens up and walks to the center with a dignified yet studiedly casual air. He is tastefully dressed in Ivy League style, but could be played by the actor who plays the Bad Angel.
Cleverness: It wouldn't do to have it known, of course, That Vanity and I are close relations -- She's so unsubtle! Snatches odds and ends And doesn't care whether it fits together, Has no idea, really, of what goes. Whereas I've made a systematic study Of where each images comes from, and what tone Is countenanced by the fashion of the decade Under a given set of circumstances, Which thoughts and feelings are to be confessed And which are better left to lie in darkness, And like the story of a witness -- oh, Not necessarily true, but well rehearsed With coaching by a competent attorney, My work's consistent, without gap or flaw. Of course there's something missing: I am not a genius; or perhaps I'm just a bit too cautious. No one really gets inspired from reading what I write. But that's the price one pays for being safe and well-received, which, when all's said and done, is what I'm after.
(Strolls up to the desk, casts a pityingly contemptuous glance at the three scrolls already lying there, puts his own as far away from them as possible, jog-trots out, whistling.)
Enter the Editor, wearing a judge's robe and wig.
(Sitting down at his desk) I see the writers have again been busy. It's quite amazing, when you think about it, on what proportion of the population the dream of publishing has taken hold, As if appearance of their words in print could guarantee survival of the soul. When I consider this, my desk-top seems a life-raft crowded with too many souls, and I decide which ones are to be rescued and which must be pushed off! -- A grisly thought. (Reaches for the scroll of Misery, unrolls, reads) Now here's a case in point! A tale of woe In childish scrawl, with words misspelled, misused, Grammar and syntax badly out of joint -- Pathetic! Well, we'll write her a nice note: "Found your work deeply moving, but not quite Polished enough to warrant publication." (Writes, then rolls up Misery's scroll, places it to one side. Picks up Vanity's scroll.) What's this now? (Reads) Pah! Tasteless and overdone. (Writes) "Regret that this material is not suited For publication in our magazine." Discouraging! (Leans back a little; his eye falls on the scroll of Cleverness.) Let's have a look at this one. Hm . . . not bad . . . competent . . . quite clever. Now this is something we could publish; though I must admit it's just like what we published Last issue, and the issue before that. I wonder if our readers feel the same? But then I guess it's turned into a game, Assuming it was ever more than that . . .
(A pause. His eye falls on the scroll of Genius, which has remained alone in the middle of the desk. He reaches for it, slowly. As he does so the Good Angel and the Bad Angel enter from opposite sides. He reads, then, after a long silence) Well, this is something different, anyway. I don't know if it's good or bad -- the voice Speaks to me, draws me down and lifts me up, And something shines before my eyes: a form Radiant and whole, as from within, And my flesh feels a chill, my heart a fear. Is this, perhaps, the thing that I should publish?
Evil Angel (at his right shoulder) Yes, go ahead! It's certainly much better Than anything you've published recently, Or even than the things you used to write Yourself, before you learned what's in and out. Of course, you realize that if you do this whatever else you publish in this issue beside it will look colorless and timid or else a bit inhuman. The whole aesthetic By which you've operated now for years will be called into question.
Good Angel: As it should be. Good man, here is a chance that won't return To justify your calling, and transmit The word of truth and beauty to a world That needs it. Do not hesitate: accept!
Evil Angel: By all means -- if that is indeed the purpose Of this position you have gained by means More foul than fair, if truth be told, the way One gets things in this world. You wanted power: The power of life and death over the word! And where's your power, if you merely bow Before the evidence of excellence, Like to a footman, opening a door For royalty to pass! Ah, no, my friend, The art of editing is not to acknowledge, But to make reputations out of nothing And favor those you know you can control. Take up the scroll of Cleverness; he's your man. And don't make such a face. You know the world; If men were angels, they would not be here, And as for truth, integrity and beauty, They're luxuries not many can afford, If indeed they are not simply illusions Which modern culture rightly has dismissed.
Good Angel: How curious that my colleague here should talk About illusions, when his whole profession Is just the fabrication of illusions: I quote: to make reputations out of nothing. As for the power which he so desires You to desire, is that not sheer illusion? Where is your power, if you only do What is expected, tediously repeating, Time after time, the identical betrayal, Playing a role which everyone sees through, Forever reckoned with, never respected? I tell you cast out envy. Let its sting But tell you something's there to be acknowledged, For in acknowledgment is dignity And freedom from the bondage of this world. Those who attain that dignity and freedom, Their names are etched in letters of pure light Upon the gold ground of eternity.
Evil Angel: A pretty faith indeed -- for those who have it. But I suggest you think about this world And let the next one take care of itself, As you've been doing now for twenty years -- Would you regret it? Come. In any case, I'm not sure what this argument's about. You are the editor of a magazine, You have an issue to get out, which means Selecting works which go together, fit The image of the publication; work May be quite excellent, and yet not suited For your particular purpose. This perhaps Is such a case, although I must confess I don't see what you see in this at all. Isn't the rhetoric somewhat high-flown? Hasn't this trope been used somewhere before? Come, take another look.
Editor: Perhaps you're right. I don't see what I saw in it before. I feel depressed. Of course, it wouldn't suit us. (Writes) "Thank you for showing us your manuscript. Regret to say that it does not fit in With the aims of our journal at this time." (Puts the scroll of Genius aside, along with those of Vanity and Misery. Good Angel hides his face, exits.) Now for this. "With pleasure we acknowledge Your contribution, and are glad to inform you It will appear in our forthcoming issue." (Evil Angel smiles, pats him on the back, tiptoes off.) That's done. -- My God! I was supposed to meet The controversial Crimp at the cafe A quarter-hour ago! I hope he's waited. (Exit. Evil Angel comes back in, clears the desk top. Re-enter Misery, Genius, Vanity, Cleverness, separately, opening their letters. Misery reads, resignedly pockets the letter and goes off, shoulders hunched a little lower. Vanity is furious, shakes her fist. Genius lets the letter fall, gazes up to heaven in anguish. Cleverness kisses the letter, goes off whistling at the opposite exit from Misery. Genius and Vanity remain frozen in their respective poses of sorrow and indignation as the curtain falls.)
1985
*
THE SOCIAL SPELL
The Social Spell was on them all Who sat enchanted in the hall To hear the high-prized poet speak, Though pith and sense were far to seek In any word that he let fall.
In vain do Truth and Genius call As from behind a prison wall: Their choicest pleadings cannot break The Social Spell.
But sometimes when the funeral pall Has wrapped them, and men half recall, Or quite forget, what was at stake, Their scattered words may go to make The Social Spell.
1985
TRANCE
Light-years away you listen to the voice traveling outward forgetting me and the pain that will be ancient news by the time you hear it.
You are so far away I climb and climb and can never reach you. And yet you are all close within me here.
AFTER THE DAHLIA SHOW
At the end of the exhibition the hall was full of afternoon light and the dahlias stood up, each in its separate carafe, and their shapes and colors seemed a language invented to speak of water and light. And they gave the dahlias away.
There was the Snow Queen, whiteness curling away from a golden center to the circumference of a man's two hands placed thumb to thumb. There were great manes of saffron and orange and the miniatures, so exactly calibrated they seemed honeycombed by an infinite patience out of small spheres of amethyst. There was one with white-capped petals the color of dilute blood, that fitted into a palm-sized invisible dome, and the same thing in purple and white, and a huge hyacinthine mass that vibrated vaguely between pale russet and lavender, and one whose petals had curled into tubes of translucent rose, dawn-fingers, forked at the tips, with the yellow-white of daylight at their roots; and the same shape in dark red, a crimson mace. And a white waterlily atop a dahlia stalk, and the one with the veined cupped petals of faded carnelian that came open and open. And the threedimensional yellow sunbursts and the sunbursts of rosequartz with the violet hearts and the smaller ones whose every petal was watermarked with violet and white. And every flower seemed a world whose inner space were harbors where anything might be sheltering, like a hermit crab in a seashell: Rebellious thoughts. Secrets. Old messages of love. All the angels that could not fit on the point of the needle. My dears, I'm almost afraid that in some forgotten dream we've signed away our share in the coming world to behold the praises of the dahlias!
*
A WISH
For the seventh child of Helen and Shabtai
From Sabbath to Sabbath you have waited nameless in the shadow of the knife. Only the number of the day of covenant inscribed amid your stars.
Can you see to the end of creation?
The name will come, and the pain.
May the pain be swift and slight, the name true, the fire unveiled in you burn clear
as a pillar of light in this darkness
or as a pillar of heaven in the light of the seventh day.
*
THE FLOOD
My thought flies out like Noah's dove and hangs the swirling flood above. Upon the waves that rage and race her foot can find no resting-place.
First o'er the West she leans to brood, Where Liberty once kept the good, but now no mercy she finds there, 'tis changed into a wild beast's lair.
Then to the North her pinions wheel, till she descries the men of steel: to rule the world with tyrant sway is all their dream by night and day.
Then southward fast she takes her flight and there finds those whose god is fight: The grim fanatic sword they raise against all just and gentle ways.
And last she veers toward that fair town where prophets old held high renown, but now they hear the word no more -- pride and despair have sealed the door.
My thought returns like Noah's dove to seek the storm-tossed ark of love -- Stretch forth thy hand and take me in! There's no dry land where I have been.
1986
*
SUNSET FROM THE HIGH FIELD
for Ruth Blumert
Beyond the next ridge, the next valley, the dissected plain recedes in blue unmoving waves, ridge beyond ridge beyond ridge. Six. Seven. The earth seems to hold still, the sun seems to be falling
very slowly toward a slot in the horizon until another day is in the bank. Another day. The Messiah did not come, the word was not spoken, nor the riddle solved,
nor any denouement arrived at. Soon daylight tugged away will reveal above us the unchanged scoreboard of night. What time is it now in our home?
AS THEN SO EVER
The stars come shyly late, as long ago In childhood days. The plane-tree tops in sunset's afterglow So purely blaze As if to take no stain, as then not ever. The sea, a green bronze on the shore ashiver As then gives praise: How full of grace the flowering moments flow.
My soul, you have not sinned! As full and strong In childhood days Your moments' naked wonder pulsed along, That pulse now says That it can take no stain, as then so ever. See that black bird at the horizon hover: At dawn she'll raise Your muted wonders in revealing song.
Simon Halkin translated from the Hebrew by Esther Cameron
A PROBLEM IN REWRITING
That sentence which, you said, was not clear
writhed in the space between our minds, gasping for air, swallowing its predicates, turning itself inside out
till I wondered if indeed there was a way to say it.
1987
*
SONNETS TO ORPHEUS PART TWO, IV
from the German of Rainer Maria Rilke
This is the beast of which there is none such. But this they didn't know; and anyway they loved it, with its gait of prancing play and the light in its eyes, soft as a touch.
Of course it wasn't. Yet because they loved it took pure shape. They always left a space, and in the clear distinctness of that place it lifted up its head and lightly moved
careless of nonexistence. Wheat nor corn it took not; just their thought that it might be; and such great vigor did that thought confer
that from its brow there grew the unique horn. Until one day a virgin knew that he was in the silver mirror and in her.
translated 1988
*
POET IN TIME OF DROUGHT
The trees have on their final green, Likewise such weeds whose roots are deep. I walk where waters moved, and crows Share their new-found land with me, Above the cracks cawing aloud.
A current in the sea, they say, Has dragged the global winds off course: That makes the grass to crackle so And yon chokecherry's leaves to curl And farmers to bewail their loss.
The birds are singing still, although For all we know the current may Decide it likes its present bed And no rain fall here ever again Until the mountains shift their weight. What do you say to that, Redwing?
Even so the current of men's will Has set against my deep desire, And since the bottom of the heart Is clearer known than ocean floor, I do not hope to see it turn.
That I was born to make lament For this, seems merely accident. Yet I give thanks for that in me That will not know of what I know And, ignorant as a bird, sings on.
Madison, 1988
*
A POETIC AFTERWORD
(on completing a commentary to Celan's "Meridian" speech)
We lived on a dead end street, at the city limit, and I walked alone in the field where the overturned tree upreared its root.
This you saw and did not see and I was and was not the one you saw seeing it,
but the road I walked from the dead end led me to where I saw it again as if through your eyes
(or as if you saw through mine).
Come back then from wherever you are from nowhere if that's where you are,
and walk with me and whoever will follow this way I have gone through the landscape of your words
(can you see it again, is it strange to you, are these bearings on points you sighted?) so as to remain at the place of the meeting,
so as to retrace my steps,
to walk with others who have walked here,
to arrive where we might be all in free.
Madison, 1988
AURORA
Sister Morningtwilight, is it time?
Shall the nerve of an oath connect our nights, shall they be illumined?
The house our hands built: is it habitable, here, will it shine, from afar --
the house of all roads?
And will you stay, go on, when the ambiguous crab straddles the path,
when the serpent calls "Come here, I have found the Tree of Life,"
when the scorpion waits for the poem?
Will the names, will the signs hold, will the bird not cease to sing for us two, can we begin the world?
Name-sister, sister of the rainbow and the dove, is it time?
1989
A BIRTHDAY CARD FOR MY MOTHER
An irised gleam by unknown arts is cast Across this image of leaf, flower and sky; Like to it, but far fairer, is the gleam Your love casts on my life.
1989
*
YERIDAH
Another friend's friend gone back.
Another clod washed away from our main.
A center, trying to hold, cries out.
[untitled]
I am writing to you from the betrayed city writing to you but the pen goes on writing and writing on the same spot as if the words that I think approached a certain threshold, then were pulled back in as at the border of a black hole nothing can escape, no light, no signal, no message. Unless it is that all outside are fleeing from us, faster than light can overtake, and within also everything is fleeing outward, shunning the center. Only the words, as I write, are pulling me inward, as if the center were the mouth of a tunnel that comes out somewhere, as if I could tell you I am writing to you from the betrayed city --
1989
*
FROM THE TOMB OF ELIZABETH
(after reading Donne's "The Anniversaries")
Donne! let the half-souls of this age dislaud Whom you praised sight unseen, and, little awed By what you in her (not the world) discerned, Put down the book, the lesson still unlearned. The world is busy now digging its grave For want of that which I, poor steward, have By Heaven's last grace, yet can nowise bestow, For deafness which upon the world does grow: Poetry's banished, which alone could draw Dispersion back to harmony of Law; So human speech, so human thought declines, That Apes out-reason those who taught them Signs. The name of Virtue men have made a sneer. By faithlessness all bonds will discohere -- 'Tis tautological; yet serves them not To know why Character and State do rot, Far less to learn the lonesome She to prize Who offers them again what they despise. But as the contents of a vial cast forth On a foul stream, if sealed will keep their worth, So that balm Wisdom did in me distill From all ill and (it seemed) against all ill, Is still preserved in me, though cast away And powerless Earth's fever to allay (If it could truly cure, for the world's sake This vessel gladly would consent to break!), So in my thoughts is no corruption shown, Though I be mortal, and my end unknown. If (Donne) you dwell now where all is designed, In th'all-begetting, -comprehending Mind, You know now for what purpose there may be These few pure drops in a vast tainted sea. Was it for this that Israel saw divide The Sea of Reeds; that your Redeemer died And rose again; that by a midnight flame So many a poet strove for earthly fame And for the vision of a higher good Half shown, half hid by his wit's hardihood? And when the end to my account is writ Shall there be any left to ponder it And for my soul a funeral dirge intone? But this kind office you, my friend, have done, Who ere I was conceived did ring my knell, And advent heralded with passing-bell. Henceforth where I in solitude lie hid I'll think your words are written on my lid And more intently strive, beneath that seal, To be that which, outspeaking, they conceal; I'll hope your further word may prove as true, That the true soul shall in its death renew, And though degeneracy submerge the land, I'll not confess that such end was the end, Nor give, with Time, our better hopes the lie. Graved on th'eternal Rock the victory We gained by what we were, and what we wrought, O'er Nothingness; and all the rest is naught.
1989
*
CONVERSATION IN AUTUMN
Love passed through us and left us empty. We turn the pages of years gone by: summers of thought after springs of plenty -- love passed through us and left us empty. A look, a kiss were sweet at twenty -- the leaves they rustle and they sigh. Love passed through us and left us empty; we turn the pages of years gone by.
1989
*
THE COLUMN
I am weary -- not with this day's work alone: A column I have hewn of purest air And on that column chiseled up and down The generations of all those that fare So queasily upon our circling stone; What can I utter more, now this is done?
The lemming-track lies beaten to the sea; you follow in your fathers' steps along; with a side-glance as toward some distant tree, at most, you mark the signpost of my song, then turn eyes front and plod on steadily -- To gain your ear must I be in the throng, marching upon the road I know is wrong?
Far liefer would I mutely take my ease beneath the lofty column I have reared, yea, close my senses one by one, and cease the painful breath I drew but for the word, so lie from consciousness at last released while the years bring to pass what I had feared far from that monument to thoughts unheard.
*
A FURTHER SEASON
Weary and self-dissatisfied, I walked, between one visit and another visit, some hundred paces on the unbuilt domain beside the Monastery of the Cross. The autumn crocuses were gone; instead, I found one winter crocus, then another, each snow-white cup, no bigger than my thumbnail, filled up with yellow pollen. As I counted six petals to one flower, and noted how each tapered to a point, I heard the stillness and in that, the faint cheeping of a bird, and just for a fraction of a second was outside myself. And later on at twilight over the roofs in deepening sky the crescent moon with her pendant of a single star -- almost one could forget what one had learned about our satellite and sister-planet -- ]the burning whirlwind and the airless waste -- and see only irrefutable beauty. I saw it, and I strained to see the sight through veils of weariness, of memory and fear, against that in my breast which knows my errand, and the path I must pursue, and which had urged my inner sight away before I passed again beneath the trees. -- So, that world is still there: no nearer now, nor farther, than when struggling youth obscured that shining-forth, as ebbing years do now. Youth, with its high hopes and its mighty words, has passed; its wine is spilt, and tears will not refill that cup; there is at best one spring in which we figure as participants. Yet stepping to the borders of their lives, I've heard, the wisest find a further season, not numbered in the cycles of the Four, where, wandering in a world that is not theirs, they are the guests of everything that is. They being motionless within themselves receive and transmit motions from the stars and with sage courtesy, whenever met, through one another greet that world again.
1989
*
-$49,000,000.00
Van Gogh is back, wandering among the homeless through the streets of New York,
nothing in his hands, nothing in his pockets save for an earlobe no one will accept, least of all at the art auction – he can’t prove it’s authentic.
He has forgotten the night sky at Arles, the cypress, the apple trees in blossom, even that last storm of crows over the cornfield. All he can see now are faces, they are dumped into him like rubbish onto the landfill and lie there in heaps, wasted.
He does not dream about painting them. At most with an edge of stone from a crumbling façade on a wall covered with the names of Nobody he signs his name Vincent
ON LOOKING INTO A BOOK OF CONTEMPORARY VERSE
This book of verse is like a ruined grove Whose trees were mowed by profiteers with chains, On which now vainly fall the tropic rains, Hardening the red soil where the tractors drove.
What name is written on the leaf? Oh, none. Manifold are the forms and names of love, But where love's bonds break, all comes down to one.
*
I stood among the sleepers, yet apart, upon a little pier. A boat came gliding by. Near me it paused, inviting to depart. None stirred to say goodbye.
*
A BAD CASE
Spirit -- whatever name You may prefer -- of song and blessed sight, inhabitant of the sole eternity I can desire, from whom the ones I call upon as fathers and mothers, drew the breath that winged their words, if ever I have heard and truly spoken from You one word that does not shame their dust, if I have listened also to each voice that claimed to be of Yours; if I have striven to hail each light, and spurn dark envy's sting; then hearken to my fear and my petition. It was at a poets' meeting that a man, no longer young, detained me in the hall, on hand upon my arm, the other hand held a journal open to the page on which his poem was printed; this he thrust into my face, and bade me read. The words were words of love, yet the words spoke of love less than of impotent conceit that sought to clutch someone's attention, as if that could save it from the obscure pit that waits for mortal things, and in which groundless pride perhaps sinks deepest. In dismay I gazed upon that page, and from it to the face whose avid desperate look is etched upon the photographic plate of memory and doubtless will remain there until Lethe's solutions mildly soothe its lines away. Spirit, of all the prayers which I have framed, let this be granted, and if only this, so be it: may that image not be mine! Sooner than that one look of mine resemble that thing I saw, let every line I writ be clean deleted, and I nameless go to whatsoever lot awaits the soul released from self.
*
MANIFESTO IN BLACK ON BLACK
for Harold Bloom
Where no law apprehends, far from the scene of the suicide, One Thought beheld song's archons betray a world, the links of mind and mind by which insect and dolphin were secured.
There fell an Amazon in the abeyance circumgaped by the politician's laugh; lungs now unfold in vacuum, a tongue is nailed to the empty air's flagstaff
saying we're to turn. We're to unteach the torsions by which hands ramify out of eyes' sight. Words are to unionize, march on jargon and plant on landfills the deed of truth.
Then shall intertextual certitudes be founded on the rock of the air, held in the net of the unravelled hands. Then shall the transparent laws coded in the ozone layer come down.
WAVESON
Hugging nothing in this bed where all tides hurl and sway, a city on the tide from far away invokes me, and I am, wreckage-pinned, a voice beneath the world.
Where the three Marys of the sea went down in wavewash, phosphorescence marks the spot, a spreading marker, an oil-spill of remembrance, where albatrosses plunge and founder.
Amid blown carrion on the beach may I befriend them with my bones, in whom the human constellation rejoices to unravel:
To that unknown Whowhich ever mixes sea-salt, alleles and atmospheres I pray no longer save us, but salvage what It can.
*
SABBATH LIGHT
I did not know on which page* was the passage about the light of creation by which you could see from one end of the world to the other and which reappears each week to gleam in the light of the Sabbath tapers.
But my heart, or the unconscious mind that is not mine alone and can still see by that light, told my fingers and the book opened at once to the page I sought.
And this interpretation was whispered to my mind long ago: the light of the Sabbath is the light that appears when we draw aside the curtain of our strife and see through each other's eyes and each other's hearts till there would be one eye one heart one mind did not Havdalah come again.
Queen Sabbath, let me each week give all into your hands and give me back the soul of the Primal Human -- the soul not mine alone, the soul of peace. 1990
*Of Abraham Joshua Heschel's book The Sabbath.
*
Rivki drives a red-and-gold sun over a green-and-red field, and the sun has Rivki's face.
Her mother's friend says, "She will be an artist someday." "I am an artist now," says Rivki.
Her mother Devorah writes to me, "Our beautiful city of peace is a city of peace no more."
Ribbono shel olam, I know you're busy, there are lots of issues, it's hard to sort it all out, I'll give you a hint. Just keep an eye on Rivki, concentrate on keeping Rivki safe. OK?
1990
*
ON THE EVE OF WAR
White snow, you fly To meet me as I drive from friend to home, From warm to warm, Upon a night when many wait to die.
A self, enclosed In temporary comfort, contemplates The diverse fates Of other selves to the uttermost exposed.
There is no prayer To bind this snugness to that misery Nor keep from me The evils which I soon or late must share.
White snow, you fly And vanish in the beam of my headlight As on this night The thoughts, the hopes of all who wait to die.
* PAGING ISAIAH
If I could slow-talk you into hearing the fibrillation of an incorporeal heart, then the language you hold would peel off and you would walk, naked-tongued, through the city.
And if you could be brought to see, through your blindspot, the reticulation of an incorporeal brain, you'd fight your way through invisible brambles till you came to the clearing where the Authentic Voice commands.
And this communication is sealed with the seal of the Prime Minister of Utopia; also with a kiss from the eternal Old Maid of the Universe,
who approaches, drawn by quaggas and passenger-pigeons, who waits amid the ruins of her bridal feast, whose voluminous locket holds your lost face too.
*
PROPERTY
High in the economy the naked dice in the dead hand roll our fortunes, constellate our wills. Or so you say, and legislate thereby against my call to the One Choice,
or so it seems. And yet there is no price on that which no one covets: the estate of talismans and tokens, cast by fates obscure beyond the workings of the bourse.
Like, there's this old house in Jerusalem a friend once dreamed she'd given me. I went to the neighborhood. Friends there had dreamed I'd come. Before you'd write an equation for these lines I could return, with all the world's consent, and claim that house by eminent domain.
*
FORGIVE
Forgive me every wrong I've done to you, Each unintended slight, each oversight; And if in anything I have been right, Forgive that too.
*
OMEN IN LATE MARCH
Today is the autumn of the oak trees. The unfinished business of winter, The old leaves, like unrelinquished resentments, Bunched rustily on the branches, six months long, To mar the snow's ascetic harmonies -- Now they are being unceremoniously booted By the new buds; and today is a dry day. They ought, we feel, to be decently damped down To earth, to make mud, which is all they're good for, But no. They roll down the slopes, riot in the valley, Whooshing like a football crowd's energetic ghost, Making it hard to concentrate on the naive Bridal hepatica tendering her bouquets In token (we'd like to think) of a fresh start.
*
LILITH TRIES TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT
1. First of all, my words were misreported.* If I rebelled against Adam, it was not because he and I were made from the same dust -- compulsion is the dust's inheritance -- but because we two were formed, male and female, in the image of God, Whose ultimate freedom only God's truth can in a sense compel, yet not compel, seeing the two are one. But in fact, I did not actively rebel, I just couldn't help conveying what I thought and felt. Too near the original creation, I was his truth, his conscience. He preferred the falsehood fashioned from his sleeping flesh -- and I have been in exile ever since.
2. Of course, I do not exist in the same mode as the characters in the text. I sprang into being from a silence, a lapse in consistency, a need for explanation: why was man created twice? I have no lines, no part to play, but for that very reason, perhaps, I move along behind the text, between the lines, keeping pace with the narration, picking up the dropped hints, the unsolved riddles, mustering to my cause all the unnamed and all the almost audibly untold, refuting the claim of completeness, working in darkness to make whole. Grimm-like, you changed me into the bird of night. In Greece the owl was attribute of wisdom.
*According to legend, Lilith rebelled at being subordinate to Adam on the grounds that they were taken from the same dust. Her name (“nocturnal one”) is also the name of a kind of owl.
*
SOME DEFINITIONS
1. "Poem"
Words that stick together.
2. "To write"
To send the current of your life through the word- field,
to note what sticks together
and set it down while the current holds. 3. "To read"
To perceive what sticks together,
to allow the prehensile associations,
to seehear with all your nerves the Gestalt,
to go in and come out with the necessary changes made.
4. "To Select"
To acknowledge what sticks in the mind.
(To catch the mind before it pulls off what wants to stick.)
5. "To Interpret"
To track the words to the hand and grasp the hand.
To keep their/ your/ the word. To "give the word." To be with the words that stick together and with whoever else is there,
to make it stick.
*
[untitled]
The will to be united some words.
The will not to see scattered them again.
*
ON WAKING IN A COUNTRY HOUSE AND HEARING FEW BIRDS
The robin does not know his chorus dwindles -- The last bird's song is like the first; But I, as song around me sinks to hush, Recall too well the good from which I nursed.
I make comparisons of then and now And sound too often the diminished chord. But knowing's not the fault: when through me flowed That current of abundance none can hoard,
Then thoughts were hopes, and knowing was delight. The songbird has the song-spring in himself; Poets, however, are electrified -- When community shuts down, their power's off.
The images that let in worlds, the tunes That fell so unexpected, yet so right, Were ours, not mine alone; and this poor verse Is but a tablet set to mark their flight. 1991
*
JOHN ZOOK
I never saw the man whose name -- John Zook -- Graced the last mailbox in the farthest lane; The house was small and set far back, and looked Like a lonely face, though none showed at the pane.
Nor did I think to find a trace of him Four decades afterward, when I went back, But there was the long lawn, a jungle-gym In the middle, and "Zook Park" upon a plaque.
I often drive that way now, for the city Has grown and made the lane a thoroughfare, And give the park a glance; though it's a pity Not to see more children playing there.
The lawn's kept mowed; the maple trees renew And shed their leaves; the days turn cold and warm; And I remember, though I never knew, The man John Zook. I think he did no harm.
1991
* ON THE PUBLICATION OF CELAN'S "EINGEDUNKELT," 1991
Out of thy tomb as from the drying fountain of human mercy, roll a few more tears, toward the test-tubes of those alchemists whose boilings will not find thy wisdom's salt.
"Learn to live" didst thou command thyself or me, thine answering pronoun, who have learned little thou didst not know from years that had little to teach to those who would not study
treachery: the wiring of that world whose beginning is No-word, whose inorganic tree is rooted in love's mind's decay.
This didst thou teach: to strike no root in that death of deaths, but live-die in the phased- out word that still remains to speak of thee.
1991 *
METAMORPHOSIS
Fifty years! And I still feel young. Young and fresh as a wound given in the war-year when I was born. Fresh as the moment of failure remained for Lord Jim. And yet I am old. Only my mother remembers the color my hair had before it turned gray. Like last spring's berries on the chinaberry tree I cling to the heedlessly greening branch of her love. Fifty years is longer than any human being should have to live alone. They say that the fiftieth gate of understanding is beyond human power to pass through. Perhaps that is why at fifty I again understand nothing. Have nothing. Am starting again with nothing.
Mazal toff, a woman-child is born! Have you ever seen an infant with such a long body, with gray hair and scars on the belly? Like the navel of Eve, like the fossils waiting in earth on creation morning, to snare clever unbelievers into thinking eons had passed. No time has passed. The world was created today and I an old woman am born today with memories of being young. And with me were created my photographs with the beauty of the world before creation and the secret tapes: angelic debates on whether or not to make this old woman. The angels of truth were in favor. Of love, against. They said: let her remain a dream with that light in her eyes as of creatures who do not have to exist. The angels of truth said: The young prince's story needs scarecrows to stand by the road shrieking: "To this all flesh must come!" So I am born at fifty, not on that mythical birthday but now, on a bitter cold night at 11:00 pm under Capricorn: an unbeautiful sign beaming no illusions that life can be fair, but an earth sign, again. And my face is driftwood, it is sandstone, and my hair is January clouds and my hands are hands and my eyes are eyes. I am born because it is written: "Choose life." Why is that written? Who'd choose this wedding with a fate that looks like a toothless scholar studying menstrual taboos? But we are born against our will despite our longing for the one who looks through the lattice, who will surely come, although none has ever photographed the handsome prince carrying in his arms the crone.
January, 1992
*
FUTURES
The trading goes on: A computer chip For the heart of a sparrow.
*
[untitled]
In the library entrance, a lying-down sculpture: homeless man sleeping.
*
A PROLOGUE TO SOME CIVIC SONNETS
Before this mirror, mysteriously curved, That seems to hold the faint reflexive smile Of passion and conviction self-observed, Many have paused and eyed themselves awhile; Realities have lingered self-beguiled Before the plunge to undescribed abysses. The form is rumored to be out of style But still keeps its attraction for Narcissus. Then here's another face, another scene. Your sonneteer's an educated lady Against the background of a modern city, A seat of learning and of government. She feels herself stare from a pediment Upon a world that wills itself unseen.
The restaurant was airy and well-lit, With a display of woodcuts on the walls. The menu was exotic, the portions small. She had often found it a pleasant place to sit. But today she was not there with her usual friend Who must be back from abroad, but had not called. A duo played some jazz that made her skin crawl, And as with vague impatient gaze she scanned Her fellow-patrons' faces, she could not find Anything to her liking. All appeared Too well-dressed, too hard-edged, too self-assured Ever to pause a moment in their talk And, gazing round the restaurant, give back Her glance, and wonder what was on her mind.
There was something wrong with her, there must have been, Or she could never have lived for fifty years Getting nothing by fair means or foul, by laughter or tears. Long she sought her neurosis, her flaw or her sin. But she found only inconsequential things That bore no proportion either to the vastness Of what she had wanted to give, or to the disaster Of her performance. She began to think That it was maybe the gifts they didn't want -- Too large for the vestibule, the coffee-table, Unless she really was the classical fable Of the tragedienne whose tragedy is to trip. Her nose was a bit too long, her temper a trifle short, And that may have been the long and the short of it.
The people have been well and truly had. Their children are abused, their values smashed, Their culture and environment are trashed, While robbers legislate in statesmen's stead. But let us reason (lest we should go mad) And analyze exactly how they crashed. One thing is certain: when the media flashed They paid for their admission, head for head.
Aye, for the jiggling of some colored lights, For tunes and tattlings hammered out to tempt A mind and heart held spellbound by contempt, They opened up their homes to all that blights While casting out their neighbor's song and wit, Which now they lack and, lacking, cannot look for it.
WARNING:
You are now living in a city Whose officials no longer feel any duty To give you valid reasons for their acts. They issue statements like a duck that quacks.
They count upon your apathy, your fear, Your cynicism, mistrust of those most near, Your craven hope that they won't pick on you But on somebody else: woman, black or Jew,
Anyone fool enough to lift their head. They count on your self-hate to make you hate Those who still hold what you perforce betrayed And do the thing you guess you ought to do. They count on inertia that always says Too late. They count on everything, friend, except me and you.
BUSINESS PORTRAIT
Her picture stands on the table top, And everyone says it is very fine. The made-up face doesn't show a line, The tinted hair is well fluffed up, The tilt of the head seems meant to say, "Look at me, I'm as shrewd and sharp as any, Be sure my looks cost a pretty penny, I'm poised and launched for success -- make way!" Only the eyes give her away. They whisper, "This isn't where I belong. This hairdo, this suit, are wrong, all wrong. I never was good at overreaching, And I'm much too tired and sad for the teaching. Let me walk in the woods, by the shore of the sea, Like the dreaming girl they once let me be."
THE ANONYMOUS POET
I saw the Anonymous Poet the other day. Her small, stooped, stocky form was somewhat stiffened With ten more years, but otherwise no different, The thrift-store clothes still clean if slightly frayed. The ash-blond hair, I saw, was mixed with gray, The focus of the whole face somewhat sharpened. She took my turning up as though nothing had happened, Said "Oh, hello" as if I'd never been away.
Nor did she seem to want to be less alone, Said it was years since she had written a line. It made me wonder if I had done right To break in on her word-hoard, let the light Of conversation in upon a spark That might have thriven longer in the dark.
THE SECRET POLICE
No one has ever seen the secret police, You will not read about them in the papers. Their existence must be inferred from the behavior Of a citizenry terrified at the least Display of magnanimity or release Of truth. A very sudden See you later Shuts like a steel door behind the faces And you're under arrest. They'll let you walk the streets
But no one is going to speak to you again, You're out for life. Before applying for friends You should have gotten a clearance from the bureau That has no address, but everybody knows Where it is. The stamp's invisible, but it shows.
This may be worse than prison camps in Siberia.
CORPORATE TAXATION
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. -- Noam Chomsky
The corporation's colorless green idea sleeps furiously through the sections of the code, as on the futures market mitochondria logistify a hubbub into outcomes.
While hands of flesh let go their grip, the wires grope toward each other, programs copulate in the usurious space, and calculations mesh to convolute a brain nowhere.
We're the card section. Keep your cards in order, don't shuffle them, don't show another color or you might garble our message to the stars.
In plain terms, brother, I do not like what's taking shape from us; would flash a laser mirror in anyone's eyes, so as not to be that sight.
TO MAIA
If you could put off beauty like a gown And walk among us in such peasant guise As we wear all the time, having no choice, Would then some common truth make itself known To you, at last undazzled by the glare Of our, your subjects', adulatory stare?
Don't bet on it. We come to you in hunger From customary deserts of pretense; Weary of lies that lack the seal of wonder, Of haps that string together without sense, We're looking for a queen to start the show And typify the hidden truth we know.
Then, waiting in the wings, our jealousy . . . Only your heart cries "Coward!" when you flee.
Poets in Law School
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. --Shelley
We take to law because our love has failed. We study how to sue instead of sing. We still plead; but our pleadings have a sting: They're meant not to reach out, but to be hurled. Farewell, the uncorrupted word that held In visionary light each common thing, That fitted symbolism like a ring Upon the hand of the abandoned world.
Here we avoid each other's eyes in shame, Learning our lawyer tricks, earning the blame For half the evils of this addled time. Wish our congeners could have valued us When we spoke to them in truth and trust. They cast out reason, when they turned from rhyme.
's muss asoj sajn
Friend of my friends, let none think to disjoin By telling tales, my thoughts from them or you; Whatever wrong you did, or they may do, I grieve for it, as for a fault of mine. All faults are but the fractures of one being Beneath the hammer of an angry foe, Or else the echoes of one voice decreeing, "In the world where you live, it must be so." I will believe that all are as they seemed In the holy mirror of the One Desire, Even such as the martyrs might have dreamed The living, from their sleep beyond the fire: However Time those images betray, I will believe these dead shall rise someday.
EPITAPH ON A LANDFILL
Here lies the matter of the universe, Murdered by mind amuck, which has so made These lightless forms that they can never fade And bloom again in the cycle of the years: The atoms have outwornness like a curse Indelibly affixed, and now must bide, Impervious as an evildoer's pride, Itching and suppurating in the earth.
Here unrots our presumption's mutant fruit, Death beyond death! Corpses and dung are sweet As apple blossom in comparison. You who drive by here, pray we amend Our works that they return to Earth as friend And we to the Great Round, the All-in-One.
HERE, AS AT NINEVEH
Some read a poem as if it were a peach For them to eat and spit away the stone, A joint of which they leave the moral-bone. Scarcely admitting that the poem speaks, They get indignant if it tries to preach. I do not write for the taste-buds alone; I write to grasp and firmly to set down Some truth that had been dancing out of reach.
And what is wrong with preaching, may I ask? It says that there is something you can do; It says you're big enough to see it too. Upon those who will not be taken to task Hype and manipulation pipe and play, Here as at Nineveh, now as yesterday. MARITAL AGREEMENTS
When two decide to bind their lives together, Having no thought except for love alone, They cannot fear that clouds could ever gather Between them, or their love to strife be prone. Love, absolute, commands that voice be dumb Which cautions that enchantment can take flight And then estrangement, and then anger come Which blinds the angered to the other's right. O Love! be humble in your proudest hour, Consider that you work in mortal clay; Secure yourself against the darker power By contracts that will bind you to fair play If worst should come to worst. Then many a storm May lightly blow, knowing it cannot harm.
THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY
All in the dewy morning On the fourteenth of July I went to walk beneath the trees That grow so green and high.
And there I met Tom Jefferson, He was pacing up and down, His head was sunk upon his chest, His face it wore a frown.
"What is the matter, sir," I said, "Or what is it you seek?" "I'm looking for the people With whom I wish to speak."
"What do you mean," I cried in fear, "I see them all around." "I see their bodies just like you, But their spirits are not found.
"They do not hear, they do not see, They walk with empty eyes." "I guess you mean the media That have got them hypnotized.
"Their ears are filled with crashing sound, Their eyes with flashing lights, Their minds too full of greed and gore To sort out truth from lies.
"They have no time to meet and talk And hear the liberty bell -- It is as if some evil king Had bound them in a spell."
"Climb up, climb up into that tower, "And ring that bell once more." "That bell has got a crack," I replied, The sound would not go o'er."
"Then you must forge it new," he said, "In the flame of your desire, Until they come together To hear what freedom requires.
"Tell them to keep the Sabbath, A day when all are free: That day they must not buy nor sell Nor sit and watch TV.
"It is a day to meet and talk And find the ones they trust To keep their hands from bribery And on wisdom to insist.
"And these in turn together Will meet in council high To write a Constitution For the coming century.
"For everything wears out at last And needs to be renewed Out of the ancient spirit Of truth and rectitude.
"That spirit has a mighty power, Although the odds be high; Will you go and tell the people?" I said that I would try.
JOB INTERVIEW
The judge, debating whether he should hire This poet as his clerk, stirred in his seat And questioned if one ever could be sure Of truth, since differences of view are great. The words went through the poet like a gong Changing the scene. A cold mosaic floor Underfoot. Shoulders that freshly stung. Before her, leaning in a curule chair, Was someone in authority, toga-clad And sandalled, but the uneasy glance the same. "What is truth?" he was asking, and she had No answer. Trying foolishly to frame One now, she knew where they had met and when, Though doubtless there were many times between.
The Chief Injustice and a Full House at the Union Theater
I went to see the Grand Inquisitor -- It isn't every day one gets the chance, Tickets were free, and Evidence was cancelled, Besides, I thought that I might get a satire Out of it. But he just got up there And talked about the overloaded courts. The colorless, odorless and tasteless words, With our polite applause, replaced the air.
Behind the wall behind him, thin, unclear, Like ghosts confined to another time and space, A few score demonstrators shrilled and jeered. He reached for pathos with a Tennyson quote Before concluding on an upbeat note; Then we filed out, complicit and disgraced.
FUSION
That visible as violence might burn In the air the fusion of concerted minds By insight ineluctably confined In a magnetic circle of concern; That thus a power might generate to turn A counter-movement to entropic time And lend attraction to the whole and prime To which all fleeing fractions must return -- This I have seen, not in prophetic trance But in the reasoning of a mind compelled By the sheer daylight force of evidence That this must and can be. I have not erred: I swear by earth and stars, by me and you That though the world be false, yet this is true.
RESPITE
Now then begone, dull discontent, And likewise, fretting gloom! This morning I have learned the scent Of blackberry vines in bloom.
This morning I have seen a plant I never saw before. It was a single thin-leaved stalk, One yellow flower it bore.
Bright swallowtail came floating by, A song-sparrow did whistle, And I saw -- what made my courage high -- Worms feeding on the thistle.
1992
THE BLACKBERRY PICKER
Where blackberries with brighter dark Articulate the leaf-layered shade, Hand reaching in among the sharp Thorns, relearns its ancient trade: Surely for this the swivelling wrist, The supple finger-joints were made.
And as they pluck, the smooth palm's cup Makes and unmakes itself to hold The loosened berries as they drop, The prudent seconding the bold. From such cabal of skill and skill The rest might well have been foretold.
Who would have heard what no one said? Here no one thinks aloud but I. The birds are gone; amid the dead Leaves of the floor, a cricket's cry; An airplane, somewhere overhead, Furrows the wind's unending sigh.
This hand, once having gashed the ground To feed when Earth could nurse no more, Found itself quick to many an end And learnt to learn, and write its lore; Yet never found a work that wore So smoothly as this first, uncursed.
It wishes, Earth, that it could close The wound it struck so heedlessly And at your dole, with all that grows, Take dearth and bounty, live and die, Since the fulfillment of its will Proved sharper than necessity.
VISITATION IN AUTUMN
Through you things unforeseen and unregarded are touched with speech. Of a sudden it is not the dark rainwater shuddering in the roadbed between the rusting rails, but you who say I was here. You have become a patron of embankments, of older ways still slanting through the grid we travel on. Of momentary freedoms, glimpses not possessory but of that which still can wrest itself out of our grip and free us, for that instant, from ourselves – never more. What remains cannot name itself except in the recollection of an image, say, of rainwater riffling between rails, that is, again, no more than what it was.
9/9/92 A SKEIN FOR GREAT-GRANDMOTHER
There is nothing left -- Sylvia Plath
Crooked was the way I went, crooked, aye, for, aye, it was straight. -- Paul Celan
Great-grandmother, I've tried to write to you, sagest and most exacting of relations, in prose and formless verse, but it won't do.
From you the thought that limits are foundations came down to me; so it is right to choose the form that most severely tries my patience.
Why terza rima should be so hard to use when sonnets flow as easily as water is more than I know; but I can't refuse
if I'm to live up to the name your daughter most inconsiderately wished on me with a pretentiousness you never taught her,
not pausing to divine the misery attached to that prestigious hoodoo-name; but that, again, was her temerity,
unless you hold that parents can bring blame upon their children, as your Bible says (Freud, come to think of it, says much the same).
If we had just been Jews in the first place, they would have named me simply after you, which would have saved me many winding ways;
but as it was, I didn't know I knew your name, till I had chosen it to bear upon resolving to become a Jew.
Then all at once my mother was aware of an old Bible entry that recorded your death (the family archives were her care), and then my father's memory afforded glimpses of early influence forgot in a world where skepticism is rewarded.
He said that you were very strict, though not with others, but above all with yourself; it was by your example that you taught.
He said that you were careful of your health, avoided certain foods and ate alone and often took your Bible from the shelf.
Pain was the enemy. You struggled on until my father reached his seventh year, and when you died, the doctor said you'd gone
for some years without kidneys. It is clear that such a story must awaken doubt, but also that some thread of truth is here,
for other tales of you were then brought out: how as a doctor's wife in a small town when the poor needed clothing you would scout
the attic for the cast-off shirt or gown which you and your three daughters could remake, and always on the Sunday afternoon
buggy-ride in the country, you would take trowel and pail, and when you saw an old rotten stump, then you'd get out and scrape
some earth there, to increase your garden's yield. When my great-grandfather, a town-bred tease who stayed at home on Sunday mornings, told
his skeptic jokes, you seem to have kept the peace, but while your widowed mother, who was blind, lived in your house, each object had its place
and had to be put back for her to find. You made things serve. You knew when to relax and when the strictest order was most kind.
And then my mother, sorting through a box of family photographs, found one of you in your last years. The face is hard as rocks, and yet there is a light upon it too of humor and benevolence. Thus at last the hidden (which our name means) came to view.
Did we retrieve your image from the past, or did your stubborn will outstep the grave to get a kaddish said, to set a task,
or was it maybe me you came to save? For the two poets who'd pronounced your name so that it shone like something I should have
both wrote wild words till, maddened by the same, they made their deaths and never called it sin. I had no safer guides until you came.
But can you guide me through the maze I'm in? The customs under which you lived are gone, the Bible which you read cannot sustain
one to whom it spoke with double tongue: I know too much of history and science. No stone remains upon another stone
in all that fabric that had your reliance, just as the reasoning now seems unsure in those celestial monologues of my aunt's
that lend salvation such a faint allure. Pardon these modern and irreverent tones, for by our standards, what did you endure?
You never heard of the Fuehrer and his clones, the fallout from their violence did not steep your days and nights; as for the Indian bones,
there is no record that they cost you sleep; the Satanic mills lay southward, past the border. It isn't that we had a right to keep
the homestead of your certainty and order whose fragments now, cyclonically twirled about my head, are whistling bloody murder.
Nothing remains, nothing, of all your world. And yet upon my vision you persist, worldless, wordless. Though every flag be furled
that sheltered you, what you made manifest still claims allegiance: the bare will to good which now upon itself alone insists.
This Will, if I have rightly understood a Jewish teaching, is the primal Source of all that is, the rock on which they build,
to which the first and every subsequent course must remain true, or else be broken back by the doing of wry deeds that bring remorse,
and many starts have taken the wrong track because, that Will appearing powerless, folk sought by other power to fill the lack.
Thus movements undermine what they profess, forsaking proximate good to seek the far, and find themselves confounded in success,
while innocents who find themselves at war with wrong, may fail to recognize a friend, contract their world into an angry scar.
Yet valid is the imperative you send: to see, receive and use all that is given, first from one's own forgetfulness defend
whatever good remains despite the uneven hand of privilege that deals the ration, and by discerning act knit earth and heaven.
If the concerned would lay on this foundation such bricks as they can bring, a building might arise out of a common meditation
on truth and consequence, on need and right: this thought might be unfolded to a Law true to Earth's wholeness and the common plight.
Though it is late, and ill forebodings gnaw my confidence, yet your still-smiling eyes encourage me, Great-grandmother, to draw
such plans. May all the thoughts my mind supplies be true to your original intent; may my acts give no reason to despise
your legacy, but may I represent you faithfully, whether or not the way that I must walk can lead toward covenant,
for which in your name and in theirs I pray.
1992
LAWYERS NEVER CRY
Well, I was a starving poet not so very long ago, And I came to law school hoping it would help me make some dough, But I also hoped that it would help me work for liberty, But the very day I got here, this is what they said to me: “Lawyers never cry, they don’t dream at night, Spend their long days working under fluorescent lights. If the principles we’re teaching you do not seem very high, First thing you must learn here is, Lawyers Never Cry.”
There were some who came here thinking they were going to save thetrees, While others spoke of helping women and minorities, But I saw their dreams grow dimmer as they learned about the game, And their faces with each passing week looked more and more the same. They’d found out Lawyers never cry, they don’t dream at night, Spend their long days working under fluorescent lights. If your interviewer says to you, “Why did you even try?” Just keep saying to yourself, Lawyers Never Cry.
When the fall came round we all began to go for interviews, And they told us very frankly, “This is what we mean to do: We will pay the winner sixty grand to run a treadmill race, And if they burn out there’ll be plenty more to take their place. But you know Lawyers never cry, they don’t dream at night, Spend their long days working under fluorescent lights. If your supervising attorney comes on like Captain Bligh, Grit your teeth and tell yourself, Lawyers Never Cry.”
Well, I used to think the purpose of the law was to define The rights and wrongs we live by, and to keep the bad in line, But the view that now prevails is that it’s just a power-tool, And if you mention right and wrong you’re made to seem a fool. They’ll tell you Lawyers never cry, they don’t dream at night, Spend their long days working under fluorescent light. If you get the blues for justice and your heart is asking why, Close your eyes and yell out loud, Lawyers Never Cry.
Now come all you lawyers who have time, or who did not get hired, Or who burnt out or who expressed convictions and got fired: Grass-roots organization is the job that must be done Until we have a law again that’s fair to everyone. Till then let the lawyers cry, let them dream at night, Let them take long walks and get some fresh air and sunlight, Let them help the people find out what is going on and why And how to build a government that won’t make people cry. I said let the lawyers cry, let them dream at night, Let them take long walks and get some fresh air and sunlight, Let them help the people find out what is going on and why Until we have a government that won’t make people cry.
THE POET TO HER COLLEAGUE
Come sit with me and be my friend And we'll tell stories without end From far and near, from books and life, Interweaving without strife.
The dreams I've dreamed, the lands I've known, Why should you not call your own? The friends you've had, both false and true, Shall I not know them all through you?
Let the unenlightened talk of spite And envy among those who write! The faster shall our friendship grow, The livelier shall our verses go.
Two's company, three's company, Six constitute a poets' bee, Ten, a council of the wise -- No end to what we might devise!
And whether all eggs or few may hatch, This present good at least we'll catch, If (as our favoring signs portend) You'll sit with me and be my friend.
ARS ANTIPOETICA
Don't show you care for anything. Resist the strongest urge to sing, Or if you sing, sing out of tune, Like everybody else is doing. Your foremost task is to appease Envy, not to instruct or please; Therefore avoid all tones that sound As though the great dead were gathered round, Keep it colloquial, in the flat Patter of cocktail-party chat. To take the wind from the sails of those Who cannot tell your verse from prose, Pursue the mechanic metaphor. No one will ask you what it's for: A mask of mere analogy Lets peep the dear vacuity. The Poetry Administration Has put a ban on Inspiration, So any unexpected grace Must be immediately effaced. In short, you must write badly, though Never spontaneously so, But thumb Roget and pull your hair, Wrestling like Genius with Despair, To purge all trace of self-respect And win the plaudits of the abject. Thus you'll be published, thus promoted, Though never learnt by heart nor quoted In speech of friends or at lone midnight, Never rising to lips at the sight Of lovely face or blossoming tree Or act that sets the spirit free, Never sung by walkers on the shore To mingle your words with the sea's roar. These are for poets to whom the game Meant something more than place and fame, Who sang for the sweet singing's sake, Whose words may reach us by mistake, A slip of the Establishment. The best, for all we know, is blent With long-forgotten dust. But they Had, at least, their singing-day, Praised what was to be praised, and blamed That by which humankind is shamed, Knew, and were known by, eternal Mind, Still heard by those that hear the wind.
1992
THE HEXAGON
In the middle of the city Stands the house of song and story Built of stone, its rooms are many, And the rooms are all six-sided, Large the lower, small the upper, Ranged around a central courtyard Where a single fountain plashes; And the fountain has ten basins: From the highest flow the waters, Now divided, now uniting, To the lowest and the largest On whose brim the poets often Sit and scan, their eyes half marking How the ripples in their motion Touch the brim and seek the center, Then spread outward once again. Underneath the ground is hollowed To one room, a mighty kiva, Where, amid those pillars chiseled In the likeness of great tree-trunks, All the poets of the city Stand at equinox and solstice To hear read the formulation Of each season's task and tidings And give counsel where they can. From the front the house is entered Through a porch with seven columns Carved with leaf and vine defining Panels where you see depicted Figures from the ancient legends On the origins of song And the lives of bards and prophets, Seers, shamans of all nations, With their own works interwoven: Shakespeare holds the Globe, and Dante Works his way through Hell and Heaven, Black Elk makes his solemn offering Of the pipe with four bright feathers, While White Buffalo Woman watches. But upon the central column There appear no human faces, Only living things and textures Of the planets: jungle, tundra, Wood and honeycomb and crystal, And an oval-shaped medallion, Framed by rosemary and poppy, Blank, except for the inscription For the nameless. Overhead, On the architrave is written Vita est legenda -- that is, "Life is legend," or, more deeply, "Life is to be read." You enter, And a spacious room receives you, Lined with many books; at tables Several persons are discovered, Men and women, dressed in garments Long and flowing, of one fashion But of varying hues, matched subtly To each person's type and aura, Almost plain on younger persons, Richly figured on the eldest, With most various sign and symbol Beaded, feathered and embroidered. In the walls beside the entry There are windows; in the facing Wall, a door with one glass panel Through which you can see the courtyard As the porter, who sits reading By the doorway, asks your errand, You observe a staircase leading To a gallery, book-lined also, And more galleries receding With diminishing six-sided Figures ring the central cavern Toward the crystal-pointed skylight And the changing sky above. As the porter will inform you, On the ground floor are the oldest Works of literature, the newest Occupy the highest level. Having mentioned this, the porter At a glance surveys the readers, Then with quiet steps approaches One of middle years, and asks them If their studies leave them leisure To conduct an honored traveller From the Time of Near Extinction On a short tour of the building. And this bard, gladly agreeing, Opens first the right-hand doorway To a hall with chairs and tables, Like a coffeehouse. Large windows On three sides there let the light in; On the walls between them, cithar, Harp and lyre, guitar and dulcimer And whatever bards may play on To accompany their recitals, Are hung up for the convenience Of the poets there conversing. On the fourth, a serving-counter Has been cut through to the kitchen, And a bard with robe embroidered Only just around the collar Rises from their book behind it As your guide requests two coffees. Sipping yours, you note the frescoes On the back wall and the side wall Where you entered, showing gatherings In all different times and places Among such as share the word: On the moors within stone circles, Under trees, in hall and wigwam, Round the council-fire of men And the council-fire of women. Here you see the harp or peace-pipe Or the speaking-stick being handed By one speaker to another; Here, intent upon their Talmud, Two yeshiva students argue; There are scenes of women talking As they sit and weave together Or beside the well, their pitchers Resting while they speak their minds. But the panel round which all these Are arranged, depicts a woman And a man, dressed in the costume Of the century you have quitted, Sitting at a sidewalk-table With the city in the background; From the faces' concentration It appears as though a silence Momentarily has fallen. Should you ask your guide, "Who are they?", You will hear, in brief, the legend Of the poet and the poetess Who took counsel with each other In the Time of Near Extinction To renew the Way of Bardcraft, And begin the Great Reweaving. When you've drunk your cup of coffee (Or perhaps some other liquid Better suited to this system) At a sign from your conductor You go back the way you entered, Through the library and into The next room, left of the entry, Lined with shelves filled up with volumes Similar in size and binding. Here and there, as in the first room, Several bards sit reading, writing, And the one who seems in charge here, After fitting introduction, Tells you that this is the Archive Of Life-Stories. Every bard here, When they reach the age of fifty, Has a customary duty To record their life's experience, Observations, and new learnings, And each person in the city Who desires to leave a record May do likewise: for a twelvemonth They are freed of obligations Save the task of this recording. As the archivist will tell you, In this time there are no graveyards: "It is fitting that the ashes Of the body should be scattered To the air and earth and water From whose substance they were taken, But the life-tale should be treasured." Thence you pass into the adjoining Room, whose shelves are filled with binders; These the bard in charge will tell you, Are the journals and the poems Which the living of the city Write and bring here for safekeeping, And here several bards are busy Poring over the latest pages To discern the signs and portents Which through dream and inspiration Bring the message of the Spheres. Hence the Highest Bards consult them When they weave the equinoctial Songs that speak to all the city. In the last room on this level All the walls are lined with portraits From the wainscoting and upward, While below, large horizontal Files are filled, as the curator Of this room will gladly show you, With more portraits, in the order Of the years when they were painted: Men and women, youths and children, Cast of feature and complexion Varying, yet every likeness Vivid and profound. Displaying Leaf by leaf, the proud curator Says, "These are the illustrations To the great Book of the City"; And you feel that you could stand there All your life just gazing into Every pair of eyes depicted. Seeing this, the wise curator Calls attention to a curtain That conceals what you had taken For the opening of a doorway: "Underneath," they say, "waits hidden, Unexpressed, the single likeness Every citizen must see here After solemn preparation. Hence I will not move the curtain For you now; your intuition Must divine what would appear." From this room your guide conducts you Through a door which you had noticed On your right hand as you entered Out into the central courtyard. "Sit a moment by the fountain," Says your guide, "and I will tell you, Now that you have seen the archives, Something of the general layout. As you see, the upper levels Are made smaller than the lower, So the central space diminishes And each floor is cantilevered Slightly over that beneath it; In addition, all the chambers Of each level are connected By a gallery that encroaches Further on the empty center. As the first floor is devoted To the city's past and present, So the second is dedicated To its coming generation. When a child is born, the parents Bring it to the Room of Naming, Where before two bards, a woman And a man, they tell their stories And the stories of their parents, And the bards observe the movements Of the child, draw up a star-chart, Lay the cards and sort the yarrow, Till a name is found befitting This new being and its heritage And the hour of its birth. After seven days the parents Bring the child back for the naming If the name still seems the right one: Often later inspiration Brings another name, whose rightness All the parties recognize. As the child grows up, the parents Bring its drawings and its sayings And its poems to the keepers Of the Rooms of Children's Wisdom. Every child born in the city Has a box there, and the poets Sift its contents to discover What particular gifts and questions This new person brings among us As a message from the Spheres. On the third floor are the classrooms Where all children in the city Who show promise of good bardcraft Come to learn what every poet Needs to know: the tales and poems Which describe the world we live in With its elements and creatures, And the nature of our species, And the Law it needs to follow Lest the sheltering sky should crumble As it almost did in your time; Next, the rules of rhyme and meter, Every form, and its best uses: Melodies that lull and strengthen And awaken intuition; Then the ways of divination, Dream- and text-interpretation, And above all" -- they say, pointing To the inscription round the basin Of the pool, one word: "Attention" -- "In which word the sacred science Of our bardcraft is contained." Your attention caught by one thing That now tugs it for the third time, You inquire, "Do you believe, then, That you can divine the future?" "Not entirely," says your mentor, "But the casts of divination, Like the images in poems, Are projections of a knowledge Deeper than our understanding Can descend, which only orders What the diver Intuition Fishes up; but at the same time Intuition has no meaning Save what Understanding gives it In the context of connections Which comprise our general knowledge. If you grasp this, you are ready To receive the signs that Heaven And Earth send you, for your guidance. In this spirit, too, the omens, With all other ways of knowledge, Are consulted on the fourth floor, In the Rooms of Healing. Likewise In the Rooms of Mediation On the fifth floor, where the people Come when quarrels fall among them, Or when anyone is troubled By the action of a neighbor Tales are heard, and yarrow counted, And two bards, a man and woman, Meditate on the occurrence Till in common constellation They perceive the shape of justice. Not by written laws we go here, For no rule contains the future. Know: the Law as we perceive it Is more like the rules that govern Terza rima and sestina Than your statutes; 'tis a pattern For the flow of love and knowledge, Like the basins of this fountain. It prescribes workday and Sabbath And the seasonal assemblies That attune us, through observance, To the ways of earth and Heaven, And the various other customs Of which I have briefly told you. But when wrong befalls, we meet it As we can, and all our striving Is to keep it from engraving Its bad mark on our tradition. So we do not speak of precedent, But the ancient stories help us To discern what may be fitting, And the tale of every quarrel With the judgment that was rendered And the later consequences For the parties and the city Is recorded, for the most part In the form of pithy fable, Up there, in a special archive. Of these tales the mediators Read as much as they can stomach. When a quarrel is presented They consult their recollections From such readings, as they ponder What the best course here may be. And the topmost ring, whose jutting Over that beneath, you see here, Is the Tier of Highest Council. There the Highest Bards foregather On the night of every Sabbath, Eighteen men and eighteen women In six groups of six divided, To exchange their observations And divine what new directions Are intended by the Spheres."* Having given these explanations, Your conductor now arises From the fountain-side. Together You ascend the staircase leading To the building's upper stories. But to tell of all the inscriptions, All the carvings, all the frescoes Suited to each chamber's purpose, All the curious collections Of bright stone and shell and feather (To accompany the teaching Of the Names, the teachers tell you), All the methods of instruction, Ceremonies and discussions Which you witness on each level, Would require a lens of higher Resolution than the vision Of this poet now possesses. And you also may be thinking That an elevator's needed, And may wonder how to fit it To the plan, without disturbing Either symmetry or function -- To such questions I've no answer. Someone else would have to draw it With more skill in architecture. So the House of Song and Story Must remain, for now, unfinished, But may many hands complete it, May the people find the way there Very soon; and say Amen.
1992-1993
*Here, at the urging of a poet who was also a parent, a passage was omitted which I would like nevertheless to preserve. It should re read in the light of Jonathan Schell’s concept of “universal parenthood” and the reflection that social order is impossible without some form of sacrifice – recognized or not: Then by lot they choose one member From each group. The following morning These assemble in one chamber And the King and Queen, descending From their rooftop towers, join them To recite what they have woven From their dreaming since last Sabbath, And they pass the day in council, Varied by a frugal feasting, With new song and jest enlivened. When night falls, the royal couple Solemnly take leave, retreating To their towers on the rooftops -- You just see them there, the Queen's tower On the left side of the skylight And the King's tower on the right side, And the central one, the farthest, Opposite the building's entrance, Where the Sabbath evening only Brings the royal pair together. In between, each has a rooftop Garden which they tend for pastime; Otherwise, they read and study Or go anywhere they wish to In the building or the city Or the countryside around it, But in plain robes, and the people Are forbidden to address them Otherwise than with the greetings They would give to any stranger From a far-off sister-city." "Are you not afraid," you wonder, "That some malcontent might harm them?" "May the Spheres forfend!" they answer. "If our mutual love and knowledge And the warnings of the Spirit Cannot shield the best that's in us From the worst, what would protect us? We must trust the Spell of Wholeness That has bound the earth together Since the Time of the Reweaving." "May I see it!" you may answer, "But now tell me in what manner, By what cast or ceremonial, Your two monarchs are selected." "Each solunar year," they answer, "When the nineteenth sun-course finally Brings a reconciliation Of the sun and moon, whose cycles For the most part seem discordant, So that no day's anniversary Keeps the same moon as companion, When full moon and summer solstice On one eve are joined together, Then the Highest Bards in council Sift the coming generation Of young bards, try combinations Till they find the youth and maiden Whose harmonious stars are suited To the city and each other, And they wed and dedicate them To the attunement of the city With the Spirit of the Wholeness In the next solunar year. And they live as I have told you: All the children of their union Must be given into fosterage, And they may not see the children, May not even know who rears them If a dream does not reveal it, Till their nineteen years are done, For their child is all the city, And no partial thought must guide them. When their cycle ends, another Couple comes to take their places, And the bards then reunite them With their children, in a dwelling On the outskirts of the city, Where the foster-parents help them To resume the common pattern Of our lives; and they return here As apprentices and servants, Later teachers, mediators, As their talents may incline them, And at last to highest council May be summoned once again."
VILLANELLE BEGINNING WITH A SENTENCE BY WITTGENSTEIN
The world is everything that is the case. The dead were never more than what they were. Alternate futures do not leave a trace.
Nature has no objection to the pace Of progress threatening fin and fern and fur: The world is everything that is the case.
No backfile keeps the losers in the race. The Albigensian ashes do not stir. Alternate futures do not leave a trace.
However you thread the analytic maze Of cause and consequence, you wind up here: The world is everything that is the case.
That memory and regret may be effaced, Officials of the new regime aver Alternative futures do not leave a trace.
Dreams and reflections, in a sense, take place; Acts of will, it is rumored, do occur. The world being everything that is the case, Alternate futures thus can leave a trace. EVEN NOW BE UNDISMAYED
from the German of Paul Fleming
Even now be undismayed, even now call loss a liar, Yield not to fortune's blows, leave envy far beneath, Take joy in thine own being, and count it not as grief Though time and space and fate against thee should conspire.
The sweet and bitter both accept as thine own choice, As thine own destined lot it boots thee not to rue; Before the order comes, do that which thou must do; Each day shall have new birth, whereat thou may'st rejoice.
What use to praise and blame? His greatest woe and weal Is each to his own self. Whatever thou may'st behold Is all in thee. From vain illusions disenthralled,
Look inward first, before thou goest thine outward way. If o'er thy soul thou hold'st an undisputed sway, The world and all therein shall do thee service leal.
ISHTAR'S JOURNEY TO THE UNDERWORLD
for C.E.Y.
Proud stood Ishtar, stood Inanna In the World of Light. On her head the circlet of crystal, In her ears the earrings of amethyst, Round her neck the necklace of lapis lazuli, On her breast the brooch of malachite, On her arms the bracelets of amber, At her waist the buckle of cornelian, Round her ankles the anklets of jasper.
Bright stood Ishtar, stood Inanna In the Garden of Life, On her right the white-flowering almond, On her left the purple bougainvillea, Behind her the blue jacaranda, Before her the golden broom, At her feet the red anemone.
But in Ishtar's heart was darkness And a longing for darkness. She said, "I will descend And visit my sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld." She set out, she walked. She came to the First Gate of the Underworld. At that gate a ghost-serpent asked her, "Where are you going, Lady?" "To see my sister Ereshkigal," Answered Ishtar, Answered Inanna. And the ghost-serpent took as toll the circlet of crystal.
Downward went Ishtar, Went Inanna. She came to the second gate of the underworld. At that gate a ghost-monkey asked her, "Where are you going, Lady?" "To see my sister Ereshkigal," Answered Ishtar, Answered Inanna. And the ghost-monkey took as toll the earrings of amethyst.
Downward went Ishtar, Went Inanna. She came to the third gate of the underworld. At that gate a ghost-crow asked her, "Where are you going, Lady?" "To see my sister Ereshkigal," Answered Ishtar, Answered Inanna. And the ghost-crow took as toll the necklace of lapis lazuli.
Downward went Ishtar, Went Inanna. She came to the fourth gate of the underworld. At that gate a ghost-dog asked her, "Where are you going, Lady?" "To see my sister Ereshkigal," Answered Ishtar, Answered Inanna. And the ghost-dog took as toll the brooch of malachite.
Downward went Ishtar, Went Inanna. She came to the fifth gate of the underworld. At that gate a ghost-leopard asked her, "Where are you going, Lady?" "To see my sister Ereshkigal," Answered Ishtar, Answered Inanna. And the ghost-leopard took as toll the bracelets of amber.
Downward went Ishtar, Went Inanna. She came to the sixth gate of the underworld. At that gate a ghost-wolf asked her, "Where are you going, Lady?" "To see my sister Ereshkigal," Answered Ishtar, Answered Inanna. And the ghost-wolf took as toll the buckle of cornelian.
Downard went Ishtar, Went Inanna. She came to the seventh gate of the underworld. At that gate a maggot asked her, "Where are you going, Lady?" "To see my sister Ereshkigal," Answered Ishtar, Answered Inanna. And the maggot took as toll the anklets of jasper.
Into the palace of Ereshkigal Went Ishtar, Went Inanna. On a high throne sat Ereshkigal, Queen of Darkness, Saying, "Why have you come here?" "To see you, sister," said Ishtar, Said Inanna. "Then see me as I am," said Ereshkigal, And she killed Inanna, She killed Ishtar, She commanded the corpse to be hung In the doorway of the palace So that all who came in Had to give the corpse a shove.
And the World of Light was dimmed, Was darkened. There came an evening without the evening star, There came a morning without the morning star. There came a winter without the renewing rain. The springs of life turned salt With weeping for Ishtar, With weeping for Inanna. And the plants died, And the animals, And the humans, And the gods, that live by human prayers, Began to die also.
Then the gods called a council. All the humans came, all the animals, All that were left. They asked one another, "Where is Ishtar, Where is Inanna?" No one knew. Till at last the Moon answered, "I saw Ishtar, I saw Inanna. She was walking along the way That leads to the Gates of the Underworld. I saw her go in."
Then Mother Sky, who gave birth to them all, Broke a branch from the Tree of Vision, And gave that branch to the Moon, And the Moon descended. Past the ghost-serpent And the ghost-monkey And the ghost-crow And the ghost-dog And the ghost-leopard And the ghost-wolf And the maggot And they all fled from the light of the Branch And asked no questions. And the Moon stood before the gate Where swung the body of Ishtar, The body of Inanna.
Then Ereshkigal got off her throne. On all eight legs she scuttled to the doorway. She said, "What toll will you pay For robbing the Underworld, Moon?" And Moon broke off a twig from the Branch of Vision For Ereshkigal to plant in the Underworld. Then Moon touched with the branch the body of Inanna. And Ishtar lived.
Back went the Moon, Back went Inanna, went Ishtar, Up through the seven levels. But first the Moon said to the Maggot: "Restore the anklets of jasper!" And the maggot did so. And next the Moon said to the ghost-wolf, "Restore the buckle of cornelian!" And the maggot did so. And next the Moon said to the ghost-leopard, "Restore the bracelets of amber!" And the ghost-leopard did so. And next the Moon said to the ghost-dog, "Restore the brooch of malachite!" And the ghost-dog did so. And next the Moon said to the ghost-crow, "Restore the necklace of lapis lazuli!" And the ghost-crow did so. And next the Moon said to the ghost-monkey, "Restore the earrings of amethyst!" And the ghost-monkey did so. And last the Moon said to the ghost-serpent "Restore the circlet of crystal!" And the ghost-serpent did so. And Inanna put on the gems, Holy Ishtar resumed her adornments.
Forth from the underworld Came the Moon, leading Inanna, Came the Moon and Ishtar together. And evening was soft with the moon and the evening star, And the rain came in the night, And the springs of life grew sweet again, And the plants revived And the animals and humans also, And the gods grew strong again with prayers of thanksgiving, And Mother Sky, who gave birth to them all Saw it was good And planted the branch from the Tree of Vision In the midst of the Garden of Life.
Now in the Underworld grows a twig from the Tree of Vision And the storytellers explain That that is why All this had to happen.
THE BARD'S FOURFOLD TASK
To learn the tradition and hear how the voices converse together; To find your own vision and voice, assume your part in the play; Attentive to all around you, to gather and order knowledge; Then, on the ground thus gained, to teach and organize others.
INSTRUCTIONAL VERSES (THE PATH OF SONG)
Those who aspire to the skill of singing And wish to know how to acquire it Should bear in mind with joy and reverence Four things chiefly: the word, the self, The human other, the cosmic Whole. First the word: how each word we use Contains a wealth, a world of meaning. At every hour watch words in action, To names above all accord attention, For the act of naming is half of art. Read, too, the books of the bards before you, Watch what they do and how they do it, At tradition's table listen and learn. Next, attend to yourself, your soul, Storehouse of memories, well of dreams, Wearer of wounds, seeker of healing, Unending teller of its own tale, Source of melody beyond experience: Those who can hear both tale and tune, To them all things bring signs of guidance. Then, the others who are to themselves Storehouses of memories, wells of dreams, Wearers of wounds, seekers of healing, Unending tellers of their own tales, Source of melody beyond experience, Messengers to you as you to them. Above all, abhor envy like poison, For envy blinds the I in the other, Blots creation with hatred of good. If envy stings, let its sting alert you To what you must praise lest your soul perish, Then draw its fang with magnanimous deed And all you acknowledge shall be your own. Last and first: the cosmic Whole, The household of Earth and all its inhabitants, The infinite fugue of human fates, The hope of vision, of one awareness Embracing all earth, surmounting strife, In each true word the poet utters Calls to attention, advances toward peace. Vast is the Way, complex beyond knowing, Yet free, unforced as a child's chanting; At every step the goal is present And most when we manage the step of silence. May all who read this find friends in wisdom And inspiration for sacred song!
1993
TOWARD THE RAINBOW
They cry "Peace, peace" when there is no peace. I have not known peace since I left the circle Of my mother's care and walked toward the other children Who had already heard the call to arms. Their orders were: stone beauty, punish trust, And weave no bonds, except to further war.
It's true their fathers had to go to war. Those memories heaved beneath the surface of peace. The silence of the guns was not to trust. The dogs of war sat round them in a circle, With long tongues prophesying, "You'll take up arms, For that is the destiny of human children."
Ah, it could make one glad not to have children, To have delivered no captive to this war. It must be sweet to hold within one's arms A small creature seeking and finding peace, But still you'd know: the wheel must come full circle And break your child's, as it once broke your trust.
And then they say a nation ought to trust, Write songs of peace to be sung by crowds of children. The child looks round its immediate circle And sees a thousand shuttles weaving war. It sees what happens to those who love peace Too much, and do not learn how to bear arms.
Suppose one came to stand with empty arms Before them, saying: "Though you slay, I trust. If ever you hope to see the light of peace, Strike not one who comes in the name of your children But hold my hands, against all winds of war, And grasp your neighbor's hand to form a circle --"
Could such acts ever break the vicious circle Of every generation's grief that arms Its orphans for another round of war? Are any desperate enough to trust The tokens found by solitary children To shield them as they walk toward the rainbow Peace?
O PEACE, speak to us from the Great Circle, Guide each one of your children toward the arms Of trust, that we may turn away from war.
1993
READING POETRY AT THE STATE CAPITOL ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON
The hive of government is empty now, stone wedding-cake of power and hired art, stately it stands upon the narrow brow that keeps two lakes apart; only the overtaxed or overzealous still burrow, plot and plan the people's and Earth's bane of which a headline some months hence will tell us.
Upon a corner of the Capitol Square given to the people for a weekly fair, a knot of poets try to raise their voices above the waning noises of morning's market; shoppers going home have little time to spend upon the word no friend to the football cheer, the television's drone.
The various causes, too, already fold their tables, and the meager dollars doled by citizens whom various wrongs incense, though few seek out the sense of the vast web that implicates them all, which solely through the word of poets, when it's heard, relates the part to the comprehended whole.
So thinly now in end-of-summer air amid the sounds of life's retreat, yet clear, our voices sing the mating-dance of thought, the rain-dance that has brought the lightning down on many a throne in ages past, and still, could we reforge the will, might lift a wave of earth beneath this dome.
So hear us, powers of water, earth and air, all civic spirits that may linger here to grieve the ruin of your good intent: teach us the government of the eternal and unchanging Way and show the paths that lead through minds of those that heed, that here true counsel's house may stand someday.
1993
GRIEF
Since you are gone, my world is shrunk and darkened. I stumble in it, grasp at missing stair-rails, surprised by downward steps I did not see. A part of me is gone. I find myself falling into the space you left behind till I become invisible to the living, I watch them from behind a one-way mirror, and cannot find you either. You are lost, and I whom you beheld am lost with you.
Sometimes I come into the congregation. We stand there, each alone yet all caught up in the words of the prayer: "G-d full of compassion"; then for a moment I can see the wings of the Shekhinah folded over all that humans ever lost; I see a hand pick up the scattered straws of human lives, replace them in the bundle that they fell from into this world. "Nothing," whispers a voice, "nothing is lost." Then I weep, and hear weeping. The voice of prayer moves on. The tears are dried. The service ends. I bow my head and hurry out of the shul, knowing I cannot meet the strangers' faces which I know the others will have put on again. Life must go on, the unbonded life, where grief must not be shown. "It is decreed the dead shall be forgotten -- " And even I find that I cannot see your face in memory as I once did. I gather it. It falls apart again. I gaze upon your photograph, and something seems to slide between my eyes and it. I am forgetting you; and yet remains this crater in my life: the lack of all you were and gave, which never can be filled.
Well then, farewell, I say at every moment (Who am I speaking to? To you? To G-d?): Grant me both to forget and to remember. Release my soul from straining after yours. Open my eyes to all that in the world pleads for attention, pleads to be allowed to be and to be seen, to give, to grow. Let not one spark of truth, fallen from your world into this, complain I passed it by. Henceforth all this is you to me; and grant me patience with the estrangement in the world, the face of exile. Make me one who gathers, though many times be stricken from my hand, or clumsily dropped, the rare and precious gleanings. And may it be Your will so to inspire others, and so to gather all the scattered. Thus resolved, I step forth into the spring with thanks for all that was, and may yet be.
1994
PASSOVER 5754
Set is the table in the ancient way: With the triumphal wine, the humble-bread, The platters that to hungry eyes display The story-food whose meanings we shall read. And all around the world, we know, is spread This board, occurs this scene Where scattered Jews convene, Descendants of the host that Moses led.
We were all there. Each of us can recall The brutal voice, the lash, the heat and thirst, The lean of laboring crews that strain and fall, The pangs that ripped the heart (that was the worst) For children snatched away by hands accursed; The look of man on wife Fearful of giving life In a world where good and evil seemed reversed.
Oppression is. Morning and night the news Is brought to us by print and flickering screen In hard insouciant voices that refuse To deepen to the mourner's keen. The soul in us cowers unheard, unseen Amid a world that bids Us live by heartless wits While all our senses suffer the obscene.
And when for sanctuary we have turned To friend or mate, or to the company Of those we thought a common faith had bound With us in mutual surety, Sometimes they spurned our offerings and our plea; In the familiar eyes We saw the stranger rise And flee us, as if scattering made them free.
We are hemmed in by too much latitude, By knowing not to what we must be true. Too many times the holy scrolls dripped blood When madmen started up to do What voices in the text had urged them to. And how shall we now press That scroll against our breasts And from its fount our covenant renew?
Yet to refuse this cup would be to sever The chain, the vein of generations' bond That links us to our ancestors forever And to the Rock on which they made their stand, To countersign with our own hand The work of those whose rage Pursued us age on age: They now could say that they had seen our end.
And Israel, in Israel's promised land Still wrestles with the angel of the choice Whether to fight or welcome as a friend Those who with weapons massed and dove-like voice Ask land in trade for words of peace. It is a choice that grieves Our mind until it cleaves, And Jew sees fellow-Jew in the foe's place.
The law of nations gives us tenuous hold Upon a land where others dwelt before: A surer charter seems the voice enscrolled, Ordering us to play the conqueror -- That, and necessity, which from Europe's shore Expelled us to this strait: All seems determinate, Fruit of the dark compulsion known as war.
Yet still we are commanded to recall Not only Egypt but the going out: Those messengers, still shaken by their call, The signs they showed us, that dispelled our doubt, The plagues that put our enemies to rout, The seas that stood, aghast, Aside while Israel passed To where we praised our God with song and shout.
When have we known this, save in songs and tales That sound so faintly to our distant ear? Yet even in this world some miracles Must have occurred, though few appear: In every generation doubt and fear Dispute which one shall slay Our people on the way, And yet, somehow or other, we are here.
And each of us, perhaps, can call to mind Some moment when before the straining eye The seas of fate were parted, and a sign Was given, that dispelled causality: Moments of love, or of discovery, When what we thought we knew Opened to something new, And in that new dimension we were free. Together on this night we gaze ahead As from the foreshore of our history, The way a speaker stands before the unsaid, Waiting the word. O G-d our destiny, Reveal us to ourselves! Cause us to see The signs that You will send Our spirits to befriend And lead us out to Possibility.
Help us to find a language to the world To plead our cause, our being and our place, That all, no more chaotically hurled, In all events Your ultimate Law may trace, And meanwhile, keep and guard us by Your grace. By ways hidden and clear O may the time draw near When all the world in Israel's name shall bless.
1994
OFF ZOLOFT AT 2:00 A.M.
Akathisiac, the road cannot rest. The cars go coursing along with a whirr of tires like the seething of blood in my ears, through my brain, hopefully washing out the smart solution in which I've been pickling it. This time I must choose them, the army of little black ants with mandibles dragging at muscle fibers, the impress of a boot in the gut, the tears squeezed through the lids like oil from under the great stone of the olive press. O cheshire grin of mental honeymoon with the mind of a mad scientist, farewell! I'm gliding out and down, cold feet first, into despair, my element.
TO M.K., A MAGNIFICO OF METAPHOR
(part of a letter)
M., as you know, I lack the social graces; I only have one face, and not two faces; I find it easier to compose an epic than to assume the manners of this epoch. My message would sound gauche in a prose letter; I found speaking my mind in verse went better. Accept therefore the following verse epistle -- I hope you'll find in it more meat than gristle.
Before the labyrinth you stand, And Ariadne's thread is in your hand. You hesitate. The crowd is at your back. You pull the thread, take up the slack, but it is turning into something else, a rainbow scarf! You don't believe, yourself, how full it has become, how many-hued! Now from the billowing folds you see protrude a rabbit's head, an eagle's beak, the snout of an agile grinning dwarf who tumbles out, followed by Spanish dancers in a troop and a small airplane flying loop-the-loop -- You've let out a whole circus, and the crowd is cheering, oo-ing, ah-ing. You feel proud and at the same time just a little scared: this revelry, that started at your word, is it still under your control? You see a witch peep out, a troll, behind them other faces that appal. Your hand drops, you stop pulling, and a pause ensues, though soon filled up by wild applause and cries of "More! More!" Then you espy one who stands aside, casts a cold eye, looks like the Queen of Spades. She's saying, "Nu, go in there, man; you've got a deed to do!" You look where she is pointing, and the shapes which you have conjured fade. Before you gapes the original aperture: black, still, and cold. The Old Maid's voice is whispering, "Be bold; you can do it, and it's there you'll win the wand to make you master without sin, like Gandalf, Merlin, Schmendrick at the last: we need a white wizard, and we need him fast."
So far the play I've seen; I leave the sequel to your imagination and decision; if the shoe doesn't fit, by all means fling it at my head. Only, say something --
1995(?)
ABSOLUTION
"Wisdom," she wept, "may wisdom come of this" -- Seeing heaven's hawk, whom she had sought to tame, Food for time's crows, whose cawing gave her blame For that she had not loosed the final jess Of longing (nay! of soul's identity) And left him wholly free.
O lady, those who overpardon treason, They do but strive to lengthen out the chain Lest, tautening, it tear the heart. In vain: That cord must twist, and strangle in due season. Set was the trap; you had your part to play. Ego absolvo te.
A STRANGE THING
In a season when my heart seemed dry I thought about that moment, years ago, when someone called me by my name, and I
could make no acknowledgment, although I knew it came from one impelled to die: pinned was I by whatever makes us slow
to answer, though we feel, the needy cry. Things went with him as they were bound to go, and ever afterward that muted cry
came back, accusing me. Only just now the thought occurs: did he perhaps descry my silent grief; and did he mean to try
to say: I know? A PHOTOGRAPH
Emerging from the office building out onto the top floor of a parking ramp, I looked into an illumined page of sky framed by two dark vertical walls of buildings and by a sill of roof, upon which stood a dark antenna with two arms bent upward, like an attenuated five-fingered extinct menorah by Giacometti, reaching as if to pull down a dark-gray shade of cloud over a space of light gold-green, an inexhaustible draught for the eye, beneath which yet another swathe of cloud lay like a shoreline with a line of rosy breakers folding silently, far off, in the light from a sun already sunk. And the light caught upon the upper cloud whose lower edge, sharp to first sight, then showed mottled, stippled, crumbled to a fretting of gold and rose-gold over turquoise-green. And this reflected light upon the cloud was gathered to a pillar in the middle, just behind that grasping black antenna -- it shifted, while I stood there, to one side. From time to time a pigeon flew, displaying its wings against the all-dissolving light, then perched or strutted on the roof again. And from the beginning of the world this sight was never seen until that very moment, that space-time gem my sole eye apprehended, nor shall creation's book again lie open to this same page, until all time be closed.
HEALING CIRCLE
In the half-light of Jackie's living-room we crowd into a circle, leaving open the space where each of us will lie at length. Yael unwraps a skein of scarlet yarn, telling of how the women walk and wind threads around Rachel's tomb in Bethlehem where she lies waiting for her children's succor. The yarn begins to travel round the circle as one by one we grasp and pass it on, an umbilical cord (says someone, and we laugh), an artery, from which the new bright blood flows from a heart, now beating, to each one; invisible it flows beneath the words of prayer and telling, as each one relates their version of the story of our exile in flesh that feels but its own wound alone, in mind bound to the flesh, divided with it, until the space within the circle fills with the dark matter of our pain and fear. Now, in the middle, one lies down full length, becomes the body of our pain and fear, becomes the body of our exiled wholeness, on which the rest lay hands and cry to God to heal him, her, us, all; and then arises, another one becomes the one we pray for, and when the central space again is empty, we say the Kaddish, and at last let go. Shall we divide the thread, give each a piece? We keep it whole, and roll it in a box, but from the same skein Yael cuts a length for each of us to wear around our arm, sensing each other sensing, as we move along the separate pathways of our weeks, that we stay roped together like mountaineers, each of us made more fearless yet more careful by this connecting thread, by this new life.
FREEDOM
in memory of John Clare
Oh what is human freedom in this world? We are the creatures of our heritage, The pattern from the genes at first unfurled, Then worked on by the currents of the age. Take from us air or water, heat or food, And we return to dust from which we came; Afflict a single nerve, and all the good Life holds for us goes up in howling flame. Our very reason hangs upon a thread Within the brain, so easily unstrung; And where the bards must labor for their bread To Muzak's whine, their song remains unsung. No cure there is, except to use the time That still is given for reason and sweet rhyme.
AVIVA'S POEM
Like sand through the hourglass Between parent and child Love and insight pass.
SABBATICAL
This is the sabbath of our husbandry: unrented pasture gone to rosy plumes, moving toward us in soft turbulence, wind-herded; matted here and there to deer-beds, but pathless; angelica's green nimbus rising from the creek-beds; fast-moving patterns of fritillary clapping where the thistle crowns itself king. Warbler and finch motets, the stream's more lengthy discourse. Not for long will the earth get away with it; the bulldozers rev themselves in the distance. But meanwhile "So be it" sings from the tree. The land has rest.
LIGHT GOING FROM THE HIGH FIELD
Amid the deepening blue, flawless from rim to rim of the circling horizon, the radiance that was day contracts into a golden apse. In this Church of the Divine Absence the evening star is not there,
up there
FORGETTING HISTORY
They appear in the green shadows like stars coming out: at first I see only the red unripe fruit, then the black ones were there all along. As I move among the canes, picking, something scuffles close by. My coming has interfered. And here the vines are flattened, as if a deer had lain down perhaps? I am one of the owners, the masters, no longer in the secret. Yet tonight when I close my eyes, the black raspberries will appear once more, on stems fragile as the lines connecting the stars that guided the tribes before they named the Great Bear and scattered. Like stars, these clusters have led me forth from the cities into which time drove us: I can imagine the grandmothers move beside me, picking and gossiping, or singing, in their language of which no word remains, unless a place-name -- "origin unknown." It is summer, the days have just begun to shorten, the cool bright sunlight that comes after a berrymaking rain falls through the leaves, the hand reverts to a movement reflexive as sucking.
I have all that I need.
THE GOOD TEACHER
for F.G., 35 years later
Fall in love with me, and never let me know it, So that I fall in love with you, and dare not show it, Then let us speak of song until we sing. O rose without thorn! honeycomb without sting!
SALUTE
That heavy woman I saw -- she made you respect her for carrying so much of the earth with her.
AFTER THE WILD GEESE: A PHILOSOPHY
Alpha. They are leaving us, the companions of our soul. One small flock of wild geese this year, soon over. The whippoorwill now haunts the evening woods in a meaning not intended: as the mute memory of a voice. The meadowlark -- shameful to confess, I took their song so much for granted that I can't remember how it sounded, nor recall the feeling it gave; I only know its name was joy. Shelley's left us his "Skylark." But that poem is so hard to get into, nowadays, so easily picked apart, just as we've picked the world apart, less beautiful this year, in an autumn more than autumn that will last through spring, when once again I'll count the missing. It isn't that first robin that I dread with dread like sirens tearing through all song. Feeling can kill you. Better stuff your ears with wax, turn on the answering-machine of irony, palter with form, talk tough, think yourself cleverer than the elder bards who had earth's unspoilt music in their ears; easier still to cut the meaning-nerve, block out the voice of poets altogether, beget on speech obtuse monstrosities, on intellect confusions with brass knuckles, merge mind with meganetwork, and be done.
Beta. And if it happens, so what? Isn't earth's whole ecosystem just one great big network, each gene as selfish as a CEO? Isn't blind war the father of all things, including consciousness and visioned peace? The dice-throw has no chance of cancelling Chance, the back-thrown ripple won't reverse the stream; the snake will get its tail into its mouth and what will be will be what was before -- less beautiful in the eyes of the beholder, but then there's no beholder anymore, to make short what undoubtedly will be a drawn-out painful tale. Gamma. Shall we curse God, or make a god to curse, kicking the void as if it were a chair that did us wrong, kicking the earth, on which we stand to kick? Someone once handed me a little black box, with a lever sticking from the side; you pressed the lever, and there came a whirring, the lid came up, a hand came out and pressed the lever, and the lid clapped shut again. And so, with us, a mystery came out and was, perhaps, meant to go back again -- why should we be ungrateful to the world? Think of the primate's brain, the songbird's throat, evolving through unnumbered ages toward that apogee where mind and matter mate freely, in recognition that's unquestioned, unforced, and from their union springs Delight? Perhaps that's all eternity intended with the making of the world; and though the moment passes, yet somewhere the joy remains. Beta. Meanwhile, god knows, there's work enough to do to summarize an agonizing world, although the summary must go unheard what time the world-tree falls, amid the silence of those vast gulfs. Alpha. But till and during that end, how live? There's always Mallarmé's written, and Celan's enacted end, the freezing of oneself into a statue like Vonnegut's protagonist. Then you're out. Gamma. The game goes on, and your elimination has consequences in the game. Nobody's really out, though some have given signs -- from love, from furious irreverence -- and while we count them up, I guess they count, and while our voices call to one another, the universe is not quite dark and mute. Alpha. The earth still breathes, and we are breathing with it, our hand upon the testaments of joy, reciting still, like an asthmatic prayer: If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
1994
DIRGE
So much of what made life good In my lifetime has gone: The whippoorwill from the wood, The meadowlark from the rise, The stars from the glare-blind skies, Love's song from the lips of man.
[untitled]
Two birds were sitting on the wires. The first one sang his little tune, The other one then spoke his piece, And this went on for quite some time.
Each one stuck to his tune, nor changed A quaver for his friend's reply. I've known some human dialogues To which the aforesaid might apply.
A REPENTANCE
Two things have shown me where I went wrong, And one was good Ruth Pitter’s song, Ruth Pitter, gardener, stout and hale, Not above a pint of ale Or robust laughter at rude jest, Yet careful of the tiniest Nuance of summer, spring and fall, Attentive to the mutest call, Generous as the earth itself And quite as innocent of pelf, Aware of what the worst can do And of our lesser foibles too, A realist, yet visionary, Refreshed with hope that cannot weary, Cannot fail, because it springs From love, not hate, of present things. If I when young had learned her ways, I might have shunned the cheeseless maze Of intellectual pretention And saved myself much strain and tension And made the most of what was mine -- But she would not have me repine.
The other thing I have to tell Occurred across from a hotel Upon a sand bar that enclosed Still water where the heron dozed, Where ibises and egrets waded And stately pelicans paraded. I had come, upon my morning stroll To where, across a glittering shoal, Lagoon and gulf communicate, And sea-birds like to congregate: Skimmers with heavy lower bills Went racing over watery hills, Sandpipers skittered in and out, Grey willets stood, as if in doubt, With long curved beaks; I noticed three Oystercatchers earnestly Conferring at a rivulet; In stately dance two herons met. So many different kinds to see Together, was a joy to me, Nor did I have the wit of stone To think the gladness mine alone. Oh no! all knew in their own way The wonderfulness of the play; By air and water, sun and sand, I felt their beings with mine expand In freedom, their right element, To me but for a moment lent, Who must return to servitude C This truth for the first time I viewed. Only a glimpse, but it has lasted. Bred to vain mastery, I tasted For once the fruit of Paradise -- May I remember and grow wise.
PRIMAVERA
Can you recall, or have you divined, my sister, The times when we brought in the spring together On an earth that did not change from year to year, Or when we paced, you walking a little ahead, Into the magnetized space of a poet's dream To herald the return of the human spring?
It was in the dead of last winter, when the spring Seemed far away, that you wept because of your sister In that childhood in a bad postwar dream Of a family that was never really together, And you couldn't see much intimacy ahead After her answer to your letter last year.
Estrangements widening from year to year; In the middle, resentments always set to spring; The need to cut your losses and move ahead; The pain of having and not having a sister: All made you want to cut the nerve altogether, Seal off the room of an unproductive dream.
And then I come to you from a different dream (Though no less the product of a bad year) Of trying to put the people back together: Does it feel as though someone is trying to spring A joke, a trap on you? I'm not your sister From that past. Our kinship lies ahead
Or farther behind. I come to you with a head Unbowed, still holding the unshattered dream Of when friends honored friends with the name of sister, With ceremonies measuring out the year, Drawing up from the unpolluted spring Waters of joy for all to drink together.
Just now, when you have so much to hold together, There are all kinds of pressures to get ahead, And there is always that touchy hidden spring Of jealousy -- no one should ever dream It won't spring up like the thistle, year after year In the fields between brother and brother, sister and sister.
Still I think you're my long-sought sister. We'll get it together, I hope, this coming year. I see good times ahead This winter, as we refashion the dream of spring. CONFIGURATION IN BLACK AND WHITE AGATE
for Don
Man in the moon That was hidden in stone, By random hand Unthinkingly drawn Before the name Of man was known, Then the stone egg cracked And the image shown To my brother, who came To fetch it down.
"Yin and Yang," My brother said. But I: "There's an eye That serves for a head, And the legs are strangely Elongated, Twisted around, Serpentine, Like the walls in a laby- rinth design The Bushmen trace On cliffs oversea With sense arcane Yet no mystery: Emblem of matrix, Emblem of man, Who is both room And denizen, Who is the wall, The key, the door, Time out of mind And forevermore."
1994
SESTINA OF THE OCTOBER RAIN
There is that sound in the sound of rain outside That bids me to speak, what time I wake in sorrow Before dawn, for thinking of that lady Whose servant I would be, though she is poor And for many days I have had of her no sign That she remembers me in her distant tower.
Long have I known she is prisoned in the tower And those who would serve her must roam outside To receive on their brows, as the sign Of her favor, the tracings of stubborn sorrow, Sole livery of those who love the poor And keep faith with them and their constant lady.
In this time she has few who call her lady: The powers and principalities do so tower Over all, systematically making poor All who by will or hap remain outside Their dominion; their minions sneer at sorrow And count it folly to believe a sign.
The scored serpent, that is their only sign. They strenuously boast there is no lady It cannot charm, no tort or sorrow It cannot compensate, no lofty tower Of troth it cannot throw down. They sweep outside, Mechanically, the refuse of the poor.
They have drawn from her even the hearts of the poor, Who watch the strutting potentate's every sign, Hypnotized by a glittering outside Into spurning the counsel of the lady And flocking round the foot of the dark tower, As those whom fear and hunger rule more than sorrow.
For these in the early morning hours I sorrow, And for many a one who dared be poor Until a beam from the searchlight in the tower Fell on them; then they fled, forgetting the sign They had received, alleging fear that the lady Would draw them, with arms of remorse, inside.
The rain outside is still. I have spoken my sorrow. Lady, remember me among your poor And make my name a sign against the tower. 1994
SABBATH SONG
From my cell on the infinite spreadsheet, My address on the infinite grid, I declare that a circle is ready To welcome the banished and hid.
The circle exists if you draw it And go in and stand in there too, Proclaiming that if there's a law, it Must shelter the I and the You.
Though Time keeps on scrolling, the Sabbath Will come if we turn off the screen, And Capital has to stop grabbing In the hour when we welcome the Queen.
O tell me the name that will find you In the matrix that is not a square, The tokens and signs that remind you To look up, to awaken and care.
From my cell on the infinite spreadsheet, My address on the infinite grid, I declare that a circle is ready To welcome the banished and hid.
ON THE ROAD, DECEMBER 21
The light like some huge unfelt hand Remolds a world from dark and glare, A world with woods and snowy land And fogs suspended in the air Like boas of a sorceress With woodsmoke’s grey outfloated tress.
Now, after signs for food and fuel, An empty main street stretches wide: A cemetery, then a school With children standing round outside; Snow and white clapboard wall absorb Rose tinct from the low-lingering orb.
And now with the advancing day We're swept into the freeway stream, The rushing lanes, billboards' display Still seem to grapple in a dream With lowland fogs that creep abroad And lay white arms across our road.
At last between dimmed paper mills We glide, and down a mansioned street Whose air a sulphurous vapor fills. Perhaps -- who knows -- the scent is sweet To those it tells of their own wealth, Although not good for others' health. We find the address, we do our stint Before a group that does not warm To hear of want's predicament, Nor mind the pains we took to come. It is the time, it is the place, Or so we say as we retrace
Our road through darkness once again Past signs that could be anywhere: "Insty-Print," "Menards," "Jo-Ann Fabrics." Exhaustion, as we fare, Loosens our tongues to thoughts unplaced On the agenda of our days:
Strange dreams, and visits of the dead, Our childhood's taste of heaven and hell, Connections sought, connections fled, Old books that bound us in a spell, The fortunes of the state, in which Are bound the fates of all and each.
How will it end, the enormous plot That wraps the ball on which we roll, Where each is but a pixel-dot In the vast portrait of the whole? Perhaps even with the threads we spin In dark-bound speech, new turns begin.
1994
NO PLACE TO STAND
For a woman alone the world is cold, You've started thinking about getting old, You work long hours for minimal pay, And the prices keep rising day by day. And there's no place to stand, No one to lend a helping hand, Just winds and shifting sand.
Ten years ago you had no fear, You thought you were headed for a great career. Love and inspiration set the world aglow, So much to do, so much to know. Now there's no place to stand . . .
You have seen the women who sleep in the street, These are the women no one wants or needs. You hear from the Third World that millions are dying, When you think about it you feel like crying. And there's no place to stand . . .
And now there's a man you think you might fit, You keep hoping and hoping that he'll commit, He says, "You're too serious, it's all a play,” And when a sister calls he pulls you away. And there's no place to stand . . .
Sister, I've been thinking again About the holy women and the holy men Who made poverty their sacred vow, Knowing the spirit would help somehow. They said G-d's our place to stand And our G-d is a helping hand Amid the winds and the shifting sand.
And brother, if you want the world to get better You've got to learn to love a woman and let her Be true to the spirit and true to the need Of a world the spirit wants to house and feed, For we've got to make a stand, Got to join our helping hands, We can't build on shifting sands.
THE TREE (a Tu Bishvat prayer for 10 voices)
Keter/Ratzon (Crown/Will). Within the Ein-Sof, the Infinite unknown, quickens the Will that there should be a world, purpose that is the Crown of all creation.
Chokhmah/Abba (Wisdom/Father). Out of the Will burgeons the seed of Wisdom, infinitesimal point, holding a vast potential still unconscious of itself, First-Father, whom we summon with the thought of the Name too high and hidden for our breathing.
Binah/Imma/Teshuvah (Understanding/Mother/Return). From Wisdom's arcane point unfolds the matrix Understanding, Mother of all things, shape of all shapes united in one being, Palace of the universe inscribed with the name of the maker, Elohim; soul's birthplace and the goal of all Returning, from her emerge the seven lower spheres:
Hesed (Lovingkindness) Lovingkindness, Generosity, spring of Compassion that is always flowing, impulse of abundance pouring forth beyond all bounds.
Din/Gevurah (Judgment/Power). Judgment, shadow of the Mother's structure, Power that begins in self-restraint.
Tiferet (Beauty). Beauty, synthesis of love and judgment, balance of freedom and necessity, Splendor of truth.
Netzach (Victory/Eternity). Steadfastness rooted in Eternity.
Hod (Glory; Acknowledgment) Glory springing from Acknowledgment, vesture of recognition and acclaim. Tzaddik/Yesod (Righteous One; Foundation) The Righteous Individual, Foundation of the world, lover and partner of --
Malkhut/Shekhinah (Kingdom/Indwelling Presence). Shekhinah, holiness of the Creation with highest purpose crowned, Presence among us in the Community, upon the Earth.
All. Ten primal Numbers of the universe, ten Spheres of energy, ten waves of thought, ten fiery blossoms on one holy tree, ten limbs of the mystic form of human being. G-d who are One in all Your varying shapes, plant this tree in our midst and in our hearts, and make us fruitful in the coming year.
Note: Tu Bishvat, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat (January-February), is the Jewish “New Year of the Trees.” The Kabbalistic rabbis connected this with the “Tree” of the Sefirot.
ON A LENGTH OF RAYON CLOTH FROM INDONESIA
I see fire-filled crevasses that divide Between the firmaments of unknown worlds. I see despairing faces on the tide.
I see rayed suns, ringed planets, moons that ride Horizons inexhaustibly unfurled. I see fire-filled crevasses that divide
While rickrack bridges seek the other side, Would grapple what the centrifuge has whirled. I see despairing faces on the tide,
Mute protoplasmic entities that glide Rapidly toward the edge where they are hurled Into fire-filled crevasses that divide
This cloth, this aqua-umber-puce landslide Of forms No-thought impetuously has willed. I see despairing faces on the tide, Mouths gaped open showing no inside, Eyes that are bubbles bursting in the swirl -- I see! Fire-filled crevasses yawn, divide Despairing faces racing with the tide.
1995
*
RECONSTRUCTION
In times when violence and corruption threaten To dissolve the world back to when it was not, The poet still keeps faith with G-d's creation -- It is a mournful, yet a blessed lot.
The souls of all the multitudes that perished, Of all who live coerced and compromised, The shapes of lovely things no longer cherished, The calls of birds missed from the emptying skies --
All in the listening mind convene, assemble, Seeking themselves, seeking the world they lost, Groping for kinship, striving to re-member A wholeness where each thing once had its post,
Seeking a design -- perhaps of action, even. The poet molds the vessel they command, And fills it with their wine, and toward the living Bears it with resolute though trembling hand.
Drink and behold: a sign, a flag that flutters Over the stronghold of the heart, still free, A new stone brought to the rebuilding structure, A greening leaf on a renewing tree.
ELISHEVA TO MIRIAM
I knew you, my kinswoman, by your step on the threshold and because I had known you must come; and I knew for whom you'd be weeping because my attendants had heard something and I had made them tell me. The senses of age are faint, but the heart of age, knowing much, needs only faint cues. So there is nothing wonderful in my knowing. Not like that other time.
That day, when I looked from my window down the wadi and saw the grey donkey jerking slowly upward with the cloaked form bent forward, its face hidden, I knew who came -- you and the one who came with you -- by the leaping of the one who dwelt in me already quick with divination. I was astonished then at the joy that opened my mouth to sing -- the joy that was in me, yet not mine.
But I was almost used to astonishment. It had begun that day when Zecharyah came back from Jerusalem not speaking, dumbstruck, and bore me down, and thrust into me as if the seed were the word he could no longer speak. It had been years since we'd felt much desire; our barrenness had planted disappointment between us, and we no longer talked much either -- the sages say a man shouldn't, and he was very religious. So was I. He was a priest in Jerusalem, had that pride, and I too was of priestly kin. There was no one who wouldn't eat at my house, there were always young brides to be settled, children to be helped into the world, the poor to be fed and clothed, the dead to be washed. And he was a good husband in many ways: never reproached me, could have taken another wife, but did not. It was a full life, except just that hollowness at the core; I filled it with resignation, but for him, I guess, some sap of prayer must have risen there still, though he was too worn out to believe in the answer, at first, when it came.
And I, at first, did not want others to know. I was ashamed -- not of pregnancy in middle age but because the first thing I thought of when I knew what was what was the look I'd see on the faces of the neighbors who had so enjoyed pitying me, all these years, and I knew, all of a sudden, how much I'd hated it and how much I would enjoy seeing that look, and I thought, I am not worthy.
Only you knew, who had no way of knowing, you with the greater miracle, the greater gift. And the babe leapt in my womb, and I sang, and I felt the joy within me becoming mine, and blessing you, I too became blessed. And then you spoke: "My soul magnifies the Lord" -- And it seems to me still that the joy of that moment will last forever, although it is no longer mine, nor yours perhaps.
Well, all has turned out as it must, no doubt. We gave him the name "God-is-gracious," Zecharya and I, without speaking together. And then he spoke. From what he said, I saw that he believed that through Yochanan our God would help his people against their oppressors.
I had almost forgotten the oppressors, living within a globe of light I saw like dim shapes the thoughts of my silent husband and now and then a shadow that seemed like an intention of God, but till he broke the silence, these things had no names. It was then the first misgiving stole back into my heart, the first sliver of fear, though I said nothing.
Who knows for what our gifts are given us? Yochanan was a beautiful child, a beautiful boy and man, tall, with flashing eyes and a passionate heart, who could not believe God made the world to lie beneath the boot-heel of the Romans, their corrupt and lustful collaborators. What could they have done, being what they were. And what else could have happened to them, given the world as it is. When what happened, happened three years ago, I was glad that Zecharyah had died still clutching his fierce hope, believing. I do not know if he could have learned to live, like me, without belief. I have learned it, Miriam, as will you. Your eyes will get used to absence, as to darkness. Then you'll see that something of the light remains in little things: a look not quite like his, a saying that he would have laughed to hear with the triumphant laugh of one who finds a truth, or a fine blade that he can hone. Things that aren't for us, and yet they are, and that we see them, is the best in us. And beyond that even, a tree, a weed, even a stone by the road, they speak to you, once you've known fruitfulness; that stays. What God meant by it, is another question. Who knows what God means. I see things ahead that I don't like to speak of. Miriam, our sons -- I think they won't be forgotten. What they were cannot be killed so easily. But it can be distorted. People will go on reshaping what comes to them by grace into what they want or think they need. That is their way, Miriam. What they were to us, perhaps a few will guess. Perhaps a few will even grasp, as much as we did, the joy that moved us, then, at that meeting, different from this one: moved us and moved on and never stays long enough for anyone to tell what it is.
SUPERFLUOUS PEOPLE
We are the superfluous people. We are the unionized workers replaced by robots or slaves, the secretaries ousted by computers. We are the people of color, the over-50, the people with disabilities, the ones who don't belong on the team. We are the displaced homemakers, the parentless children, the partnerless parents, the poets without readers, the teachers without students, the students who can't afford college, the graduates who didn't get hired, the scientists without grants, the executives who got downsized.
Why is this? Isn't there enough work to do in the world? Aren't there enough stomachs to be filled, enough limbs to be clothed, enough babes to be rocked, enough children and youth to be taught, enough neighborhoods to be beautified, enough trees to be planted, enough fields to be tilled, enough songs to be sung, enough stories to be told, enough riddles to be solved, enough wounds to be healed, enough houses and cities to be built right?
But the market does not ask these questions. The market cannot ask what people need. It can only ask what those who have the money want. Only community can ask what people need.
And time may be short. As slave labor replaces free, as machines replace people, as large corporations swallow up small ones and cut their staffs and buy up the press and the government, I tell you Spaceship Earth is flying with a shrinking crew, a skeleton crew with skeleton motives, and the rest of us are not passengers. We are ballast. And we feel the moment edging closer when we could be pushed off.
But let's keep our heads, my friends. Let us put them together. Together let us learn to ask the question what we, the people, need.
We are the superfluous people. Nobody needs us except ourselves. But if you'll say you need me I'll say I need you. And we can start.
1995
MUTABILITY
All that seems constant in the affairs of men Is but a sandbar in the stream of time: Custom and place, and what was wisdom then, Arts, now ridiculous, that were sublime, Truths that appear self-evident no more, Gifts hardly recognized until found missing, Diseases grown to mock their ancient cure, A crop of curses up from last year's blessing - We lived and throve upon a flowery isle, And lo! its bank is shelving day by day; The little goods, the little faiths we pile Against the cutting wave, are swept away; Nothing we have that will bear clinging to Save God, who constantly creates the world anew.
FORGIVENESS BEFORE SPRING
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