Poems 1962-2012 (19 page)

except the wildness people call nature,

the chaos that takes over.

You took me to a place

where I could see the evil in my character

and left me there.

The abandoned cat

wails in the empty bedchamber.

PARABLE OF THE DOVE

A dove lived in a village.

When it opened its mouth

sweetness came out, sound

like a silver light around

the cherry bough. But

the dove wasn't satisfied.

It saw the villagers

gathered to listen under

the blossoming tree.

It didn't think: I

am higher than they are.

It wanted to walk among them,

to experience the violence of human feeling,

in part for its song's sake.

So it became human.

It found passion, it found violence,

first conflated, then

as separate emotions

and these were not

contained by music. Thus

its song changed,

the sweet notes of its longing to be human

soured and flattened. Then

the world drew back; the mutant

fell from love

as from the cherry branch,

it fell stained with the bloody

fruit of the tree.

So it is true after all, not merely

a rule of art:

change your form and you change your nature.

And time does this to us.

TELEMACHUS' DILEMMA

I can never decide

what to write on

my parents' tomb. I know

what he wants: he wants

beloved,
which is

certainly to the point, particularly

if we count all

the women. But

that leaves my mother

out in the cold. She tells me

this doesn't matter to her

in the least; she prefers

to be represented by

her own achievement. It seems

tactless to remind them

that one does not

honor the dead by perpetuating

their vanities, their

projections of themselves.

My own taste dictates

accuracy without

garrulousness; they are

my parents, consequently

I see them together,

sometimes inclining to

husband and wife,
other times

to
opposing forces.

MEADOWLANDS
3

           How could the Giants name

           that place the Meadowlands? It has

           about as much in common with a pasture

           as would the inside of an oven.

New Jersey

was rural. They want you

to remember that.

Simms

was not a thug. LT

was not a thug.

           What I think is we should

           look at our surroundings

           realistically, for what they are

           in the present.

That's what

I tell you about the house.

No giant

would talk the way you talk.

You'd be a nicer person

if you were a fan of something.

When you do that with your mouth

you look like your mother.

You know what they are?

Kings among men.

           So what king

           fired Simms?

THE ROCK

Insignia

of the earth's

terrible recesses, spirit

of darkness, of

the criminal mind, I feel

certain there is within you

something human, to be

approached in speech. How else

did you approach Eve

with your addictive

information? I have paid

bitterly for her

lapse, therefore

attend to me. Tell me

how you live in hell,

what is required in hell,

for I would send

my beloved there. Not

of course forever:

I may want him

back sometime, not

permanently harmed but

severely chastened,

as he has not been, here

on the surface. What

shall I give him for

protection, what

shield that will not

wholly screen him? You must be

his guide and master: help him

shed his skin

as you do, though in this case

we want him

older underneath, maybe

a little mousy. I feel confident

you understand these

subtleties—you seem

so interested, you do not

slide back under your rock! Oh

I am sure we are somehow related

even if you are not

human; perhaps I have

the soul of a reptile after all.

CIRCE'S POWER

I never turned anyone into a pig.

Some people are pigs; I make them

look like pigs.

I'm sick of your world

that lets the outside disguise the inside.

Your men weren't bad men;

undisciplined life

did that to them. As pigs,

under the care of

me and my ladies, they

sweetened right up.

Then I reversed the spell,

showing you my goodness

as well as my power. I saw

we could be happy here,

as men and women are

when their needs are simple. In the same breath,

I foresaw your departure,

your men with my help braving

the crying and pounding sea. You think

a few tears upset me? My friend,

every sorceress is

a pragmatist at heart; nobody

sees essence who can't

face limitation. If I wanted only to hold you

I could hold you prisoner.

TELEMACHUS' FANTASY

Sometimes I wonder about my father's

years on those islands: why

was he so attractive

to women? He was in straits then, I suppose

desperate. I believe

women like to see a man

still whole, still standing, but

about to go to pieces: such

disintegration reminds them

of passion. I think of them as living

their whole lives

completely undressed. It must have

dazzled him, I think, women

so much younger than he was

evidently wild for him, ready

to do anything he wished. Is it

fortunate to encounter circumstances

so responsive to one's own will, to live

so many years

unquestioned, unthwarted? One

would have to believe oneself

entirely good or worthy. I

suppose in time either

one becomes a monster or

the beloved sees what one is. I never

wish for my father's life

nor have I any idea

what he sacrificed

to survive that moment. Less dangerous

to believe he was drawn to them

and so stayed

to see who they were. I think, though,

as an imaginative man

to some extent he

became who they were.

PARABLE OF FLIGHT

A flock of birds leaving the side of the mountain.

Black against the spring evening, bronze in early summer,

rising over blank lake water.

Why is the young man disturbed suddenly,

his attention slipping from his companion?

His heart is no longer wholly divided; he's trying to think

how to say this compassionately.

Now we hear the voices of the others, moving through the library

toward the veranda, the summer porch; we see them

taking their usual places on the various hammocks and chairs,

the white wood chairs of the old house, rearranging

the striped cushions.

Does it matter where the birds go? Does it even matter

what species they are?

They leave here, that's the point,

first their bodies, then their sad cries.

And from that moment, cease to exist for us.

You must learn to think of our passion that way.

Each kiss was real, then

each kiss left the face of the earth.

ODYSSEUS' DECISION

The great man turns his back on the island.

Now he will not die in paradise

nor hear again

the lutes of paradise among the olive trees,

by the clear pools under the cypresses. Time

begins now, in which he hears again

that pulse which is the narrative

sea, at dawn when its pull is strongest.

What has brought us here

will lead us away; our ship

sways in the tinted harbor water.

Now the spell is ended.

Give him back his life,

sea that can only move forward.

NOSTOS

There was an apple tree in the yard—

this would have been

forty years ago—behind,

only meadow. Drifts

of crocus in the damp grass.

I stood at that window:

late April. Spring

flowers in the neighbor's yard.

How many times, really, did the tree

flower on my birthday,

the exact day, not

before, not after? Substitution

of the immutable

for the shifting, the evolving.

Substitution of the image

for relentless earth. What

do I know of this place,

the role of the tree for decades

taken by a bonsai, voices

rising from the tennis courts—

Fields. Smell of the tall grass, new cut.

As one expects of a lyric poet.

We look at the world once, in childhood.

The rest is memory.

THE BUTTERFLY

Look, a butterfly. Did you make a wish?

           You don't wish on butterflies.

You do so. Did you make one?

           Yes.

It doesn't count.

CIRCE'S TORMENT

I regret bitterly

the years of loving you in both

your presence and absence, regret

the law, the vocation

that forbid me to keep you, the sea

a sheet of glass, the sun-bleached

beauty of the Greek ships: how

could I have power if

I had no wish

to transform you: as

you loved my body,

as you found there

passion we held above

all other gifts, in that single moment

over honor and hope, over

loyalty, in the name of that bond

I refuse you

such feeling for your wife

as will let you

rest with her, I refuse you

sleep again

if I cannot have you.

CIRCE'S GRIEF

In the end, I made myself

known to your wife as

a god would, in her own house, in

Ithaca, a voice

without a body: she

paused in her weaving, her head turning

first to the right, then left

though it was hopeless of course

to trace that sound to any

objective source: I doubt

she will return to her loom

with what she knows now. When

you see her again, tell her

this is how a god says goodbye:

if I am in her head forever

I am in your life forever.

PENELOPE'S STUBBORNNESS

A bird comes to the window. It's a mistake

to think of them

as birds, they are so often

messengers. That is why, once they

plummet to the sill, they sit

so perfectly still, to mock

patience, lifting their heads to sing

poor lady, poor lady,
their three-note

warning, later flying

like a dark cloud from the sill to the olive grove.

But who would send such a weightless being

to judge my life? My thoughts are deep

and my memory long; why would I envy such freedom

when I have humanity? Those

with the smallest hearts have

the greatest freedom.

TELEMACHUS' CONFESSION

They

were not better off

when he left; ultimately

I was better off. This

amazed me, not because I was convinced

I needed them both but because

long into adulthood I retained

something of the child's

hunger for ritual. How else address

that sense of being

insufficiently loved? Possibly

all children are

insufficiently loved; I

wouldn't know. But all along

they each wanted something

different from me: having

to fabricate the being

each required in any

given moment was

less draining than

having to be

two people. And after awhile

I realized I
was

actually a person; I had

my own voice, my own perceptions, though

I came to them late. I no longer regret

the terrible moment in the fields,

the ploy that took

my father away. My mother

grieves enough for us all.

VOID

I figured out why you won't buy furniture.

You won't buy furniture because you're depressed.

I'll tell you what's wrong with you: you're not

gregarious. You should

look at yourself; the only time you're totally happy

is when you cut up a chicken.

Why can't we talk about what I want to talk about?

Why do you always change the subject?

You hurt my feelings. I do
not
mistake

reiteration for analysis.

You should take one of those chemicals,

maybe you'd write more.

Maybe you have some kind of void syndrome.

You know why you cook? Because

you like control. A person who cooks is a person who likes