Poems 1962-2012 (23 page)

Everyone else much farther along.

I was back at the beginning

at a time in life we can't remember beginnings.

The bird

collected twigs in the apple tree, relating

each addition to existing mass.

But when was there suddenly
mass?

It took what it found after the others

were finished.

The same materials—why should it matter

to be finished last? The same materials, the same

limited good. Brown twigs,

broken and fallen. And in one,

a length of yellow wool.

Then it was spring and I was inexplicably happy.

I knew where I was: on Broadway with my bag of groceries.

Spring fruit in the stores: first

cherries at Formaggio. Forsythia

beginning.

First I was at peace.

Then I was contented, satisfied.

And then flashes of joy.

And the season changed—for all of us,

of course.

And as I peered out my mind grew sharper.

And I remember accurately

the sequence of my responses,

my eyes fixing on each thing

from the shelter of the hidden self:

first,
I love it.

Then,
I can use it.

ELLSWORTH AVENUE

                   Spring

descended. Or should one say

rose? Should one say rose up?

At the Butlers' house,

witch hazel in bloom.

So it would have been

late February.

Pale

yellow of the new year,

unpracticed color. Sheen

of ice over the dull ground.

I thought:
stop now,
meaning

stop here.

Speaking of my life.

The spring of the year: yellow-

green of forsythia, the Commons

planted with new grass—

the new

protected always, the new thing

given its explicit shield, its metal

plaque of language, bordered

with white rope.

Because we wish it to live,

a pale green

hemming the dark existing shapes.

Late

winter sun. Or spring?

The spring sun

so early? Screened

by dense forsythia. I looked

directly into it or almost into it—

Across the street, a small boy

threw his hat into the air: the new

ascending always, the fresh

unsteady colors climbing and rising,

alternating

blue and gold:

Ellsworth Avenue.

A striped

abstraction of the human head

triumphant over dead shrubs.

                   Spring

descended. Or should one say

rose up again? Or should one say

broke from earth?

INFERNO

Why did you move away?

I walked out of the fire alive;

how can that be?

How much was lost?

Nothing was lost: it was all

destroyed. Destruction

is the result of action.

Was there a real fire?

I remember going back into the house twenty years ago,

trying to save what we could.

Porcelain and so on. The smell of smoke

on everything.

In my dream, I built a funeral pyre.

For myself, you understand.

I thought I had suffered enough.

I thought this was the end of my body: fire

seemed the right end for hunger;

they were the same thing.

And yet you didn't die?

It was a dream; I thought I was going home.

I remember telling myself

it wouldn't work; I remember thinking

my soul was too stubborn to die.

I thought soul was the same as consciousness—

probably everyone thinks that.

Why did you move away?

I woke up in another world.

As simple as that.

Why did you move away?

The world changed. I walked out of the fire

into a different world—maybe

the world of the dead, for all I know.

Not the end of need but need

raised to the highest power.

SEIZURE

You saved me, you should remember me.

You came to me; twice

I saw you in the garden.

When I woke I was on the ground.

I didn't know who I was anymore;

I didn't know what trees were.

Twice in the garden; many times

before that. Why should it be

kept secret?

The raspberries were very thick;

I hadn't pruned them, I hadn't weeded anything.

I didn't know where I was.

Only: there was a fire near me—no,

above me. In the distance,

the sound of a river.

It was never focus that was missing,

it was meaning.

There was a crown,

a circle over my head.

My hands were covered with dirt,

not from labor.

Why should I lie: that life

is over now.

Why shouldn't I

use what I know?

You changed me, you should remember me.

I remember I had gone out

to walk in the garden. As before into

the streets of the city, into

the bedroom of that first apartment.

And yes, I was alone;

how could I not be?

THE MYSTERY

I became a creature of light.

I sat in a driveway in California;

the roses were hydrant-color; a baby

rolled by in its yellow stroller, making

bubbling fishlike sounds.

I sat in a folding chair

reading Nero Wolfe for the twentieth time,

a mystery that has become restful.

I know who the innocent are; I have acquired in some measure

the genius of the master, in whose supple mind

time moves in two directions: backward

from the act to the motive

and forward to just resolution.

Fearless heart, never tremble again:

the only shadow is the narrow palm's

that cannot enclose you absolutely.

Not like the shadows of the east.

My life took me many places,

many of them very dark.

It took me without my volition,

pushing me from behind,

from one world to another, like

the fishlike baby.

And it was all entirely arbitrary,

without discernible form.

The passionate threats and questions,

the old search for justice,

must have been entirely deluded.

And yet I saw amazing things.

I became almost radiant at the end;

I carried my book everywhere,

like an eager student

clinging to these simple mysteries

so that I might silence in myself

the last accusations:

Who are you and what is your purpose?

LAMENT

A terrible thing is happening—my love

is dying again, my love who has died already:

died and been mourned. And music continues,

music of separation: the trees

become instruments.

How cruel the earth, the willows shimmering,

the birches bending and sighing.

How cruel, how profoundly tender.

My love is dying; my love

not only a person, but an idea, a life.

What will I live for?

Where will I find him again

if not in grief, dark wood

from which the lute is made.

Once is enough. Once is enough

to say goodbye on earth.

And to grieve, that too, of course.

Once is enough to say goodbye forever.

The willows shimmer by the stone fountain,

paths of flowers abutting.

Once is enough: why is he living again?

And so briefly, and only in dream.

My love is dying; parting has started again.

And through the veils of the willows

sunlight rising and glowing,

not the light we knew.

And the birds singing again, even the mourning dove.

Ah, I have sung this song. By the stone fountain

the willows are singing again

with unspeakable tenderness, trailing their leaves

in the radiant water.

Clearly they know, they know. He is dying again,

and the world also. Dying the rest of my life,

so I believe.

VITA NOVA

In the splitting-up dream

we were fighting over who would keep

the dog,

Blizzard. You tell me

what that name means. He was

a cross between

something big and fluffy

and a dachshund. Does this have to be

the male and female

genitalia? Poor Blizzard,

why was he a dog? He barely touched

the hummus in his dogfood dish.

Then there was something else,

a sound. Like

gravel being moved. Or sand?

The sands of time? Then it was

Erica with her maracas,

like the sands of time

personified. Who will

explain this to

the dog? Blizzard,

Daddy needs you; Daddy's heart is empty,

not because he's leaving Mommy but because

the kind of love he wants Mommy

doesn't have, Mommy's

too ironic—Mommy wouldn't do

the rhumba in the driveway. Or

is this wrong. Supposing

I'm the dog, as in

my child-self, unconsolable because

completely pre-verbal? With

anorexia! O Blizzard,

be a brave dog—this is

all material; you'll wake up

in a different world,

you will eat again, you will grow up into a poet!

Life is very weird, no matter how it ends,

very filled with dreams. Never

will I forget your face, your frantic human eyes

swollen with tears.

I thought my life was over and my heart was broken.

Then I moved to Cambridge.

THE SEVEN AGES (2001)

FOR NOAH AND TEREZE

Thou earth, thou, Speak.

                  —
THE TEMPEST

THE SEVEN AGES

In my first dream the world appeared

the salt, the bitter, the forbidden, the sweet

In my second I descended

I was human, I couldn't just see a thing

beast that I am

I had to touch, to contain it

I hid in the groves,

I worked in the fields until the fields were bare—

time

that will never come again—

the dry wheat bound, caskets

of figs and olives

I even loved a few times in my disgusting human way

and like everyone I called that accomplishment

erotic freedom,

absurd as it seems

The wheat gathered and stored, the last

fruit dried: time

that is hoarded, that is never used

does it also end?

In my first dream the world appeared

the sweet, the forbidden

but there was no garden, only

raw elements

I was human:

I had to beg to descend

the salt, the bitter, the demanding, the preemptive

And like everyone, I took, I was taken

I dreamed

I was betrayed:

Earth was given to me in a dream

In a dream I possessed it

MOONBEAM

The mist rose with a little sound. Like a thud.

Which was the heart beating. And the sun rose, briefly diluted.

And after what seemed years, it sank again

and twilight washed over the shore and deepened there.

And from out of nowhere lovers came,

people who still had bodies and hearts. Who still had

arms, legs, mouths, although by day they might be

housewives and businessmen.

The same night also produced people like ourselves.

You are like me, whether or not you admit it.

Unsatisfied, meticulous. And your hunger is not for experience

but for understanding, as though it could be had in the abstract.

Then it's daylight again and the world goes back to normal.

The lovers smooth their hair; the moon resumes its hollow existence.

And the beach belongs again to mysterious birds

soon to appear on postage stamps.

But what of our memories, the memories of those who depend on images?

Do they count for nothing?

The mist rose, taking back proof of love.

Without which we have only the mirror, you and I.

THE SENSUAL WORLD

I call to you across a monstrous river or chasm

to caution you, to prepare you.

Earth will seduce you, slowly, imperceptibly,

subtly, not to say with connivance.

I was not prepared: I stood in my grandmother's kitchen,

holding out my glass. Stewed plums, stewed apricots—

the juice poured off into the glass of ice.

And the water added, patiently, in small increments,

the various cousins discriminating, tasting

with each addition—

aroma of summer fruit, intensity of concentration:

the colored liquid turning gradually lighter, more radiant,

more light passing through it.

Delight, then solace. My grandmother waiting,

to see if more was wanted. Solace, then deep immersion.

I loved nothing more: deep privacy of the sensual life,

the self disappearing into it or inseparable from it,

somehow suspended, floating, its needs

fully exposed, awakened, fully alive—

Deep immersion, and with it

mysterious safety. Far away, the fruit glowing in its glass bowls.

Outside the kitchen, the sun setting.

I was not prepared: sunset, end of summer. Demonstrations

of time as a continuum, as something coming to an end,

not a suspension; the senses wouldn't protect me.