Poems 1962-2012 (9 page)

flooded the earth.

4.

Beauty dies: that is the source

of creation. Outside the ring of trees

the courtiers could hear

the dove's call transmit

its uniform, its inborn sorrow—

They stood listening, among the rustling willows.

Was this the god's lament?

They listened carefully. And for a short time

all sound was sad.

5.

There is no other immortality:

in the cold spring, the purple violets open.

And yet, the heart is black,

there is its violence frankly exposed.

Or is it not the heart at the center

but some other word?

And now someone is bending over them,

meaning to gather them—

6.

They could not wait

in exile forever.

Through the glittering grove

the courtiers ran

calling the name

of their companion

over the birds' noise,

over the willows' aimless sadness.

Well into the night they wept,

their clear tears

altering no earthly color.

THE TRIUMPH OF ACHILLES

In the story of Patroclus

no one survives, not even Achilles

who was nearly a god.

Patroclus resembled him; they wore

the same armor.

Always in these friendships

one serves the other, one is less than the other:

the hierarchy

is always apparent, though the legends

cannot be trusted—

their source is the survivor,

the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire

compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles

grieved with his whole being

and the gods saw

he was a man already dead, a victim

of the part that loved,

the part that was mortal.

BASKETS

1.

It is a good thing,

in the marketplace

the old woman trying to decide

among the lettuces,

impartial, weighing the heads,

examining

the outer leaves, even

sniffing them to catch

a scent of earth

of which, on one head,

some trace remains—not

the substance but

the residue—so

she prefers it to

the other, more

estranged heads, it

being freshest: nodding

briskly at the vendor's wife,

she makes this preference known,

an old woman, yet

vigorous in judgment.

2.

The circle of the world—

in its midst, a dog

sits at the edge of the fountain.

The children playing there,

coming and going from the village,

pause to greet him, the impulsive

losing interest in play,

in the little village of sticks

adorned with blue fragments of pottery;

they squat beside the dog

who stretches in the hot dust:

arrows of sunlight

dance around him.

Now, in the field beyond,

some great event is ending.

In twos and threes, boldly

swinging their shirts,

the athletes stroll away, scattering

red and blue, blue and dazzling purple

over the plain ground,

over the trivial surface.

3.

Lord, who gave me

my solitude, I watch

the sun descending:

in the marketplace

the stalls empty, the remaining children

bicker at the fountain—

But even at night, when it can't be seen,

the flame of the sun

still heats the pavements.

That's why, on earth,

so much life's sprung up,

because the sun maintains

steady warmth at its periphery.

Does this suggest your meaning:

that the game resumes,

in the dust beneath

the infant god of the fountain;

there is nothing fixed,

there is no assurance of death—

4.

I take my basket to the brazen market,

to the gathering place.

I ask you, how much beauty

can a person bear? It is

heavier than ugliness, even the burden

of emptiness is nothing beside it.

Crates of eggs, papaya, sacks of yellow lemons—

I am not a strong woman. It isn't easy

to want so much, to walk

with such a heavy basket, either

bent reed, or willow.

LIBERATION

My mind is clouded,

I cannot hunt anymore.

I lay my gun over the tracks of the rabbit.

It was as though I became that creature

who could not decide

whether to flee or be still

and so was trapped in the pursuer's eyes—

And for the first time I knew

those eyes have to be blank

because it is impossible

to kill and question at the same time.

Then the shutter snapped,

the rabbit went free. He flew

through the empty forest

that part of me

that was the victim.

Only victims have a destiny.

And the hunter, who believed

whatever struggles

begs to be torn apart:

that part is paralyzed.

II

THE EMBRACE

She taught him the gods. Was it teaching? He went on

hating them, but in the long evenings of obsessive talk,

as he listened, they became real. Not that they changed.

They never came to seem innately human.

In the firelight, he watched her face.

But she would not be touched; she had rejected

the original need. Then in the darkness he would lead her back—

above the trees, the city rose in a kind of splendor

as all that is wild comes to the surface.

MARATHON

1.
Last Letter

Weeping, standing still—then going out again into the garden.

In the field, white heads of dandelions making rows of saints,

now bending, now stiff with awe—

and at the edge, a hare: his eyes fixed, terrified.

Silence. Herds of bells—

Without thinking, I knelt in the grass, like someone meaning to pray.

When I tried to stand again, I couldn't move,

my legs were utterly rigid. Does grief change you like that?

Through the birches, I could see the pond.

The sun was cutting small white holes in the water.

I got up finally; I walked down to the pond.

I stood there, brushing the grass from my skirt, watching myself,

like a girl after her first lover

turning slowly at the bathroom mirror, naked, looking for a sign.

But nakedness in women is always a pose.

I was not transfigured. I would never be free.

2.
Song of the River

Once we were happy, we had no memories.

For all the repetition, nothing happened twice.

We were always walking parallel to a river

with no sense of progression

though the trees across from us

were sometimes birch, sometimes cypress—

the sky was blue, a matrix of blue glass.

While, in the river, things were going by—

a few leaves, a child's boat painted red and white,

its sail stained by the water—

As they passed, on the surface we could see ourselves;

we seemed to drift

apart and together, as the river

linked us forever, though up ahead

were other couples, choosing souvenirs.

3.
The Encounter

You came to the side of the bed

and sat staring at me.

Then you kissed me—I felt

hot wax on my forehead.

I wanted it to leave a mark:

that's how I knew I loved you.

Because I wanted to be burned, stamped,

to have something in the end—

I drew the gown over my head;

a red flush covered my face and shoulders.

It will run its course, the course of fire,

setting a cold coin on the forehead, between the eyes.

You lay beside me; your hand moved over my face

as though you had felt it also—

you must have known, then, how I wanted you.

We will always know that, you and I.

The proof will be my body.

4.
Song of Obstacles

When my lover touches me, what I feel in my body

is like the first movement of a glacier over the earth,

as the ice shifts, dislodging great boulders, hills

of solemn rock: so, in the forests, the uprooted trees

become a sea of disconnected limbs—

And, where there are cities, these dissolve too,

the sighing gardens, all the young girls

eating chocolates in the courtyard, slowly

scattering the colored foil: then, where the city was,

the ore, the unearthed mysteries: so I see

that ice is more powerful than rock, than mere resistance—

Then for us, in its path, time doesn't pass,

not even an hour.

5.
Night Song

Look up into the light of the lantern.

Don't you see? The calm of darkness

is the horror of Heaven.

We've been apart too long, too painfully separated.

How can you bear to dream,

to give up watching? I think you must be dreaming,

your face is full of mild expectancy.

I need to wake you, to remind you that there isn't a future.

That's why we're free. And now some weakness in me

has been cured forever, so I'm not compelled

to close my eyes, to go back, to rectify—

The beach is still; the sea, cleansed of its superfluous life,

opaque, rocklike. In mounds, in vegetal clusters,

seabirds sleep on the jetty. Terns, assassins—

You're tired; I can see that.

We're both tired, we have acted a great drama.

Even our hands are cold, that were like kindling.

Our clothes are scattered on the sand; strangely enough,

they never turned to ashes.

I have to tell you what I've learned, that I know now

what happens to the dreamers.

They don't feel it when they change. One day

they wake, they dress, they are old.

Tonight I'm not afraid

to feel the revolutions. How can you want sleep

when passion gives you that peace?

You're like me tonight, one of the lucky ones.

You'll get what you want. You'll get your oblivion.

6.
The Beginning

I had come to a strange city, without belongings:

in the dream, it was your city, I was looking for you.

Then I was lost, on a dark street lined with fruit stands.

There was only one fruit: blood oranges.

The markets made displays of them, beautiful displays—

how else could they compete? And each arrangement had, at its center,

one fruit, cut open.

Then I was on a boulevard, in brilliant sunlight.

I was running; it was easy to run, since I had nothing.

In the distance, I could see your house; a woman knelt in the yard.

There were roses everywhere; in waves, they climbed the high trellis.

Then what began as love for you

became a hunger for structure: I could hear

the woman call to me in common kindness, knowing

I wouldn't ask for you anymore—

So it was settled: I could have a childhood there.

Which came to mean being always alone.

7.
First Goodbye

You can join the others now,

body that wouldn't let my body rest,

go back to the world, to avenues, the ordered

depths of the parks, like great terminals

that never darken: a stranger's waiting for you

in a hundred rooms. Go back to them,

to increment and limitation: near the centered rose,

you watch her peel an orange

so the dyed rind falls in petals on her plate. This

is mastery, whose active

mode is dissection: the enforced light

shines on the blade. Sooner or later

you'll begin to dream of me. I don't envy you

those dreams. I can imagine how my face looks,

burning like that, afflicted with desire—lowered

face of your invention—how the mouth betrays

the isolated greed of the lover

as it magnifies and then destroys:

I don't envy you that visitation.

And the women lying there—who wouldn't pity them,

the way they turn to you, the way

they struggle to be visible. They make

a place for you in bed, a white excavation.

Then the sacrament: your bodies pieced together,

churning, churning, till the heat leaves them entirely—

Sooner or later you will call my name,

cry of loss, mistaken

cry of recognition, of arrested need

for someone who exists in memory: no voice

carries to that kingdom.

8.
Song of Invisible Boundaries

Last night I dreamed we were in Venice;

today, we are in Venice. Now, lying here,

I think there are no boundaries to my dreams,

nothing we won't share.

So there is nothing to describe. We're interchangeable

with anyone, in joy

changed to a mute couple.

Then why did we worship clarity,

to speak, in the end, only each other's names,

to speak, as now, not even whole words,

only vowels?

Finally, this is what we craved,

this lying in the bright light without distinction—

we who would leave behind

exact records.

9.
Marathon

I was not meant to hear

the two of them talking.

But I could feel the light of the torch

stop trembling, as though it had been