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January 21, 2022
for Ray (Ray DiPalma?)
What
do
I know?
Only
that
I
am
with you
here.
*
My home here
Beyond ways
And why not
Earth centers
'Mums pluck East
South lifts eyes
Sunset peaks
Birds wheel past
Here's meaning
No word makes
*
Sundown at Shih-hao and the
Recruiting sergeant still at it
One old man made it
Over a back wall scared
Out front an old woman
Gazing into the empty night
He shouting and she moaning
(And whose heart's to hear)
Saying: Three sons I had
At the Yeh border, one
Still sometimes writes me words.
To live: there's your fame.
The dead lone conquer death.
At home not one man
A grandson at my breast
With his mom too busy
Rags to bedeck her bones
And me - only a wreck -
But - Sir - do let me
Drag along when you head
Off tonight to draft Ho-yang.
I'll be there to toss
Mess for tomorrow morning soldiers.
Late. Speech done. Tears maybe.
At dawn pick up again
Only the old man there
To say goodbye to, then.
*
This great house masses metal dazzle.
Battle hangs from the rafters bright heaumes,
crests of horse-hair fettle for men's heads,
pegs hidden by intricate bronze greaves
biding, ready to blunt the strict point,
corselets of linen, bucklers piled high,
Chalcidean steel, doublets and skirts.
Not lyres or flutes to awaken dance,
but the reverberations of drums.
Trumpets, blast! We are about to act.
*
No mortal has yet escaped without pain:
he buries his offspring, begets again,
then himself dies. And yet man will endure,
bearing to earth more earth. It is his life
he reaps to necessity, like the corn:
whether to be or not. So why should we
lament the journey given us to go?
Let us bring your son out of Argos then
to bury in an immemorial tomb.
*
THE HINTERLAND
A strange place an wild.
There, of crushed red seed,
they made a paste which
applied to the face
made them powerful.
Painted thus, the men
plunged into the stream
to fish, successful
glistening waded
out singing. Women
gaily joined them there
to dance. Insects hum,
lizards tongue them, sun
shrinks them, flowers draw
them on. Odor lurks.
Out of the jungle
a lion appeared,
paused, looked from pained eyes
at the dangling flesh,
looked at the river.
Pause, then went back in.
*
DAVID (Michelangelo)
he
measures our height in
his
rising
he
faces Goliath
with
bare youth
knows
in his hands are stones
and
a sling
and
knows how to use them
but
will not
he
menaces time this
once
only
*
THE BIOGRAPHY
Much is to be done,
little to be known
and that enough for
doubt, and need of God.
What can a sick man
say, but that he is?
An incurable
seventy-five, with
fear enough - but for
an obstinate mind -
to be a Papist.
Syrup of poppies,
vinegar of squills.
In haste to amend
a body's life's ills,
praying that Jesus'
anguish would suffice
for him. Muttering
over and over
again the words: "Poor
man! and then he died."
*
THE HERMITAGE, for Robert & Erma Hayden
We pay to
go in to
discover
we have paid
to go out
later. Where
the Jacksons
dwelt in state
and felt each
other's ab-
sences, felt
related
to those who
wore their li-
very in
the sun of
an old day.
It aches a
little to
see a place
love made made
into a
museum,
but of course
must take or
mistake just
this as a
token of
regard for
what they did.
Our back of
the big white
house cabins
with huge hearths
still warm mid-
day darkness
where the spin-
ning wheel sang
to window
and garden
and the trees
wander off
to the grave-
yard and grave
stones medi-
tating there
in the shade
of our eyes.
We have gone
through and have
missed only
those for whom
we are here,
who remain.
*
THE INCIVILITY
In palliation: you
are young; but I
verging upon three-score
disincline to do
anything except
the indispensable.
A hair-shirt and a scourge
for remissness,
not to respond. And yet
now the problem of
the universe sees
a humbug, espisto-
lary obligations
mere moonshine, and
the - well, nepenthe, seems
all-in-all. One gets
to care less for all
save downright good feeling.
*
THE ACCORD
He is dead. An it is strange
to read of a man like that
in the midst of the tide in
a small black boat and the hiss
of rain upon him wonder
with immense distress at the
little moment given one
for the beauty of the world.
No wonder, indeed, that once
with the men of Inishmaan
on a summer sea, their mood
refined by the suggestions
of the day, their ancient tongues
of simple divinity,
he would have liked, who is dead,
to turn the prow to the west,
shades of a better sailor,
and row with them for ever.
*
THE CONVERSATION
it was a dark night
as most nights are
we sat rooted
in the darkest part
light shattering
the shapes of doorways
beyond us
the high city standing
while stone to mute
purposes of love
why do we sit
rustling trees for thought
why does night
exaggerate shadows
by taking them in
complete shelter
as if death spoke
the words that love lacked
*
THE PARTY
Little girl
to little
boy: Let's wee
together.
Big dog sniffs
at all this -
cocks a leg
and pisses.
*
THE PREFACE
The old lady
poet on the
platform explains
that the corsage
presented her's
her very first.
*
STRASBOURG
We met by
error
at midnight
under
cathedral
facade
frozen form
walking
back and forth
embraced
with a warmth
new found
Morning brought
us the
river from
the same
bed running
by the
same spires rust
needling
sky to cry
to each
other: O
today
and today
along
is ours to
measure
tomorrow's
good by.
*
SEA-WINDOWS AT AMALFI
Coming up out of the waste interior,
out of the empty shelves of the sun,
out of the tortured soil surrendering
a little olive, almond, cactus,
here, stretched out under the slopes made rich
by continual catastrophe,
stretching in an infinite reservoir
the glittering exclusions of the sea,
giving the brim of the world to the sky
to drink! And there, where the eye cannot rest
but like a lost mosquito dances,
brilliance mute all thirst; breath is meat.
*
Whatever
the story
I was told
one Sunday
of Joseph
wandering
wastes in a
coloured coat
I see him
yet in a
rainbow at
the turning
of the stream
into hills.
*
GAIOLE IN CHIANTI
To see -
between
houses -
a path
with a
woman
a boy
just left
leaning
in sun
on the
sill of
this room
darkness
contains.
*
What can a
young man say
to an
old man
dying but
I die too
though nothing
in fact
is said.
*
GOODBYE
goodbye? A long
way to have come
just to say this.
Why hurry the moon
transcribing
its destiny?
Or the day's
threshold inviting
us further. No,
I'll not welcome
death's, my dear, un-
expectedness.
*
VENTURA
The ocean
arrives. Let's
leave it at
that. Ah if
only we
could. Out of
the sea, way
back, the sky.
And here de-
livers a
shore: salt mist
rock shell sand.
Much we miss
or lose or
all. Yet feel
where we are
each is more -
most flood - run
off. We meet
at times, now,
remotely,
say something,
anything
to go by.
*
The foghorn
blurts
man out
nothing more
fixed
within
its limits
and
more lost.
*
I am sitting here
and writing what should be
a poem for you.
I cannot explain -
there are tears in my eyes -
as if I were moved
by a profound loss,
not that of loneliness,
but of a silence
whose voice reminds me
of yours. You are sitting
writing a poem.
*
I hear
distantly
Cid!
and
feel I have
betrayed
a trust
by being
here
and
so I must
respond
What guilt
is there but
love?
*
Only to ask directions -
we were lost again - to town -
made us pull in at the filling station.
The uniformed attendant -
a man who might have been
my unhappy brother -
his eyes were that full of want
and patient incapacity -
tendered us a smile
in speaking the simplest words
and added a deeper shade of smile
seeing that we were lost.
We left him there and found town,
just where he said it would be,
but where now is he?
*
Beyond
these walls
bells
for
a train
passing
passing.
Mist
silent.
Knowing
is
dying.
*
Midnight and no birds
to mitigate thoughts.
A late winter wind
shakes the panes and lets
various silence
in. One o'clock and
one is well; where are
all? Olly, olly
entree. None to come.
*
Both dying
and alone,
but he - with
seventy-
six years' aches -
trying to
care for her
despite con-
tinuing
abuse and
offering
in excuse:
I cant help
it, madam,
I love you
and she much
too tuckered
out now to
utter the
usual
rebuttal.
*
Your brother now
as my mother,
now dead. Is it
the night lulling
the crickets or
the other way
round or only
the twitch of a
tune in our heads?
*
Only the dying,
only the dead, know
And only God is
unremembering
I bring you roses
because you loved them.
*
All these years. What years?
I have seen the moon
many a time and
each seems nearer light
as nearer night. Each
moment as it lifts
lifts me towards birth
One day shall find me
uttering no word.
*
FUJI
Between
heaven
and
earth
one
snow
mountain.
*
THE ALLEGORICAL VIEW
You ask about a painting in Florence
Gian Bellini made some five hundred years ago.
You can't remember it altogether.
Fortunately I do and so may find for you
a flagstone terrace along the foreground,
marble cooling the sun. You note the balustrade,
but not the gate in back that opens up
the slow water escaping, heaps of hills and
rusty trees pluming bluer sky. At right,
on the porch, tableau vivant, a St Sebastian
bristling, attended by a haggard soul
stooped and bearded and prophetically silent,
watch naked children playing with apples
fallen or eagerly clambering after more.
Melancholy ladies in elaborate silks,
one enthroned on the left, fill out the scene.
On the other bank a centaur pauses -
as you yourself have written - and scattered houses
and green, a little, and an ancient shape
(Jacopo perhaps?) climbing, with difficulty, down,
whom the horseman studies (for Hercules?).
And all this has clearly been made to be observed
in the light of autumn's ultimate day
suffused by a brush whose trace is lost in sense,
leaving us now - like gods - beyond the frame
or at the sill - like men - or wholly entered - heart.
Like the river itself that winds far out
reflecting what stands above and by and in it.
*
THE PROCESSION
Alone. Strange
to be
To say one is
As if in a long walk
long parade where one is
chief by
forfeit or
by counterfeit
one paces along
a park and
savored
the tanged eucalyptus
to a sound whose purpose
were beating time
to a
slow silence
and the drums
kept one alive
and the
drums were kept repeating
even when one stood still
under
salutary
ragged woods
*
THE GUARDIANS
These overpowering shapes -
eyes bulging baleful -
brandishing sword and
breathing vengeance - caged -
at the flanks of the Great Gate
to the Temple hold
their ground. We who fear
death more than ever
cower but - braver -
seeing the figures
will not lift a finger more -
peer in to study
what mastery made
of the old gnarled wood -
careful to be amused by
such effrontery.
*
GINKAKUJI
A truncated
sand cone, a sand
plateau beyond -
sand waves below
A wasp looking
strains the design
*
Now the storm subsides,
the hissing bamboo
sways a little yet
and a sudden gust
rouses memory
of dread - bu calm, calm
returns. We are here,
love, just as we were,
undiminished, small.
*
Not much. No
more, in fact, than
a child at
a station
coming from school
find me strange -
unlike what
ever is like -
yet here with
him too. And
not wanting to
know, to know -
feel mountains
drifting in mist
within it.
*
With so much
personal sorrow,
how take on
the world? Clear.
Bow be-
side me. Must,
as we will,
share it.
*
We wanted to run away
who have gone off slowly. What's
the use of having been young -
or having been anything?
Is it to teach others what
we have learnt? What have we learned?
What more do we do here now
than recall meanings brought home,
waiting here, brought home to us
each in his meaninglessness?
*
I'll be walking
soon by the river
again and trees
the other side
be lifting their nets
to catch light. God!
how man wishes
for everything
he is given.
*
Blessings. But each breath
narrows to a task
whose only cry is
more acutely that.
*
You'd think as I go on, see
the beach these rocks edge,
the tide breaking over that
breaks them down would shape
one ground and one ground only,
bu each who arrives - as you -
finds himself alone, find this
nothing, the imagined shore
imagining more.
*
"The harbor burns," you
write. I can see the
Atlantic even
now - all the way out
from Brooklyn - blazing
in utter protest
against some needless
loss, being destroyed
by its own kindness.
How vast a torch an
ocean is, how free!
What dedication
to devote itself
to illuminate
like the sun a sky!
Yet, unless your word
reaches me here, as now,
what shadow could the
heart have shared - although
this - in any case -
goes on as it is.
*
So "many things" or
maybe just one to
depress me into
"silence"
"with me here
who cannot grow wise
knowing"
hearing you
sing Gaius to us.
My uguisu, here,
carves of its own note
and air an echo -
"gone become habit"
inhabiting none.
*
An old man
crouched dawdling
by the side
of the road
watching me
hurry by
also cant
help smiling
*
I am home
for there you
are. waiting
at the door,
apron on,
for no more.
*
Not myself
and not you
alone, but
each within
the other
moving out:
the tides of
earth and sky
shaping from
horizon
horizon,
orison.
*
Each night we
die. Darkness
comes over
us like too
much nearness
only light
can lead us
from and once
more into.
*
Not much to say now.
Was there ever?
Gently. The heart has
never been as much
given to words
as to sighs. Alas -
the softest cry calls
from night to night
softer and so soft.
*
Now the persimmons become
red gold of the sun - all things
a ripening of the fire -
behind us before us. The
tree grows in the landlord's yard,
but some fruit may befall ours.
*
No, no, nothing. This
of that thing ringing
spans and circles and
retreats, as if the
air needed clearing,
as if the sweet sound
were a vanishing,
as if the wind were
an invisible
drunkenness. Not gods,
no: nothing. So clear
it hardly matters
to say more than "See
if you can hear it"
and "it" is a bell
swung and struck somewhere
whose sound is gone in
and into nothing.
*
THE RITE
To say sky
as one says
water. To
pour it in-
to a cup
and hold it
at the lips
and drink. Of
it. And at
sundown to
drunk it a-
gain as wine.
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