How comes the rain?
There is no sky
And yet the moon is in my eye.
What I see is a girl in braids
Who’s lost cold wet afraid.
She calls out to all who are alone.
I know her voice. It is my own.
This is not a happy poem
Yet it may blossom in a storm,
A flower marking every stone.
You’ve left and I am here
With what remains,
The singing and the chatter
Woven into everything
I hear. Never has it been
As quiet as it is now
And yet so full of pain.
The silence stays,
Words unspoken, mere air,
Notes of a song unsung,
A morning and evening prayer
That you and yours may forever be
As close as the silence here.
This morning air is what remains
of one I met when all was lost.
She offered shelter for a night.
I woke to find her gone, adrift
in days, she left a note: There wasn't
time to say farewell. There was
no name. Alone again, I walked away.
Her touch upon me like summer rain.
We blindly feel our way
Along the wall, then think
To dig, but never deep enough.
On the other side, we homer on,
Some fifty words to hold against
The light. A tiger leaps through us
As if we were not there.
It mauls its prey. We break
For lunch.
Though some read Emily Dickinson’s “I saw no Way” as a description of a crisis of faith or declaration of profound loneliness, the way to Heaven barred, it for me an ecstatic statement. It may be that these perspectives can be reconciled.
I saw no Way—The Heavens were stitched—
I felt the Columns close—
The Earth reversed her Hemispheres—
I touched the Universe—
And back it slid—and I alone—
A Speck upon a Ball—
Went out upon Circumference—
Beyond the Dip of Bell—
When I sing this poem to the tune of Amazing Grace, it seems to me to be in praise of what cannot be rationally circumscribed. There she is a speck upon a Ball, her poem, like the rhythmic swinging of the tongue of a Bell. reaches out beyond itself (beyond its lip). I often ring a bell for my students and ask them where the sound goes. Wherever it goes, it goes beyond the bell itself and takes us with it, escaping into silence.
I sing in praise.
Of what cannot be known --
We breathe – no paper
Stained with ink.
If it would only rain my words would pour forth like girls and boys too young to know shame O they are bold as I would be the rain falls I am young again dance touch while the music plays so falls the rain O she is here there are tears of joy tears songs of praise for the beauty of the day earth yields up its flowers to her hand turns to gentle thunder her body lifts and holds her laughter makes the night shudder unbinds her hair and falls to me now here now there like summer rain
Out of blood comes anemone
Comes the flower the maiden holds
And falls in love with death, the truth
Of spring, not the myth,
a bird that sings at night
and sings alone,
the love herself denied, a sacrifice
that makes of art a vow
be true to death in life, no signs
but discarded treasure found,
a comb for her golden hair,
a paper knife, a silver coin,
a button missing from her blouse,
the relics of an empty house.
Though “First Fig” by Edna St. Vincent Millay is better suited for other purposes than “Now I lay me down to sleep. / If I die before I wake, / I pray the Lord / my soul to keep,” it has become for me a bedtime prayer:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.
I know there are other versions of “Now I lay me down to sleep” but the one I know I have always known, despite the best efforts of my parents to laugh it off. I still love the poem but believe not a word. Poetry is like that. Edna’s “Fig” too. True, the candle will not last the night, but in the morning I will ‘doubly’ light another and then another, though that depends on the supply of candles and “if I wake”— meantime, such candle-burning does give that lovely light, as she says.
So, last night as “I lay me down to sleep,” thinking of the absurdity of life, of drawing meaning from nonsense, of burning precipitously through candles in short supply, these lines came to me like a serenade from a bog (pace Emily Dickinson, "I'm a Nobody! Who are you?"):
A Bullfrog
I laugh and cry, then laugh again,
And cry— it doesn’t seem quite right,
But do you or you or you, my friends,
Know another life?
It’s really just “Another Fig” via inspirationis magistrae millay, but it served the purpose of another good night’s rest.
What prayer or poem ushers you into that sleep from which, of course, you will wake? What bedtime words spring to mind? If there are none, there’s still time to make them up.
That’s an invitation, folks, to compose yourself and send the lines to me.
Here is one I have already received from Margie Keck, burning brightly:
Burden me equally
With the sublime and the common.
The necessary honoring of both
Is an issue of utmost importance.
Leading to my spiritual awakening,
The true work of my life.
If we were to sow our teeth,
There would come stories
To make us shudder
Like the one about a desperately
Happy old man who gave up
His love of life to become
A gravedigger and lied
To those asking whose grave
He dug, falsely saying
He was looking for treasure
But so far had found only gold.
Spartoi: the ‘sown men’ of Greek mythology, born from dragon’s teeth. Cadmus in founding Thebes had for good reason slain a dragon, sacred to Ares, and was advised by Athena to sow its teeth. The line of the Spartoi ends in a great many tragic stories, those of Oedipus and his spawn among them. In death, Cadmus and Harmonia, his wife, became snakes. It does not seem to have been a punishment. It is worth noting that Cadmus is said to have brought the Phoenician alphabet to Greece. The result we all know well. One might ask why are snakes sacred to the gods. To understand that would be a treasure. It may be necessary like Cadmus to become one.
When I say the wind speaks to me
Like a lover, I am not speaking
of the wind the leaves reveal
Nor of any lover who draws me near.
There’s neither hope nor cause for tears.
She promises she’ll never leave.
For Eve
Even if I were blind
your golden
Voice would light
the way, my
Eyes forever shining.
for eve
Suddenly
this morning
I knew the rainbow
to be a bird
of my soul
taking flight
and vanishing
into cloud and sky
as I am bound
to do, shimmering
not with color
but surprise
to be at last
not here.
for Zoe
There’s that garden
that none
need pardon.
There wild Iris grows
beneath the trees
it loves.
They catch the light
and make its song
their own.
The moment she touched the old man’s hand
He lost his sight, yet standing lost upon the sand
He heard the light upon the waves like keys.
She sang and let him go and like the wind he sighed.
None knows what song she sang or how he blindly
Played with light or how a man became the sea.
Come with me, two
three jumps but
don’t look back.
Lately angels
have been falling.
The garden is rank
With anemone.
Follow the path
of leaf fall,
the short cut home
twixt sky and dream.
When you're there,
you'll be right here,
safe with me.
Before the light changed and I forgot
the rules for how to see things as they are,
day was day and night was hidden in my heart.
The mist on the mountains lifts
ghostly greens glimmer
and a new day darkens the valley
far below—your fingers tracing
a line across the high ridge
that runs just above my eyes:
I hold my breath—a sudden
swoop of wind and wing
You sit across the page, spelling
Your name like mine
Except it rhymes
And no one suspects you are lonely
Or looney or so hungry
you could eat this paper,
folding it into a star
popping it in the microwave
where you and I and the universe
will be one and done.
He was watching the parade
The clowns, the words, the trumpeteers
And in his dream he was awake
Or he was awake and dreaming.
He closed his eyes.
No matter, he heard the drums.
He opened his eyes a second time
And saw himself marching
Now to a different tune
A martial cha-cha-cha
And wet his pants.
There is little more to tell.
The daily Tribune records
That during the St. Jude Day Celebration
Saturday passed and a forgotten man
Had died, shouting blessings
Upon one and all.
I know why
the dead don't talk
to the living:
it hurts
to remember
and we stopped
listening
He was determined this time not to cut his fingers as he sliced the oranges. He would focus and keep his fingers well away from the blade. He remembered all too well how previously his blood had flowed onto the oranges and pooled on the plate. He knew it wasn’t just because he was getting old, fading into memory and the lure of the trees and his first kiss. She had been as nervous as he and had closed her eyes. Now all he could think of was feeding her oranges and the taste on her lips. And suddenly, she had bitten his lip, making it bleed. And then, more softly, she was feeding him. She was delicious and he . . . . he was lost in the trees. He put the knife down and wept.
When they removed the tree they moved the place
Or rather the place became a barren field
Where light through the green, still moving shade
No longer marks the ground like rain.
And yet here I am with you,
Your face bent over mine the air
rippling with laughter the tree
covering us in its bright shadow the earth
yielding as we fall out of time. Out of time?
What is left but song?
Listen! the ringing in the air, this rain
These tears hammering out the tune, time and place.
He, she, and all you love, draw near.
Though I am known to God
As Hughlings, my friends call me
Hugh and leave it at that --
Grace takes care of the rest.
Though I do not believe
In anything or have any Jesus,
Yet I retain a kind of genius
For harmless lies.
It is as if during the day
I can still see the stars
Blazing out of the night
And truly see what is
not there. Some say
it is a harmless madness --
My friends though look deep
Into what were once my eyes
And all they see is night.
What goes
like a wolf
in the morning
like the sea
in the afternoon
and the wind
at night?
The wolf is desire.
The sea is the journey.
The wind is what remains.
The answer is always man.
Though he is dying and lost in time,
She will not permit the truth be spoken
Or any other game be played
Until she says what she came to say
To one who knows her wilder ways.
(The sun and moon now count the time;
The trees and shadows bend his mind.)
She, undressing on the forest floor,
All green and gold and shimmering song,
Takes him to ground and shapes his soul:
You will not die and never know
What it is to love and be alone.
(She holds him in a last embrace
And turns his eyes to see her face.)
In a quiet time long ago and now
a river runs past where I stand looking
at the play of light upon the flow
and draws me to itself
and I am gone
until the chill
of the evening hour shakes me loose
and I remember where I am
and where I long to be. Someone
is waiting beside a fire.
O I am older now
and what once was home
is now the sea.
Long ago someone
held me in her arms.
It’s there I go.
Set out beneath the stars
on a solitary raft
that drifts along the shore
on a current
that will bring you
out to sea and sky
beyond all imagining
as you once were
as you will be again.
A previous engagement has kept me occupied for seventy-four years
and so I missed a chance to dine with Gaius Valerius.
His invitation read simply: Mortui mortuis solum loquuntur.
There was no mention of time or place. I thought it strange.
I.
This poem is a wingéd
thing, hovering
above the western sea,
seeing all
that isn't there.
II.
The day is dying,
soft like glass,
what we've lost
is all that lasts.
III.
The song leads on
to a hidden isle
where nothing is
is reality.
IV.
Song shields the eye
from the final fire,
the darkest blue
at the sunstruck hour.
Our life hangs
by a single thread
That holds the weight
On which itself depends:
Words burn to the touch
the hand that holds
the pen and die(s).
There is no other light.
He fell (he was always falling)
Or rather, he jumped, missing the water
That would have taken him, leaving his remains
to flow in the rhythms of his speech,
Washed clean like one hoping to please
Instead of what was, a silent heap,
Though there was heard from a nearby street
What some would call a melodious scream.
The thought of Alex Thomas coming to my house
The thought of Alex Thomas coming to my house
The thought of Alex Thomas coming to my house
Could make an old man cry. Not me! Round
The back my grandson plays hide and seek.
I’ve not the slightest idea what that means
But, Alex, you will know! I can only dream
And look for nuts on airy ground.
You see, I’ve placed a charm about the house
And made my home among earthbound clouds.
Alex, you deserve this stupid poem. Take the blame!
If you were me, you would do the same.
If that’s confusing, Lord, just let it rain.
I do not know the pain you feel, dear one,
But it must be more than a soul can bear --
I feel that and would say no more
Than what the towering tree nearby
Would have me say: we feel it,
Earth and root, leaf and wind,
The sky itself would fall for you
and comfort you. It knows
no other blue.
Video Recording: For Mary and Emma
Hey Mary, Hey Emma,
Let’s say together
what we have made our own:
κοινὰ τὰ τῶν φίλων.
Those who know no Greek
will understand what is essential:
we are friends.
In class, you let me ramble,
which I do well,
while you do all the work,
if you call it work
to play qui, quae, quod
and quack like ducks.
Some folks say Latin and Homer’s Greek are dead.
They’ll know better
when they hear angels like you
speak only bella Latina
and reckon things by the Αlpha and 0mega.
Those who know no Latin or ancient Greek
will find themselves back in school.
Not you!
Valete, vos amo magis quam dicere possum.
In times like these
Christine is our Christine
Not for better or worse
But for her gift not to dwell
On what’s not possible
But on what is
and do it so well.
Fragment
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From which all life comes
for Brenda
We bury this bird
Where it fell.
It goes to earth
Where its mother dwells.
Morning Light
The junk in my head gathers dust
Year to year, day to night
But rises with the call of birds,
Becomes a choir in the morning light.
For Alex Thomas Coming To My House
The thought of Alex Thomas coming to my house
The thought of Alex Thomas coming to my house
The thought of Alex Thomas coming to my house
Could make an old man cry. Not me! Round
The back my grandson plays hide and seek.
I’ve not the slightest idea what that means
But, Alex, you will know! I can only dream
And look for nuts on airy ground.
You see, I’ve placed a charm about the house
And made my home among earthbound clouds.
Alex, you deserve this stupid poem. Take the blame!
If you were me, you would do the same.
If that’s confusing, Lord, just let it rain.
A Flea
Having not heard from you in days
(seems like years to a flea like me),
I worry, no doubt needlessly,
but there it is – the worry
worrying me, knowing
it will do no good,
and that’s a worry too,
so let’s call it prayer,
which likewise does no good
except it makes me feel better
or worse about myself,
depending, as it does,
on a dog.
All x 1 & done
At a certain age time passes more quickly,
we count days by a two by four
then all x 1 & done.
IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO
Porridge, she said,
Doesn't rhyme with orange,
And then, as if upon a stage,
Danced a golden tango
About my bed. O, I said,
That's how it's done,
A golden orange on my head.
What poets know is what is not.
It sets us free upon the shore to dance like rain
And cry out to the sea as to a friend,
Who leaves and calls us home, its true name.
Its name is οὐ τόπος, the sea of tears,
In whose waves we would gladly drown.
We dance, I say, to enchant the sea
and make it sing: κοινὰ τὰ τῶν φίλων.
οὐ τόπος (ou topos): not a place
κοινὰ τὰ τῶν φίλων: (koina ta tōn philōn): common are the things of friends.
for Charles
Having not heard from you in days
(seems like years to a flea like me),
I worry, no doubt needlessly,
but there it is – the worry
worrying me, knowing
it will do no good,
and that’s a worry too,
so let’s call it prayer,
which likewise does no good
except it makes me feel better
or worse about myself,
depending, as it does,
on a dog.
He tripped and fell
and had a tale to tell
But all you could hear
was a door closing.
O there were whistles
and wolves and owls
But all anyone could hear
was an old man gasping,
alone at last
with a tale to tell.
Who but a god
Could look at you
Sweetly laughing
And not die
For a kiss, dying
Again and again
Like gods of spring
that never truly
Die. Your lips
Like night
hold back the day
And close my eyes . . .
Awake! Awake!
You are no god
To kiss and tell
Of life and death.
Ibidom. Is no thinking thing here but the peepinghouse round it goes is there nothing there from sea to rounda coda no knowing no browbeating to hoedown the adamses and damses looking roundaway the wailing goes awagginawaning about the off wall but there shebares all to what is not there the museymusik makes you trot and drop so rainruns and her lastofall. There!
now east now west
the road has a mind of its own
and my feet obey
the rest of me stays behind
treelike
above
the sky grows gentle
MY HEART OPENS
the road goes on
as if not knowing
which way is best
What makes us laugh makes us moan
and mourn for better times than these -
yet the sound of your voice, the free
falling rain, a falling sky, falls
from you to me to you who read
these words turned round and know
there never was a time when pain
did not prey upon the innocent.
I am not innocent of anything.
It makes me laugh: these words
meant to ignite a fire.
You want to know
What life is,
But all you find
Are words, zeroes
And ones
And bread crumbs
In your beard.
Where, you ask,
Is the wild iris?
Where the feather
Of your breath?
You want to become
What you already are
While there is still a you
That cares how life
Runs through you
Like wind through grass.
There comes a time
When life turns away
And finds itself in dust,
Where no angels abide,
Where no one teaches you
How to live,
where
No one knows
You are not there.
I walk along the spinning
shore, the moon, a wheel
of a thousand nights.
We shared a dream
of another life,
you here with me
in the dying light.
In the darkness a hand appears
and waves me on. You
are not here, or there.
Is it possible to love
and be alone? he asks,
but she, worrying at buttons,
just mutters, Some days
are better than others.
What is not there
Though I am known to God
As Hughlings, my friends call me
Hugh and leave it at that --
Grace takes care of the rest.
Though I do not believe
In anything or have any Jesus,
Yet I retain a kind of genius
For harmless lies.
It is as if during the day
I can still see the stars
Blazing out of the night
And truly see what is
not there. Some say
it is a harmless madness --
My friends though look deep
Into what were once my eyes
And all they see is night.
Love, friends, is deadly. You may wonder,
Am I suffering from a broken heart
Or has love, freely given,
Not been returned? To which I say,
Yes, O Yes, Yes!
Beat the drums and let the bagpipes play
And I will march ripe into that narrow patch
Of mind and sand and play, She loves me
She loves me not, and haply saw
My soul in two.
I shall send her flowers,
Long purples that prickly boys
Call a grosser name,
But she will say as maidens do,
"How could you be so lame?"
Who will stop and weep for you,
Who will sing your song,
Who will call a rose a rose
And trace her love in sand?
If still you breathe in silence
And look upon the stars,
Yet you may lift up your voice
And match the wind in time.
Does the storm overwhelm you,
Does day turn dark to black?
There’s none here to see you
Fall and find a sudden light.
It’s March but spring it's not,
Not the preamble or invocation
Of a pleuraplenty of sight and sound --
This time there’s choking
And thoughts best forgot:
A friend who's gone,
A cough, am lost.
O well – there's time,
hard rain, a simple rime.
Not psyche but a nail
that bites hard, holds
true and rusts into
spring ahead of
the flowers, she
outlasts the wood
the pain
me.