^{in memory of Joseph Brodsky}

Joseph, yes, you know the beat.
Wystan Auden’s metric feet
Marched to it, unstressed and stressed,
Laying William Yeats to rest.

Therefore, Joseph, on this day,
Yeats’s anniversary,
(Double-crossed and death-marched date,
January twenty-eight),

Its measured ways I tread again
Quatrain by constrained quatrain,
Meting grief and reason out
As you said a poem ought.

Trochee, trochee, falling: thus
Grief and metre order us.
Repetition is the rule,
Spins on lines we learnt at school.

Repetition, too, of cold
In the poet and the world,
Dublin Airport locked in frost,
Rigor mortis in your breast.

Ice no axe or book will break,
No Horatian ode unlock,
No poetic foot imprint,
Quatrain shift or couplet dint,

Ice of Archangelic strength,
Ice of this hard two-faced month,
Ice like Dante’s in deep hell
Makes your heart a frozen well.

Pepper vodka you produced
Once in Western Massachusetts
With the reading due to start
Warmed my spirits and my heart

But no vodka, cold or hot,
Aquavit or uisquebaugh
Brings the blood back to your cheeks
Or the colour to your jokes,

Politically incorrect
Jokes involving sex and sect,
Everything against the grain.
Drinking, smoking like a train.

In a train in Finland we
Talked last summer happily,
Swapping manuscripts and quips,
Both of us like cracking whips

Sharpened up and making free,
Heading west for Tampere
(West that meant for you, of course,
Lenin’s train-trip in reverse).

Nevermore that wild speed-read,
Nevermore your tilted head
Like a deck where mind took off
With a mind-flash and a laugh,

Nevermore that rush to pun
Or to hurry through all yon
Jammed enjambments piling up
As you went above the top,

Nose in air, foot to the floor,
Revving English like a car
You hijacked when you robbed its bank
(Russian was your reserve tank).

Worshipped language can’t undo
Damage time has done to you:
Even your peremptory trust
In words alone here bites the dust.

Dust-cakes, still—see Gilgamesh—
Feed the dead. So be their guest.
Do again what Auden said
Good poets do: bite, break their bread.

They’re both convinced
that a sudden passion joined them.
Such certainty is beautiful,
but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Since they’d never met before, they’re sure
that there’d been nothing between them.
But what’s the word from the streets, staircases, hallways—
perhaps they’ve passed by each other a million times?

I want to ask them
if they don’t remember—
a moment face to face
in some revolving door?
perhaps a “sorry” muttered in a crowd?
a curt “wrong number” caught in the receiver?—
but I know the answer.
No, they don’t remember.

They’d be amazed to hear
that Chance has been toying with them
now for years.

Not quite ready yet
to become their Destiny,
it pushed them close, drove them apart,
it barred their path,
stifling a laugh,
and then leaped aside.

There were signs and signals,
even if they couldn’t read them yet.
Perhaps three years ago
or just last Tuesday
a certain leaf fluttered
from one shoulder to another?
Something was dropped and then picked up.
Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished
into childhood’s thicket?

There were doorknobs and doorbells
where one touch had covered another
beforehand.
Suitcases checked and standing side by side.
One night, perhaps, the same dream,
grown hazy by morning.

Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

When my soul touches yours a great chord sings!
How shall I tune it then to other things?
O! That some spot in darkness could be found
That does not vibrate when’er your depth sound.
But everything that touches you and me
Welds us as played strings sound one melody.
Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
O! Sweet song—

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

I make truce with you, Walt Whitman—
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood,
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root—
Let there be commerce between us.

In Imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal

Let observation with extensive view, 
Survey mankind, from China to Peru; 
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, 
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life; 
Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate, 
O’erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate, 
Where wav’ring man, betray’d by vent’rous pride, 
To tread the dreary paths without a guide, 
As treach’rous phantoms in the mist delude, 
Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good. 
How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice, 
Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice, 
How nations sink, by darling schemes oppress’d, 
When vengeance listens to the fool’s request. 
Fate wings with ev’ry wish th’ afflictive dart, 
Each gift of nature, and each grace of art, 
With fatal heat impetuous courage glows, 
With fatal sweetness elocution flows, 
Impeachment stops the speaker’s pow’rful breath, 
And restless fire precipitates on death. 
 But scarce observ’d, the knowing and the bold, 
Fall in the gen’ral massacre of gold; 
Wide-wasting pest! that rages unconfin’d, 
And crowds with crimes the records of mankind;
For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws, 
For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws; 
Wealth heap’d on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys, 
The dangers gather as the treasures rise. 
Let hist’ry tell where rival kings command, 
And dubious title shakes the madded land, 
When statutes glean the refuse of the sword, 
How much more safe the vassal than the lord:
Low sculks the hind beneath the rage of pow’r, 
And leaves the wealthy traitor in the Tow’r, 
Untouch’d his cottage, and his slumbers sound, 
Tho’ confiscation’s vultures hover round. 
 The needy traveller, serene and gay, 
Walks the wild heath, and sings his toil away. 
Does envy seize thee? crush th’ upbraiding joy, 
Increase his riches and his peace destroy, 
New fears in dire vicissitude invade, 
The rustling brake alarms, and quiv’ring shade, 
Nor light nor darkness bring his pain relief. 
One shews the plunder, and one hides the thief. 
Yet still one gen’ral cry the skies assails, 
And gain and grandeur load the tainted gales, 
Few know the toiling statesman’s fear or care, 
Th’ insidious rival and the gaping heir. 
 Once more, Democritus, arise on earth, 
With cheerful wisdom and instructive mirth, 
See motley life in modern trappings dress’d, 
And feed with varied fools th’ eternal jest: 
Thou who couldst laugh where want enchain’d caprice, 
Toil crush’d conceit, and man was of a piece; 
Where wealth unlov’d without a mourner died; 
And scarce a sycophant was fed by pride; 
Where ne’er was known the form of mock debate, 
Or seen a new-made mayor’s unwieldy state; 
Where change of fav’rites made no change of laws, 
And senates heard before they judg’d a cause; 
How wouldst thou shake at Britain’s modish tribe, 
Dart the quick taunt, and edge the piercing gibe? 
Attentive truth and nature to descry, 
And pierce each scene with philosophic eye. 
To thee were solemn toys or empty show, 
The robes of pleasure and the veils of woe: 
All aid the farce, and all thy mirth maintain, 
Whose joys are causeless, or whose griefs are vain. 
 Such was the scorn that fill’d the sage’s mind, 
Renew’d at ev’ry glance on humankind; 
How just that scorn ere yet thy voice declare, 
Search every state, and canvas ev’ry pray’r. 
 Unnumber’d suppliants crowd Preferment’s gate, 
Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great; 
Delusive Fortune hears the incessant call, 
They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall. 
On ev’ry stage the foes of peace attend, 
Hate dogs their flight, and insult mocks their end. 
Love ends with hope, the sinking statesman’s door 
Pours in the morning worshiper no more; 
For growing names the weekly scribbler lies, 
To growing wealth the dedicator flies, 
From every room descends the painted face, 
That hung the bright palladium of the place, 
And smok’d in kitchens or in auctions sold, 
To better features yields the frame of gold; 
For now no more we trace in ev’ry line,
Heroic worth, benevolence divine: 
The form distorted justifies the fall, 
And detestation rids th’ indignant wall. 
    But will not Britain hear the last appeal,
Sign her foes doom, or guard her fav’rites’ zeal?
Through freedom’s sons no more remonstrance rings,
Degrading nobles, and controlling kings;
Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats,
And ask no question but the price of votes;
With weekly libels and septennial ale,
Their wish is full to riot and to rail
 In full-blown dignity see Wolsey stand,
Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand;
To him the church, the realm, their powers consign,
Through him the rays of regal bounty shine;
Turn’d by his nod the stream of honour flows,
His smile alone security bestows:
Still to new heights his restless wishes tour;
Claim leads to claim, and pow’r advances pow’r;
Till conquest unresisted ceas’d to please,
And rights submitted, left him none to seize.
At length his sov’reign frowns—the train of state
Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate;
Where’er he turns he meets a stranger’s eye,
His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly;
Now drops at once the pride of awful state,
The golden canopy, the glitt’ring plate,
The regal palace, the luxurious board,
The liv’ried army, and the menial lord.
With age, with cares, with maladies oppress’d,
He seeks the refuge of monastic rest.
Grief aids disease, remember’d folly stings,
And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings.
Speak thou, whose thoughts at humble peace repine,
Shall Wolsey’s wealth, with Wolsey’s end, be thine?
Or liv’st thou now, with safer pride content,
The wisest justice on the banks of Trent?
For why did Wolsey, near the steeps of fate,
On weak foundations raise th’ enormous weight?
Why but to sink beneath misfortune’s blow
With louder ruin to the gulphs below?
What gave great Villiers to the assassin’s knife,
And fix’d disease on Harley’s closing life?
What murder’d Wentworth, and what exil’d Hyde,
By kings protected, and to kings ally’d?
What but their wish indulg’d, in courts to shine,
And pow’r too great to keep or to resign?
 When first the college rolls receive his name, 
The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame; 
Resistless burns the fever of renown,
Caught from the strong contagion of the gown:
O’er Bodley’s dome his future labours spread, 
And Bacon’s mansion trembles o’er his head. 
Are these thy views? proceed, illustrious youth, 
And virtue guard thee to the throne of Truth! 
Yet should thy soul indulge the gen’rous heat, 
Till captive Science yields her last retreat; 
Should Reason guide thee with her brightest ray,
And pour on misty doubt resistless day; 
Should no false kindness lure to loose delight, 
Nor praise relax, nor difficulty fright; 
Should tempting novelty thy cell refrain, 
And sloth effuse her opiate fumes in vain; 
Should beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart, 
Nor claim the triumph of a letter’d heart; 
Should no disease thy torpid veins invade, 
Nor melancholy’s phantoms haunt thy shade; 
Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, 
Nor think the doom of man revers’d for thee: 
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, 
And pause awhile from learning, to be wise; 
There mark what ills the scholar’s life assail, 
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail. 
See nations slowly wise, and meanly just, 
To buried merit raise the tardy bust. 
If dreams yet flatter, once again attend, 
Hear Lydiat’s life, and Galileo’s end. 
 Nor deem, when learning her last prize bestows 
The glitt’ring eminence exempt from foes; 
See when the vulgar ’scapes despis’d or aw’d, 
Rebellion’s vengeful talons seize on Laud. 
From meaner minds, though smaller fines content,
The plunder’d palace, or sequester’d rent; 
Mark’d out by dangerous parts he meets the shock, 
And fatal learning leads him to the block: 
Around his tomb let art and genius weep, 
But hear his death, ye blockheads, hear and sleep. 
    The festal blazes, the triumphal show,
The ravish’d standard, and the captive foe,
The senate’s thanks, the Gazette’s pompous tale,
With force resistless o’er the brave prevail.
Such bribes the rapid Greek o’er Asia whirl’d,
For such the steady Romans shook the world;
For such in distant lands the Britons shine,
And stain with blood the Danube or the Rhine;
This power has praise, that virtue scarce can warm,
Till fame supplies the universal charm.
Yet reason frowns on war’s unequal game,
Where wasted nation’s raise a single name,
And mortgag’d states their grandsire’s wreaths regret,
From age to age in everlasting debt;
Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey,
To rust on medals, or on stones decay.
    On what foundation stands the warrior’s pride,
How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide;
A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,
No dangers fright him, and no labours tire;
O’er love, o’er fear, extends his wide domain,
Unconquer’d lord of pleasure and of pain;
No joys to him pacific scepters yield,
War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field;
Behold surrounding kings their power combine,
And one capitulate, and one resign;
Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain;
“Think nothing gain’d,” he cries, “till nought remain,
“On Muscow’s walls till Gothic standards fly,
“And all be mine beneath the polar sky.”
The march begins in military state,
And nations on his eye suspended wait;
Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
And winter barricades the realms of frost;
He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay;
Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa’s day:
The vanquish’d hero leaves his broken bands,
And shews his miseries in distant lands;
Condemn’d a needy supplicant to wait,
While ladies interpose, and slaves debate.
But did not chance at length her error mend?
Did no subverted empire mark his end?
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound?
Or hostile millions press him to the ground?
His fall was destin’d to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;
He left the name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
    All times their scenes of pompous woes afford,
From Persia’s tyrant to Bavaria’s lord,
In gay hostility, and barb’rous pride,
With half mankind embattled at his side,
Great Xerxes comes to seize the certain prey,
And starves exhausted regions in his way;
Attendant flattery counts his myriads o’er,
Till counted myriads sooth his pride no more;
Fresh praise is try’d, till madness fires his mind,
The waves he lashes, and enchains the wind;
New pow’rs are claim’d, new pow’rs are still bestow’d,
Till rude resistance lops the spreading god;
The daring Greeks deride the marital show,
And heap their valleys with the gaudy foe;
Th’ insulted sea with humbler thoughts he gains,
A single skiff to speed his flight remains:
Th’ encumber’d oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast
Through purple billows and a floating host.
   The bold Bavarian, in a luckless hour,
Tries the dread summits of Caesarean power,
With unexpected legions bursts away,
And sees defenceless realms receive his sway;
Short sway! fair Austria spreads her mournful charms,
The queen, the beauty, sets the world in arms;
From hill to hill the beacon’s rousing blaze
Spreads wide the hope of plunder and of praise.
The fierce Croatian, and the wild Hussar,
With all the sons of ravage crowd the war;
The baffled prince in honour’s flattering bloom
Of hasty greatness finds the fatal doom;
His foes’ derision, and his subjects’ blame,
And steals to death from anguish and from shame.
 Enlarge my life with multitude of days, 
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays; 
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe. 
Time hovers o’er, impatient to destroy, 
And shuts up all the passages of joy: 
In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour, 
The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flower, 
With listless eyes the dotard views the store, 
He views, and wonders that they please no more; 
Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines, 
And luxury with sighs her slave resigns. 
Approach, ye minstrels, try the soothing strain, 
And yield the tuneful lenitives of pain: 
No sounds, alas! would touch th’ impervious ear, 
Though dancing mountains witness’d Orpheus near; 
Nor lute nor lyre his feeble pow’rs attend, 
Nor sweeter music of a virtuous friend, 
But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue, 
Perversely grave, or positively wrong. 
The still returning tale, and ling’ring jest, 
Perplex the fawning niece and pamper’d guest;
While growing hopes scarce awe the gathering sneer, 
And scarce a legacy can bribe to hear; 
The watchful guests still hint the last offence, 
The daughter’s petulance, the son’s expence, 
Improve his heady rage with treach’rous skill, 
And mould his passions till they make his will. 
 Unnumber’d maladies his joints invade, 
Lay siege to life and press the dire blockade; 
But unextinguish’d Av’rice still remains, 
And dreaded losses aggravate his pains; 
He turns, with anxious heart and crippled hands, 
His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands; 
Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes, 
Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies. 
 But grant, the virtues of a temp’rate prime 
Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime; 
An age that melts with unperceiv’d decay, 
And glides in modest innocence away; 
Whose peaceful day benevolence endears, 
Whose night congratulating conscience cheers; 
The gen’ral fav’rite as the gen’ral friend: 
Such age there is, and who could wish its end? 
 Yet ev’n on this her load misfortune flings, 
To press the weary minutes’ flagging wings: 
New sorrow rises as the day returns, 
A sister sickens, or a daughter mourns. 
Now kindred merit fills the sable bier, 
Now lacerated friendship claims a tear. 
Year chases year, decay pursues decay, 
Still drops some joy from with’ring life away; 
New forms arise, and diff’rent views engage, 
Superfluous lags the vet’ran on the stage, 
Till pitying nature signs the last release, 
And bids afflicted worth retire to peace. 
 But few there are whom hours like these await, 
Who set unclouded in the gulfs of fate. 
From Lydia’s monarch should the search descend, 
By Solon caution’d to regard his end, 
In life’s last scene what prodigies surprise, 
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise? 
From Marlb’rough’s eyes the streams of dotage flow, 
And Swift expires a driv’ler and a show. 
 The teeming mother, anxious for her race, 
Begs for each birth the fortune of a face: 
Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring; 
And Sedley curs’d the form that pleas’d a king. 
Ye nymphs of rosy lips and radiant eyes, 
Whom Pleasure keeps too busy to be wise, 
Whom Joys with soft varieties invite, 
By day the frolic, and the dance by night, 
Who frown with vanity, who smile with art, 
And ask the latest fashion of the heart, 
What care, what rules your heedless charms shall save, 
Each nymph your rival, and each youth your slave? 
Against your fame with fondness hate combines, 
The rival batters, and the lover mines. 
With distant voice neglected virtue calls, 
Less heard and less, the faint remonstrance falls; 
Tir’d with contempt, she quits the slipp’ry reign, 
And pride and prudence take her seat in vain. 
In crowd at once, where none the pass defend, 
The harmless freedom, and the private friend. 
The guardians yield, by force superior plied; 
To int’rest, prudence; and by flatt’ry, pride. 
Here beauty falls betray’d, despis’d, distress’d, 
And hissing infamy proclaims the rest. 
 Where then shall hope and fear their objects find? 
Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind? 
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, 
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate? 
Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise, 
No cries attempt the mercies of the skies? 
Inquirer, cease, petitions yet remain, 
Which heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain. 
Still raise for good the supplicating voice, 
But leave to heaven the measure and the choice. 
Safe in his pow’r, whose eyes discern afar 
The secret ambush of a specious pray’r. 
Implore his aid, in his decisions rest, 
Secure whate’er he gives, he gives the best. 
Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires, 
And strong devotion to the skies aspires, 
Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, 
Obedient passions, and a will resign’d; 
For love, which scarce collective man can fill; 
For patience, sov’reign o’er transmuted ill; 
For faith, that panting for a happier seat, 
Counts death kind nature’s signal of retreat: 
These goods for man the laws of heaven ordain, 
These goods he grants, who grants the pow’r to gain; 
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, 
And makes the happiness she does not find.

I cautious scanned my little life,
I winnowed what would fade
From what would last till heads like mine
Should be a-dreaming laid.

I put the latter in a barn,
The former blew away —
I went one winter morning,
And lo! my priceless hay

Was not upon the “‘scaffold”’,
Was not upon the “beam”,
And from a thriving farmer 
A cynic I became.

Whether a thief did it —
Whether it was the wind —
Whether Deity ’s guiltless
My business is to find.

So I begin to ransack —
How is it, Heart, with thee?
Art thou within the little barn
Love provided thee?

Furrowed motherland, I swear that in your ashes
you will be born like a flower of eternal water
I swear that from your mouth of thirst will come to the air
the petals of bread, the spilt
inaugurated flower. Cursed,
cursed, cursed be those who with an ax and serpent
came to your earthly arena, cursed those
who waited for this day to open the door
of the dwelling to the moor and the bandit:
What have you achieved? Bring, bring the lamp,
see the soaked earth, see the blackened little bone
eaten by the flames, the garment
of murdered Spain.

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

This is the world
so vast and lonely
without end, with mountains
named for men
who brought hunger
from other lands,
and fear
of the thick, dark forest of trees
that held each other up,
knowing fire dreamed of swallowing them
and spoke an older tongue,
and the tongue of the nation of wolves
was the wind around them.
Even ice was not silent.
It cried its broken self
back to warmth.
But they called it
ice, wolf, forest of sticks,
as if words would make it something
they could hold in gloved hands,
open, plot a way
and follow.

This is the map of the forsaken world.
This is the world without end
where forests have been cut away from their trees.
These are the lines wolf could not pass over.
This is what I know from science:
that a grain of dust dwells at the center
of every flake of snow,
that ice can have its way with land,
that wolves live inside a circle
of their own beginning.
This is what I know from blood:
the first language is not our own.

There are names each thing has for itself,
and beneath us the other order already moves.
It is burning.
It is dreaming.
It is waking up.

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful 
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,   
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,   
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,   
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more   
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:   
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro   
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world   
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,   
this man, superb in love and logic, this man   
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,   
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone, 
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives   
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

Long, too long America,


Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,


But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,


And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,


(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)

at dusk from the island in the river, and it’s not too cold, I’ll wait for the moon to rise, then take wing and glide to meet him. We will not speak, but hooded against the frost soar above the alder flats, searching with tawny eyes. And then we’ll sit in the shadowy spruce and pick the bones of careless mice, while the long moon drifts toward Asia and the river mutters in its icy bed. And when the morning climbs the limbs we’ll part without a sound, fulfilled, floating homeward as the cold world awakens.

it is the hard
edge of things
i am avoiding
the separations
so that i can take my glasses off
and then i cannot tell
which are the leaves
and which the angels
like blake
like that man
who lived with the lepers
not noticing what was sin
and what was grace
visioning visions vision
i take my glasses off
so i can see

          How did we get to be old ladies—
          my grandmother’s job—when we 
          were the long-leggèd girls?
	— Hilma Wolitzer

Instead of marrying the day after graduation,		
in spite of freezing on my father’s arm as 				
here comes the bride struck up,
saying, I’m not sure I want to do this,

I should have taken that fellowship
to the University of Grenoble to examine 
the original manuscript 
of Stendhal’s unfinished Lucien Leuwen, 

I, who had never been west of the Mississippi, 
should have crossed the ocean 
in third class on the Cunard White Star,	
the war just over, the Second World War 
 
when Kilroy was here, that innocent graffito,
two eyes and a nose draped over 
a fence line. How could I go?
Passion had locked us together.

Sixty years my lover,
he says he would have waited.
He says he would have sat
where the steamship docked

till the last of the pursers
decamped, and I rushed back				
littering the runway with carbon paper . . .  
Why didn’t I go? It was fated. 

Marriage dizzied us. Hand over hand,
flesh against flesh for the final haul,	
we tugged our lifeline through limestone and sand,
lover and long-leggèd girl.

When I walk in my house I see pictures,
bought long ago, framed and hanging
—de Kooning, Arp, Laurencin, Henry Moore—
that I've cherished and stared at for years,
yet my eyes keep returning to the masters 
of the trivial—a white stone perfectly round, 
tiny lead models of baseball players, a cowbell, 
a broken great-grandmother's rocker,
a dead dog's toy—valueless, unforgettable 
detritus that my children will throw away
as I did my mother's souvenirs of trips 
with my dead father, Kodaks of kittens, 
and bundles of cards from her mother Kate.

Well then, the last day the sharks appeared.
Dark fins appear, innocent
as if in fair warning. The sea becomes
sinister, are they everywhere?
I tell you, they break six feet of water.
Isn't it the same sea, and won’t we
play in it any more?
I like it clear and not 
too calm, enough waves
to fly in on. For the first time
I dared to swim out of my depth.
It was sundown when they came, the time 
when a sheen of copper still the sea,
not dark enough for moonlight, clear enough
to see them easily. Dark
the sharp lift of the fins. 

I am sitting contented and alone in a little park near the Palazzo Scaligere in Verona, glimpsing the mists of early autumn as they shift and fade among the pines and city battlements on the hills above the river Adige.

The river has recovered from this morning's rainfall. It is now restoring to its shapely body its own secret light, a color of faintly cloudy green and pearl.

Directly in front of my bench, perhaps thirty yards away from me, there is a startling woman. Her hair is black as the inmost secret of light in a perfectly cut diamond, a perilous black, a secret light that must have been studied for many years before the anxious and disciplined craftsman could achieve the necessary balance between courage and skill to stroke the strange stone and take the one chance he would ever have to bring that secret to light.

While I was trying to compose the preceding sentence, the woman rose from her park bench and walked away. I am afraid her secret might never come to light in my lifetime. But my lifetime is not the only one. I will never see her again. I hope she brings some other man's secret face to light, as somebody brought mine. I am startled to discover that I am not afraid. I am free to give a blessing out of my silence into that woman's black hair. I trust her to go on living. I believe in her black hair, her diamond that is still asleep. I would close my eyes to daydream about her. But those silent companions who watch over me from the insides of my eyelids are too brilliant for me to meet face to face.

The very emptiness of the park bench in front of mine is what makes me happy. Somewhere else in Verona at just this moment, a woman is sitting or walking or standing still upright. Surely two careful and accurate hands, total strangers to me, measure the invisible idea of the secret vein in her hair. They are waiting patiently until they know what they alone can ever know: that time when her life will pause in mid-flight for a split second. The hands will touch her black hair very gently. A wind off the river Adige will flutter past her. She will turn around, smile a welcome, and place a flawless and fully formed Italian daybreak into the hands.

I don't have any idea what his face will look like. The light still hidden inside his body is no business of mine. I am happy enough to sit in this park alone now. I turn my own face toward the river Adige. A little wind flutters off the water and brushes past me and returns.

It is all right with me to know that my life is only one life. I feel like the light of the river Adige.

By this time, we are both an open secret.

                                                                                                       Verona

We were alone one night on a long
road in Montana. This was in winter, a big
night, far to the stars. We had hitched,
my wife and I, and left our ride at
a crossing to go on. Tired and cold—but
brave—we trudged along. This, we said,
was our life, watched over, allowed to go
where we wanted. We said we’d come back some time
when we got rich. We’d leave the others and find
a night like this, whatever we had to give,
and no matter how far, to be so happy again.

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
—the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly—
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
—It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
—if you could call it a lip—
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels—until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

I call for you cultivation of strength in the dark.
Dark gardening
in the vertigo cold.
in the hot paralysis.
Under the wolves and coyotes of particular silences.
Where it is dry.
Where it is dry.
I call for you
cultivation of victory Over
long blows that you want to give and blows you are going to get.

Over
what wants to crumble you down, to sicken
you. I call for you
cultivation of strength to heal and enhance
in the non-cheering dark,
in the many many mornings-after;
in the chalk and choke.

Spades take up leaves

No better than spoons,

And bags full of leaves

Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise

Of rustling all day

Like rabbit and deer

Running away.

But the mountains I raise

Elude my embrace,

Flowing over my arms

And into my face.

I may load and unload

Again and again

Till I fill the whole shed,

And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,

And since they grew duller

From contact with earth,

Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use,

But a crop is a crop,

And who’s to say where

The harvest shall stop?

Light, so low upon earth, 
   You send a flash to the sun. 
Here is the golden close of love, 
   All my wooing is done. 
O all the woods and the meadows, 
   Woods where we hid from the wet, 
Stiles where we stay’d to be kind, 
   Meadows in which we met! 
Light, so low in the vale 
   You flash and lighten afar:
For this is the golden morning of love, 
   And you are his morning star. 
Flash, I am coming, I come, 
   By meadow and stile and wood:
Oh, lighten into my eyes and my heart, 
   Into my heart and my blood! 
Heart, are you great enough 
   For a love that never tires? 
O heart, are you great enough for love? 
   I have heard of thorns and briers. 
Over the thorns and briers, 
   Over the meadows and stiles, 
Over the world to the end of it 
   Flash of a million miles. 

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where’er the gentle southwind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O’er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunnyvale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.
And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird’s wing and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, from the morning’s dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the till night, with its passionate cadence.

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie—
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find—it’s your own affair—
But… you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone—wherever it goes—for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long—
So why in—Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

Beside a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.

Two angels, each with drooping head
And folded wings and noiseless treads,
Watched by that valley of the dead.

The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.

The other’s brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.

“How long!”—I knew the voice of Peace,
“Is there no respite? no release?
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?

“O Lord, how long! One human soul
Is more than any parchment scroll,
Or any flag thy winds unroll.

“What price was Ellsworth’s, young and brave?
How weigh the gift that Lyon gave,
Or count the cost of Winthrop’s grave?

“O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee and me.”

Then Freedom sternly said: “I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
When human rights are staked and won.

“I knelt with Ziska’s hunted flock,
I watched in Toussaint’s cell of rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.

“The moor of Marston felt my tread,
Through Jersey snows the march I led,
My voice Magenta’s charges sped.

“But now, through weary day and night,
I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.

“On either side my foe they own:
One guards through love his ghastly throne,
And one through fear to reverence grown.

“Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed,
By open foes, or those afraid
To speed thy coming through my aid?

“Why watch to see who win or fall?
I shake the dust against them all,
I leave them to their senseless brawl.”

“Nay,” Peace implored: “yet longer wait;
The doom is near, the stake is great:
God knoweth if it be too late.

“Still wait and watch; the way prepare
Where I with folded wings of prayer
May follow, weaponless and bare.”

“Too late!” the stern, sad voice replied,
“Too late!” its mournful echo sighed,
In low lament the answer died.

A rustling as of wings in flight,
An upward gleam of lessening white,
So passed the vision, sound and sight.

But round me, like a silver bell
Rung down the listening sky to tell
Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.

“Still hope and trust,” it sang; “the rod
Must fall, the wine-press must be trod,
But all is possible with God!”

Sublime—invention ever young,   
Of vast conception, tow'ring tongue   
    To God th' eternal theme;   
Notes from yon exaltations caught,   
Unrivall'd royalty of thought           
    O'er meaner strains supreme.   
  
His muse, bright angel of his verse,   
Gives balm for all the thorns that pierce,   
    For all the pangs that rage;   
Blest light still gaining on the gloom,    
The more than Michal of his bloom,   
    Th' Abishag of his age.   
  
He sang of God—the mighty source   
Of all things—the stupendous force   
    On which all strength depends;    
From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,   
All period, power, and enterprise   
    Commences, reigns, and ends.   
  
Tell them, I AM, Jehovah said   
To Moses; while earth heard in dread,    
    And, smitten to the heart,   
At once above, beneath, around,   
All Nature, without voice or sound,   
    Replied, O LORD, THOU ART.   
  
The world, the clustering spheres, He made;    
The glorious light, the soothing shade,   
    Dale, champaign, grove, and hill;   
The multitudinous abyss,   
Where Secrecy remains in bliss,   
    And Wisdom hides her skill.    
  
The pillars of the Lord are seven,   
Which stand from earth to topmost heaven;   
    His Wisdom drew the plan;   
His Word accomplish'd the design,   
From brightest gem to deepest mine;    
    From Christ enthroned, to Man.   
  
For Adoration all the ranks   
Of Angels yield eternal thanks,   
    And David in the midst;   
With God's good poor, which, last and least    
In man's esteem, Thou to Thy feast,   
    O blessèd Bridegroom, bidd'st!   
  
For Adoration, David's Psalms   
Lift up the heart to deeds of alms;   
    And he, who kneels and chants,    
Prevails his passions to control,   
Finds meat and medicine to the soul,   
    Which for translation pants.   
  
For Adoration, in the dome   
Of Christ, the sparrows find a home,    
    And on His olives perch:   
The swallow also dwells with thee,   
O man of God's humility,   
    Within his Saviour's church.   
  
Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,    
And drops upon the leafy limes;   
    Sweet Hermon's fragrant air:   
Sweet is the lily's silver bell,   
And sweet the wakeful tapers' smell   
    That watch for early prayer.    
  
Sweet the young nurse, with love intense,   
Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;   
    Sweet, when the lost arrive:   
Sweet the musician's ardour beats,   
While his vague mind's in quest of sweets,    
    The choicest flowers to hive.   
  
Strong is the horse upon his speed;   
Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,   
    Which makes at once his game:   
Strong the tall ostrich on the ground;
Strong through the turbulent profound   
    Shoots Xiphias to his aim.   
  
Strong is the lion—like a coal   
His eyeball,—like a bastion's mole   
    His chest against the foes: 
Strong, the gier-eagle on his sail;   
Strong against tide th' enormous whale   
    Emerges as he goes.   
  
But stronger still, in earth and air,   
And in the sea, the man of prayer,
    And far beneath the tide:   
And in the seat to faith assign'd,   
Where ask is have, where seek is find,   
    Where knock is open wide.   
  
Precious the penitential tear;
And precious is the sigh sincere,   
    Acceptable to God:   
And precious are the winning flowers,   
In gladsome Israel's feast of bowers   
    Bound on the hallow'd sod.
  
Glorious the sun in mid career;   
Glorious th' assembled fires appear;   
    Glorious the comet's train:   
Glorious the trumpet and alarm;   
Glorious the Almighty's stretched-out arm; 
    Glorious th' enraptured main:   
  
Glorious the northern lights astream;   
Glorious the song, when God 's the theme;   
    Glorious the thunder's roar:   
Glorious Hosanna from the den;   
Glorious the catholic Amen;   
    Glorious the martyr's gore:   
  
Glorious—more glorious—is the crown   
Of Him that brought salvation down,   
    By meekness call'd thy Son:   
Thou that stupendous truth believed;—   
And now the matchless deed 's achieved,   
    Determined, dared, and done!