Refusing Heaven [Hardcover ed.] 1400043654, 9781400043651

Citation preview

w

t Is i*

^

-r i

'

y

r.t

V *»

^

i.*

V

>

i

1^ ]

U.S.A. $25.00

CANADA $35.00

More

than

Great

Fires, this

poet

decade after Jack Gilberts The highly anticipated

new

col-

shows the continued development of

lection a

a

who

has remained fierce in his avoid-

ance of the beaten path. In Refusing Heaven, Gilbert writes compellingly about the

com-

mingled passion, loneliness, and sometimes surprising happiness of a

nous understanding of

his

life

spent in lumi-

own

blessings and

shortcomings: “The days and nights wasted .

.

.

Long hot

afternoons

while the cicadas railed

about the brevity of in these

poems,

curiosity and itself.

life.”

the Chinese elm

Time

slows

down

Gilbert creates an aura of

wonder

at the fact

women

of existence

lost to

he has parted from or the

cancer (an experience he captures

with intimate precision) this

watching ants

Despite powerful intermittent griefs

over the

one

as

/ in

/

volume

this life,

is

with

delight, to

— Gilberts choice

to “refuse heaven.” its

He

in

prefers

struggle and alienation and

any paradise. His work

is

both

a

rebellious assertion o! the call to claritv^ and a

proIoLind affirmation of the world in aspects.

It

and heart.

braces the reader in

its

all

its

humanitv

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2017 with funding from

Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/refusingheavenpoOOgilb

J

(

I

/

y

ALSO BY JACK GILBERT

The Great Fires

Monolithos

Views of Jeopardy

Refusing Heaven

1

I

J

•*

%

Refusing Heaven

POEMS

BY

Jack Gilbert

Alfred

A.

Knopf

New York 2005

THIS

A BORZOI

IS

BOOK

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED Copyright All rights reserved

Inc.,

KNOPF

© 2005 by Jack Gilbert

under International and Pan-Ainerican Copyright

Conventions. Published

Random House,

A.

in the

New York,

United States by Alfred A. Knopf, and simultaneously

of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by

in

(Canada by

Random House,

a divdsion

of

'

Random House

Inc.,

New York.

ww w. a a k n o p f c o m .

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of

The

following

“Transgressions,” to

“A

poems

first

appeared

in

Brief for the Defense,”

Want,” and an

earlier version

Random House,

The Neir

Yorker:

Inc.

“Resume,” “Bring

“By Small and Small: Midnight

of “A Kind of Courage”

(as

Colbert, Jack, [date]

:

poems

/

by Jack Colbert.

—

ist ed.

cm.

p.

ISBN 1-4000-4365-4 I.

8

I

3'.

54

Manufactured

T

(.Ic2 2

in the

itle.

2004048844

United States of America

First Fdition

Gods,”

Four .\.M.,” “W'hat

“Trving to Sleep”).

Library of Ciongress Ciataloging-in-Publication Data

Refusing heaven

to

in the

For Linda

Gre^ and Michiko

Nogaini

f

I

CONTENTS

A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE

3

NAKED EXCEPT FOR THE JEWELRY PUT HER

THE FIELDS FOR KINDNESS

IN

WHAT SONG SHOULD WE SING HAVING THE HAVING SAY YOU LOVE

ME

HALLOWEEN

6

7

9

10

ELEGY FOR BOB

11

12

MORE THAN BY

5

8

KUNSTKAMMER

R^SUM^

4

SIXTY

13

SMALL AND SMALL: MIDNIGHT TO FOUR A.M.

ONCE UPON A TIME A CLOSE CALL

16

THE ROOSTER

17

FAILING

AND

BURNING

15

FLYING

18

19

THE OTHER PERFECTION A BALL OF

SOMETHING

GETTING AWAY WITH

TRUTH

IT

20 21

22

23

TRANSGRESSIONS

24

vii

14

THE

ABANDONED

VALLEY

25

HAPPENING APART FROM WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND EXCEEDING THE SPIRIT

27

MEDITATION ELEVEN; READING BLAKE AGAIN

HOW MUCH

OF THAT

HERE!

'TIS

AMBITION

32

'TIS

IS

HERE!

LEFT IN ME?

GONE!

'TIS

BEING YOUNG BACK THEN

NOT GETTING CLOSER ADULTS

30

33

34

35

SEEN FROM ABOVE

36

GETTING CLOSER

37

THE MAIL

38

LESS BEING

MORE

39

HOMAGE TO WANG WEI

40

THE BUTTERNUT TR E E AT FORT U N J

DOING POETRY

HOMESTEADING

I

PE R

43

44

45

TRYING TO WRITE POETRY A KIND OF

COURAGE

46

47

HAPPILY PLANTING THE BEANS TOO EARLY

WHAT TO WANT BRING

IN

41

42

THE SWEET TASTE OF THE NIGHT

HONOR

29

49

THE GODS

50

viii

48

28

IT

26

THE NEGLIGIBLE

52

THE LOST HOTELS OF PARIS FEATHERS OR LEAD

WHAT PLENTY THE GARDEN

MUSIC

IS

53

54

56 57

THE PIANO ONLY

IN

WINNING ON THE BLACK REFUSING HEAVEN

MOREOVER

DANCE

A

61

62

MOON

63

65

66

WALK BLOSSOMING

67

FARMING

58

64

DECORUM

A KIND OF

PLAYED

60

HORSES AT MIDNIGHT WITHOUT A

IMMACULATE

IT IS

59

THE FRIENDSHIP INSIDE US A THANKSGIVING

WHEN

IN

SECRET

68

DECEMBER NINTH, 1960

69

NOTTHE HAPPINESS BUT THE CONSEQUENCE OF HAPPINESS INFIDELITY

71

THE REINVENTION OF HAPPINESS

72

LOOKING AT PITTSBURGH FROM PARIS "MY EYES ADORED YOU"

BEYOND PLEASURE

DUENDE THE

GOOD

74

75

76 LIFE

77

IX

73

70

FLAT

HEDGEHOGS

78

PROSPERO LISTENING TO THE NIGHT THE END OF PARADISE THE LOST WORLD

80

81

MAYBE VERY HAPPY

82

THE MANGER OF INCIDENTALS THE THIRTY FAVORITE

BURMA

WHAT

I’VE

GOT

YLAPA

AMAGER

86

87

THE BEGINNING

METIER

LIVES;

83

85

TROUBLE IN

79

88

89

90

A TASTE FOR GRIT

MAYBE SHE

IS

AND WHATEVER

HERE

92

X

91

84

Refusing Heaven

\

1

i i

i

i j

I

1 I

i

i

A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere.

If babies

are not starving someplace, they are starving

somewhere

else.

With

But we enjoy our

lives

flies in

their nostrils.

because

that’s

what

God

wants.

Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not be

made

so fine.

The Bengal

would not

tiger

The poor women

be fashioned so miraculously well. at the fountain are

laughing together betw^een

the suffering they have

known and

in their future, smiling

and laughing while somebody

very

in the village is

sick.

There

is

the awfulness

laughter

every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,

and the If

women

we deny our

we

laugh in the cages of Bombay.

happiness, resist our satisfaction,

lessen the importance of their deprivation.

We

must

We can do without pleasure, Not enjoyment. We must have

risk delight.

but not delight.

the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless

furnace of this world.

To make

measure of our attention If the

is

injustice the only

to praise the Devil.

locomotive of the Lord runs us down,

we should

give thanks that the end had magnitude.

We must admit there will be music despite everything. We stand at the prow again of a small ship anchored

late at

night in the tiny port

looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront is

three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.

lb

hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as

comes slowly out and then goes back all

is

the years of sorrow that are to come.

3

truly

a

rowboat

worth

NAKED EXCEPT FOR THE JEWELRY

“And,” she

said,

about ecstasy.

“you must

talk

no more

loneliness.”

It is a

The woman wandered about

picking up

her shoes and

you loved me,”

the

man

said.

silks.

“VVe

“You

tell lies,”

brushing her wonderful for the jewelry.

said

“We

she said,

hair,

naked except

try to believe.”

“You were helpless with

joy,”

he

said,

“moaning and weeping.” “In the dream,” she “we pretend

The

heart

to ourselves that

lies

we

to itself because

it

said,

are touching.

must.”

4

PUT HER

IN

The door was

in the

THE EIELDS FOR KINDNESS

whitewashed eight-foot walls

of the narrow back street

common

Beautiful light and shade

in,

The

big iron bolt was

something

made

in.

Some

the heavy

screaming.

The

the clear

was

air.

wooden door shudder. Often crazy old

woman, people

Sometimes everything was

I

islands.

days the pounding inside

if

they

Pinch them or scare them, they

I

Greek

on the outside locking

She would hurt the children

until

to

still

let

a

voice

said.

her out.

said.

and

I

would delay

heard the tiny whimper that meant she knew

there. Late

one afternoon on

my way

for

oil,

the door was broken. She was in the lot opposite in

weeds by the

Like

a

wall, her dress pulled up, pissing.

cow. Able to manage, quiet in the

5

last light.

WHAT SONG SHOULD WE SING

The

massive overhead crane comes

when we wave its

to

it,

lets

down

heavy claws and waits tamely

within

its

power while we hook up

the slabs of three-quarter-inch steel.

Takes away the ponderous

reality

when we wave

again.

What name do we have for that? What song is there for its voice? What is the other face of Yahweh? The god who made the slug and ferret, the

maggot and shark

What Is it

is

in his image.

the carol for that?

the song of nevertheless,

or of the empire of our heart?

We carry

language as our mind, but are

we

the dead whale that sinks grandly for years to reach the

bottom of us?

6

HAVING THE HAVING FOR

I

tie

to

knots in the strings of my spirit

remember. They are not pictures

of what was.

amid the

The

Not

accounts of dusk

olive trees

and that odor.

walking back was the arriving.

For that there are three knots and

a

space and another

mo

They do not

close together.

imitate

the inside of her body, nor her clean

mouth. They cannot describe, but they can prevent remembering

The

knots

recall.

are blazons

The

wrong.

knots

marking the

hack to what we

it

trail

own and

imperfectly

forget.

Back to

far off,

and the sweet summer darkening.

All

hut

a little

away, but that

ringing

of it blurs and leaks little is

even damaged.

and then

a bell

most of it,

Two more

knots

just straight string.

7

GiANNA

SAY YOU LOVE

ME

Are the angels of her bed the angels

who come

near

Are the green the color If

I

me

alone in mine?

window

trees in her

see in ripe plums?

she always sees backward

and upside down without knowing

what chance do we have? by the feeling that she

is

I

it

am haunted

saying

melting lords of death, avalanches, rivers

and moments of passing through.

And

am

I

replying, “Yes, yes.

Shoes and pudding.”

8

KUNSTKAMMER

We are resident inside with the machinery, a

glimmering spread throughout the apparatus.

We exist with and our

moon

a

wind whispering

flexing.

Amid

inside the basilica of bones. is

a

It is

the ducts,

The

neighborhood, but not the

Our body is not good

at

the spirit that holds

The dusk

in Italy

when

flesh

life.

memory, on

at keeping.

to our treasure.

the ferry passed Bellagio

Como

and turned across Lake

inside

in the

hush to where

we would

land and start up the grassy mountain.

The body

keeps so

little

of the

life

after

being with her eleven years,

and the mouth not even that much. But the heart is

different. It

never forgets

the pine trees with the

moon

every night. Again and again

rising

behind them

we put our

sweet ghosts on small paper boats and sailed

them back

into their death, each

moving slowly

into the dark, disappearing as our hearts visited

and savored, hurt and yearned.

9

HALLOWEEN

There were

a

hundred wild people

three-story house.

He

was

in Allen’s

sitting at a small

table in the kitchen quietly eating something.

AJone, except for Orlovsky’s

who was

little

brother

asleep with his face against the wall.

Allen wearing

a

red skullcap, and a loose bathrobe

over his nakedness. Shoulder-length hair

and

a

chest-length, oily beard.

No one was within like the rest

fifteen years of

him. Destroyed

of that clan. His remarkable

talent destroyed.

The

fine

mind grown more

and more simple. Buddhist chants, impoverishing poems. There are no middle tones

in the paintings

of children. Chekhov said he didn’t want the audience to cry, but to see. Allen showing

me

his old

Aachen

is

man’s bald scalp. a

way

of love.

good copy of a mediocre building.

Architects tried for a

A kind

to put a

mo thousand years to find

dome on

a

square base.

10

ELEGY FOR BOB (JEAN McLEAN)

Only you and in Pittsburgh

I still

stand in the

snow on Highland Avenue

waiting for the blundering iron streetcars

that never came.

Only you know how the immense storms

over the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers were the scale

Nobody but you remembers Peabody High School. You shared my youth in Paris and the hills above Como. And later, in Seattle. It was you playing the aria from I

wanted.

Do 71 Giovanni over and

over, filling the forest of

Sound with the music. You upstairs with

in the front

your discarded wife

in

Puget

room and me

my bed. The

sound

of your loneliness pouring over our happy bodies.

You were with your six

months

later,

We searched You trying finally

third wife

but were

for her in

to decide

in love

No

was

to

kill

No sound

alleluias in

in

Perugia

with somebody

To

else.

falling again.

yourself. All of

bringing us to San Francisco.

from there.

I

Munich, the snow

when

decaying white house.

will

when

it

the vast

of Mozart coming up

you anymore.

you waltz under the chandeliers

No

longer

in Paris salons

drunk with champagne and the Greek

girl as

the others

The men watching women inscrutable. No one

stand along the mirrored walls.

with

fury, the eyes

else speaks the

of the

language of those years.

remembers you

as the

finished the last run, and

love

is

The

Baron. I

not refuted because

am it

No one

streetcars have

walking home. Thinking

comes

11

to an end.

RESUME

The hanging goat roasted pepper and thyme. The American hacks

Easter on the mountain.

with lemon,

off

the last of the meat, gets out the remaining

handfuls from the spine. Grease up to the elbows,

smeared and

his face

his heart

blooming.

The

satisfied

farmers watch his fervor with surprise.

When the

the day begins to cool, he

trails.

Down

in cold

and alone.

life,

where he

water by kerosene

A future

light,

basil

way down

will

happy

inch by inch, rock by rock,

by the green wheat and the ripe wheat

By

his

from that holiday energy

to the silence of his real

wash

makes

later.

and dove tower and white doves turning

in the brilliant sky.

The

ghosts of his other world

crowding around, surrounding him with himself.

Tomato by tomato, canned

He as

sits

outside

fish in

the daily stew.

on the wall of his vineyard

night rises from the parched earth and the sea

darkens in the distance. Insistent stars and him singing in the quiet. Flesh of the spirit and soul

of the body.

The

clarity that

does so

12

much damage.

MORE THAN

Out of money,

SIXTY

so I’m sitting in the shade

of my farmhouse cleaning the I

lentils

found in the hack of the cupboard.

Listening to the cicada in the. fig tree

mix with the cooing doves on the I

look up

when

1

hear

a

roof.

goat hurt far

down

the valley and discover the sea exactly the

with

my

So what,

same blue

I

watercolors as 1

used to paint a child.

think happily. So what!

13

it

SMALL AND SMALL: MIDNIGHT TO FOUR AM. BY

For eleven years regretted that I

I

wanted to do

have regretted

I

did not as

I

do what

sat there those

four hours watching her die. to crawl in

among

and hold her

in

it,

I

wanted

the machinery

my arms, knowing

the elementary, leftover bit of her

mind would dimly recognize

it

was

me

carrying her to where she was going.

14

ONCE UPON A TIME

We were young incidentally, into joy, he said.

The

sweetness of

our bodies was natural the sun

in the

way

came out of the Mediterranean morning. W^e were accidentally

fresh every alive.

stumbling

A shape without a

W^e were

a

form.

music composed of melody,

without chords, played only on the white keys.

was

We

thought excitement

love, that intensity

We meant no harm, only V\^e

a little

let

a

marriage.

hut could see the

women

through the ardor and hurryc

were innocent, he

they

was

said, baffled

when

us kiss their tender mouths.

Sometimes they

kissed hack, even volunteered.

15

A CLOSE CALL

Dusk and

the sea

from two

fields

It is

so quiet

I

thus and so.

is

The

cat

away crossing through the grapes.

can hear the

in the canebrake.

air

The blond wheat

darkens.

The glaze is gone from the bay and the heat lets They have not lit the lamp at the other farm yet and

all

But the and

I

at

once

I feel

air stills,

think

I

am

lonely.

the heat all

What

a surprise.

comes back

right again.

16

go.

THE ROOSTER

They have but

killed the rooster,

strange to have

it’s

thank God,

my half

of the valley unreported. Without the rooster it’s

my place

like

by the Chinese elm

each day. As though I’m gone.

and get up to make

no

territory.

touch

not here

my face

my heart claim

Like the colorless weeds which

but don’t give

They

tea, feeling

I

is

in.

Silent in the world’s clamor.

killed the rooster

nothing for the

fail,

six

because he could

frumpy hens.

feel

Now there is only

the youngster to announce and cover.

They

are only

aunts to him. Mostly he works on his crowing. a

And

for

long time the roosters on the other farms would not

answer. But yesterday they started la\dng

He would come hang of it. The scorn

hill-throated performances

hack, but couldn’t get the

and the

failing

went on

on him.

until finally

from the other end of the

valley,

one

came

a

day,

deep

voice saying, “For Christ’s sake, kid, like this.”

And

it

began.

Not bothering

to declare parts

of the landscape, but announcing the glory, the greatness of the sun and

Told of the heavenly and the

joy.

moon.

hosts, the mysteries,

\^Tiich were the

Huns and which

not.

Describing the dominions of wind and song. \ATat was noble

in all things. It

was very quiet

17

after that.

AND

FAILING

FLYING

Everyone forgets that Icarus It’s

the

same when love comes

or the marriage

they said

old

also flew.

knew

it

fails

was

a

to an end,

and people say

mistake, that everybody

would never work. That she was

it

enough

know

to

worth doing

is

better.

worth doing

Like being there by that

on the other

But anything badly.

summer ocean

side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could

tell

you they would never

Every morning she was asleep like a visitation, the

like

I

my bed

gentleness in her

antelope standing in the

Each afternoon

in

last.

dawn

mist.

watched her coming back

through the hot stony

field after

swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other while

we

side of that. Listened to her

ate lunch.

How can

they say

the marriage failed? Like the people

came back from Provence (when and said 1

it

it

who

was Provence)

was pretty but the food was greasy.

believe Icarus was not failing as he

fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.

18

BURNING (ANDANTE NON TROPPO)

We are all

burning

in time,

at his

own

of his

spirit’s refraction,

of that mind. that

Each

speed.

is

but each

is

consumed

the product

of the inflection

the pace of our living

It is

makes the world

available. Regardless

of

the body’s lion-wrath or forest waiting, despite

the mind’s splendid appetite or the sad in

our

it is

soul’s separation

God

from

power

and women,

always our gait of being that decides

how much

is

seen,

and what the heart as the

Mexican

what the mystery of us knows, will smell

train continues at a dog-trot each

day going north.

The

grand

covered with detail which people walk

by.

The

blank because there

A thousand

of the landscape

great is

years ago

is

churches are

Italian

visible at the

modern

no time

buildings are

to see

when they

pace

from the

car.

built the gardens

of Kyoto, the stones were set in the streams askew.

WToever went

quickly would

the garden can choose what

our heart.

Gn

fall in.

we

\ATen we

notice.

the wall of a toilet in

slow,

Can change

Rock Springs

years ago there was a dispenser that sold tubes of

cream

to

numb

a

man’s genitals. Called Linger.

19

THE OTHER PEREECTION

Nothing

here.

Rock and

fried earth.

Everything destroyed by the fierce

Only stones and small sUibborn barley and things to repair.

of

fields

lentils.

light.

No

broken

Nothing thrown away

or abandoned. If you want a table,

you pay feet

man

to

make

it.

If you find

of barbed wire, you take

You’ll

need

They go

A kind The

a

to

it.

The

town

it

is

home.

farmers don’t laugh.

to laugh, or to fiestas.

of paradise. Everything

sea

two

water. Stones are

itself.

made of rock.

The sun goes up and goes down.

A

success

without any enhancement whatsoever.

20

SOMETHING

A BALL OF

Watching the ant walk under water along the bottom of my saucepan

Though he seems

He

in

no

is

painful.

distress.

walks at leisure, almost strolling.

Lifts his

head twdce

in the solid outside

and goes on. Until he encounters

a bit

of something and acts almost afraid in struggling to get free. After,

again at ease.

He

into a tight ball. that’s the

the to

looks up and pitches fonv ard

It is

not clear whether

end. Perhaps he

hedgehog does

well.

is

doing what

Waiting for someone

go by whose ankle he can grab

and ask tor help. Hoping for not.

Maybe he

liberated at as

he continues,

lies

last.

pity.

But maybe

there curled around a smile,

Dreaming of coming back

Byron, or maybe the favorite dog.

21

GETTING AWAY WITH

IT

We have already lived in the real paradise. Horses

Me

in the

empty summer

eating the hot wurst

in frozen

Munich,

remember.

I

couldn’t afford,

tears dropping.

A child in

The

it

We can

the outfield waiting

for the last fly ball of the year.

already

street.

So dark

was black against heaven.

voices trailing

away

calling faintly in the

Standing with

to dinner,

immense

my hands

distance.

open, watching

it

curve over and start down, turning white at the last second.

Hands down.

Flourishing.

22

TRUTH

The

glare of the

Greek sun

on our stone house is

not so white

as the pale

moonlight on

it.

TRANSGRESSIONS

He

thinks about

how much

how important

his equity

Like the sloth.

The

was

in

the sinning was,

simply being

alive.

days and nights wasted,

doing nothing important adding up to

Long hot

the favorite years.

afternoons

watching ants while the cicadas railed in the

Chinese elm about the brevity of life.

Indolence so often

when no one was watching.

Wasting June mornings with the earth singing all

around.

Autumn

afternoons doing nothing

but listening to the siren voices of streams

and clouds coaxing him into the sweet happiness of leaving little

time

all

we

of it alone. Using up what have, relishing our mortality,

waltzing slowly without purpose. Neglecting the future. Content to let the garden

and the house continue on Yes,

and coveting

in

its

fail

usual disorder.

his neighbors’ wives.

Their clean hair and

soft voices.

The seraphim

he was sure were in one of the upstairs rooms. Hesitant occasions of pride, feeling himself feeling.

Waking

in the night

and lying there. Discovering

the past in the wonderful stillness.

The

other,

older pride. Watching the ambulance take away the

man whose

his greed.

the pine

twilight.

Above

all,

Greed of time, of being. This world,

woods

on either

throat he had crushed.

stretching

all

brown or bare

side of the railroad tracks in the winter

Him

feeling the cold, sinfully unshriven.

24

THE ABANDONED VALLEY

Can you understand being you would go out and put

a

in the

alone so long

middle of the night

bucket into the well

so you could feel something

down

there

tug at the other end of the rope?

25

HAPPENING APART FROM WHAT’S HAPPENING AROUND IT

There

a vividness to eleven years

is

of love

A clarity of Greece now because I live in Manhattan or New England. because

If what

it is

is

over.

happening

part of what’s going

is

around what’s occurring, to

know what

is

it is

on

impossible

truly happening. If love

is

part of the passion, part of the fine food

or the clear

on the Mediterranean,

villa

what the love

in the

is.

WTien

I

it is

was walking

mountains with the Japanese

to hear the water,

he

said,

not

“VVhat

is

man and began the sound

of the waterfall?” “Silence,” he finally told me.

The

stillness I did

of water falling

not notice until the sound

made apparent

been hearing long before. is

the sound of women?

that

still

thing

for so long?

I

I

the silence

What is

the

word

Deep

a

inside the avalanche of joy,

lost.

woman’s heart

where something very is

for

have hunted inside them

bed where we are

down where

had

ask myself what

the thing deeper in the dark, and deeper in the

I

far

still

Deeper, deeper is

away

holding in that

becoming something we don’t have

26

its

breath,

body a

name

for.

EXCEEDING THE SPIRIT

Beyond what the

fires

have

left

of the cathedral

you can see old men standing here and there in administration buildings looking out

of the fine casements with the glass gone. Idle

The few

and bewildered.

in the

weed-choked

streets

people

who

are

below carry things

without purpose, holding fading memories inside of what the good used to be. Immense ships

beached and dying.

rise in the distance,

Starving a scrap

men

crouch

fuses

another with just rusted together. a

inside

of the plaza with

of cloth before them, tr^dng to

one with dead

and

in the dirt

a

and

a

sell

nothing:

burnt-out lightbulb,

heavy bolt and screw

One

has two Byzantine coins

lump of oxidation which has

a silver piece

stamped with the face of Hermes, but he

doesn’t

know

it.

A strange place

what matters, what

is

worthy.

at the wilderness alone

for discontent, to

to look for

To

arrive

now

and striving harder

need again. Not for

salvation.

To go on because there might be something like To visit what is importantly unknown of what is.

27

him.

MEDITATION ELEVEN: READING BLAKE AGAIN

I

remember

that house

Fd rented with them,

llie laughing and constant talk of love.

The energy of their friends. And the sounds late at night. The sound of whipping. Urging and Like the dead lying to each other.

28

screams.

HOW MUCH

OF THAT

Yearning inside the rejoicing. within the

LEFT IN

IS

The

heart’s

ME?

famine

W^aking up happy

spirit’s joy.

and practicing discontent. Seeing the poverty in the perfection, but

for a

its

hungering

Thinking of

strictness.

Greek fanner

still

in the orchard,

the white

almond blossoms

on him

he struggled with his wooden plow.

1

as

remember

and

falling

the stark and precious winters in Paris.

Just after the war I

falling

when

eveii^one was poor and cold.

walked hungry through the vacant

streets at night

with the snow tailing wordlessly in the dark

on the

last

like petals

of the nineteenth centur\T Substantiality

seemed so near

in the

grand empty boulevards,

while the famous bronze bells told of time. Stripping ever\^hing

The

down

until

being was

visible.

ancient buildings and the Seine,

small stone bridges and regal fountains flourishing

WTat fine provender in the in me amid the loneliness.

in the emptiness.

\ATiat freshness

29

want.

HERE!

’TIS

’TIS

HERE!

GONE!

'TiS

(THE NATURE OF PRESENCE)

A white horse,

Linda Gregg wrote,

not

is

a horse,

quoting what Hui Shih said twenty-three hundred

The thing is not its name, is not words. The painting of a pipe is not a pipe

years ago.

the

regardless of what the

poet in Iowa

we

are

is

title

claims.

intelligent

frightened because she thinks

made of electrons. The Gianna Gelmetti

loved was a presence ignited in a

I

An

swarm

of energy, but the ghost living in the mansion is

not the building. Consciousness

is

not

matter dreaming. If all the stars were added together they would

still

not

know

spring.

it’s

The silence of the mountain is not our silence. The sound of the earth will never be Un Bel Di.

We are a contingent occurrence. The white horse in

moonlight

is

more white than when

it

stands

And even then it depends on whether ringing. The intimate body of the Valerie

in sunlight. a bell is I

know

The

is

not the secret body

luster of her breasts

is

my friend

knows.

conditional:

clothed or not, desired or too familiar.

The

fact

of them

is

mediated by morning

or the depth of night

The

reason

twice

is

when

we cannot

it’s

pouring down

enter the same

woman

not because the mesh of energy

30

rain.

flexes.

It is a

mystery separate from both matter

and electrons.

It is

not

why the Linda

looking out over the Aegean eating

the

melon

mind

part of it.

in

lives

is

not the Linda

Kentucky, nor explains

amid the

The dead

rain without being

lady

Nogami-san

lives

only in me, in the momentar)^ occasion

Her whiteness

in

me

is

how

the color of pale

in winter light.

31

I

now

am.

amber

AMBITION

Having reached the beginning, a

new

starting toward

ignorance. Places to become,

secrets to live in, sins to achieve.

Maybe South America, perhaps

new woman,

a

another language to not understand. Like setting out on of life already well

A

a raft

over an ocean

lived.

two-story failed hotel in the tropics,

hot silence of noon with the sun straying through the shutters. Sitting with his

poems

at a small table,

everybody asleep. Thinking with pleasure, trailing his

hand

in the river

he

will

turn into.

32

YOUNG BACK THEN

BEING

Another beautiful love

letter

tr\ang to win her back. Finished, like

each night,

Down

the

just

before dawn.

Corso Garibaldi

to the Piazza

Fortebraccio. Across to the massive

Etruscan gate and up the Via Ulisse Rocchi.

To

the main square.

Past the cathedral, past the fountain

of Nicola Pisano.

And

eleventh-centui*)^

town

To

the fine hall.

the post office so the letter

could get to California in three days.

Then

to the palazzo to stand always

for a half

hour looking up to where

Gianna was

sleeping.

Longing

for

her and dreaming of the other one.

33

NOT GETTING CLOSER

Walking

in the dark streets of Seoul

under the almost Lost for the Finishing

last

a loaf

full

moon.

two hours. of bread

and worried about the curfew. I

have not spoken for three days

and

I

am

thinking,

settle for love?

“Why not just

Why not just

settle for love instead?”

34

ADULTS

The

sea lies in

in the dark. as a

its

bed wet and naked

Half a

moon glimmers on

it

though someone had come through

door with the

light behind.

The woman

thinks

of how they lived in the neiglxborhood for years while she

He moves spoil the

belonged to other men.

toward her knowing he

way they

didn’t

is

know each

35

about to other.

SEEN FROM ABOVE

In the end,

Hannibal walked out of his

city

his

Romans wanted only him. Winy should soldiers make love to their swords?

He

walked out alone,

saying the

the great the

go is

field, his

a small figure in

elephants dead at

bottom of the Alps’ to our

Roman

crevasses.

So might we

death in triumph.

Our

of marble and large tawny roses,

in the endless harvests of

our defeat.

We have slept with

all

our

lives.

grind out

its

graceless victory,

we can limp

in

triumph over the cold

It will

but

death

intervening sand.

36

love

GETTING CLOSER

The

on the bus with

heat’s

us.

I'he icon in front, the chunk of

raw meat

on the other

in the rack side.

The hoy

languid in the seat under

rubbing his eyes. Old

it

women

talking almost softly.

Quietly,

I

look in the bus waiting

next to us and meet the eyes

of

a

pretty

Greek

She looks back I

drop

my eyes

girl.

steadily. ¥

and the bus

drives away.

37

THE MAIL

What

the hell are you doing out there

(he writes) in that

worn rock valley

with chickens and the donkey and not farming?

And

the people around

And

the only news faint on the

Forces Network.

I

you speaking Greek.

don’t

know what

And what about women? he I

Armed to say.

asks. Yes,

think to myself, what about

women?

38

LESS BEING

It Started

MORE

when he was

and went to

Italy.

wanting to be

young man

a

He climbed

mountains,

But was troubled

a poet.

r*

by what Dorothy Wordsworth wrote

in

her journal about William having worn himself out searching

all

day to find

a simile for nightingale. It a

seemed

long way from the tug of passion.

He

ended up staying

where the old

in

pensione

women would

take

up

the children in the middle of the night to rent the

room, carrying them warm

and clinging to the mothers, the babies

making

a

mewing sound. He began hunting

The

for the second rate. ruins, the negligible

insignificant

museums, the back-

country villages with only one pizzeria

and two small

bars.

The unimproved.

39

HOMAGE TO WANG WEI

An

unfamiliar

woman

sleeps

on the other

ol the bed. Eler faint breathing alive inside her.

is

They had known

side

like a secret

each other

three days in California four years ago. She was

engaged and got married afterwards. is

taking

The two

down

the last of the Massachusetts leaves.

o’clock Boston and

calling out of the night like

leaving

him

when they walked it.

but she will be

he

will

Maine goes

trombones

in the silence after.

to talk about

Now the winter

in the

Her

by,

rejoicing,

She cried yesterday

woods, but she didn’t want

suffering will be explained,

unknown

nevertheless. VVTatever happens,

not hnd her. Despite the tumult and trespass

they might achieve in the wilderness of their bodies

and the voices of the heart clamoring, they be

a

will

still

mystery each to the other, and to themselves.

40

THE BUTTERNUT TREE AT FORT JUNIPER

I

called the tree a butternut (which

it is)

so

I

could talk about

the trees are around

reminds

It

me how

me

how

I

don’t think

different

here in die rain.

mutable language

would leave blank places

in his drafts to

to his passion, spaces for the right

Keats

is.

hold on

words to come.

We use

them sideways. The way we automatically

add

of shape to hold on to the dissolving dreams.

bits

So many of the words are “I love

for

you” while we search

meanwhile.

We say,

for language

that can be heard. \\Tiich allows us to talk

about

how

the aspens over there tremble

in the smallest

the

go

shower, while the tree over by

window here in bunches.

gathers the raindrops and

The way my is

them

heart carols sometimes,

and other times yearns. Sometimes and other times

lets

powerfully quiet.

41

is

quiet

DOING POETRY

Poem, you sonofabitch, that

I

to get

it

it’s

right even a little

little,

grudging and awkward.

afterwards

I

resent,

the sweet sure should hold a trout in

the bright

There should be access to your

But

bad enough

embarrass myself working so hard

and that But

it’s

when

me

summer

like

stream.

at least briefly

glamour and tenderness.

there’s always this

same old

dissatisfaction instead.

42

HOMESTEADING

It

would be easy

if

the spirit

was reasonable, was But there

Summer

is

a

old.

stubborn gladness.

air idling in the elms.

Silence hunting in the towering

storms of heaven. Thirty-two

swans in

a

The swan

Kobenhavn

dusk.

bleeding to death

slowly in a Greek kitchen.

A man

leaves the makeshift

restaurant plotting his improvidence.

Something

voiceless

flies

lovely

over an empty landscape.

He to

wanders on the way

whoever he

will

become.

Passion leaves us single and

The

safe.

other fervor leaves us

at risk, in love,

and alone.

Married sometimes

forever.

43

THE SWEET TASTE OE THE NIGHT

VV^Tren

I

woke up my head was

will

pardon

and

I

The

went

my mush,

in the distance

The

up.

valley

week

The

ship

and blew

Waking

a

came out its

was so

The dogs

at the full

horn

rooster

stars

A freighter

was turning into the

hear the engine. all

got a crush”

The wind was gone. moon was just up and the

brighter even than usual.

all lit

I’ve

outside.

of the

last

but

“The world

saying,

still I

quiet,

moon. Their

bay,

could

worn out barking

ease in failure.

the other side of the

hill

softly for the harbor.

on the mountain.

behind the second

hill

and

I

It

went

started back inside

the farmhouse. “All the day and night time,

hear I

me

cry.

sang from

The world

my bed,

will

my emotion,” dark, my voice

pardon

up into the

unfamiliar after not speaking for days.

Thinking of Linda, but singing

to

something

44

else.

HONOR

All

honor

One

at a distance

dies dutifully

by

a

is

punctilio.

code

which applies to nothing recognizable. It is like

the perfect grace of ohr

contessa

who

has been

mad and

foul

for the last thirty years.

45

TRYING TO WRITE POETRY

There of my It is

is

a

wren

spirit

and

branches

sitting in the it

chooses not to sing.

listening to learn

its

song.

Sits in the Palladian light trying to

what Tra

it

la,

in the is

will sing

when

tra la the

other birds sing

morning, and

it is

time to sing.

silently

when

the

snow

slowly falling just before evening.

Knowing

that passion

is

not confused by energy.

about Is

decide

summer having

not

a

The

color

bird will sing

its affair

with

Italy.

frightened of classical singing.

Will sing happily of the color in the cool dark, the

fruits are

wetness inside

overripe peaches, the smell of melons

and the briars that come with

When

the sun

falls

berries.

into silence,

the two birds will sing. Back and forth,

making

a

whole. Silence answering silence.

Song answering song. Gone and gone.

Gone somewhere. Gone nowhere.

46

COURAGE

A KIND OF

The

girl

shepherd on the farm beyond has been

taken from school I

got

my genius

and he stayed years

she

brother

all

who went

now

his

a

life. I

crazy

is

twelve, and her

summer

over.

job in the mills

lived with a

later,

life is

woman

four

escaped from the hospital,

hitchhiked across America terrified and in the snow

without

a coat.

a ride. I

crank

Ranges high

Was

raped by most

men who

my heart even so and

in the

it

gave her

turns over.

sun over continents and eruptions

of mortality, through winds and immensities of rain falling for miles. Until all the

by what goes up and up

world

is

in us, singing

overcome and dancing

and throwing down flowers nevertheless.

47

HAPPILY PLANTING THE BEANS

I

waited until the sun was going

to plant the

bean seedlings.

I

down

was

beginning on the peas when the phone rang. It

was

a

long conversation about what

living this

way

be doing to me. I

finished.

woods might

in the It

Made

was dark by the time

tuna

fish

sandwiches

and read the second half of a novel.

Found myself out

in the April

moonlight

putting the rest of the pea shoots into the soft earth.

There was and

I

It

was

after midnight.

a bird calling

intermittently

could hear the stream

down

She was probably right about strange. After at the

all,

end were

me

below. getting

Basho and Tolstoy

at least

going somewhere.

48

TOO EARLY

WHAT TO WANT

The room was

like getting

married.

A landfall and the setting forth. A dearness and vessel. A small room eight by twelve,

by the narrow iron bed.

filled

under the roof

Six stories up,

and no elevator.

A maid’s room

In the old quarter,

long ago.

on the other

hill

with the famous city stretched out below. His

The

window

like

an ocean.

great bells of the cathedral counting

the hours

all

night while everv^one slept.

After two years, he had

come

the beginning. Past the

villa at

past the police to

jail

His

to hide

first

to

Como,

moving him from

jail

him from the embassy.

woman gone

back to Manhattan,

the friends gone back to weddings

or graduate school.

Without money.

He

was

A wind

where much of him used

finally alone.

blowing through

No

to be.

longer

The blinding intensity presence. The budding

the habit of himself.

giving

way

to

amid the random passion. Mortality a cello inside

like

him. Like rain in the dark.

Sin a promise.

What

interested

most was who he was about

to

him

become.

49

BRING

IN

THE GODS

Bring in the gods

back and

I

know they

of them so they be so they

are with him,

may be

may eat. When

question me. Let

will

and he goes out.

I say,

When

I say.

he comes

Put tables

in front

and food upon the tables

seated,

they have eaten,

him hold up

I

ask which of

his hand,

I

them

say.

The one on the left raises his hand and I tell him to ask. Where are you now, he says. I stand on top of myself, I hear myself answer. is

I

stand on myself like a hilltop and

spread before me. Does

that in our youth

and for

see our lives. Because see

no shape

to

it

we

since

a

it

surprise you, he asks.

my life I

explain

long time after our youth

are inside of that. Because

we have nothing

to

compare

we cannot

we can it to.

We have not seen it grow and change because we are too close. We don’t know the names of things that would bind them to us, so

we cannot

feed

on them. One near the middle

asks

why not.

Because we don’t have the knack for eating what we are

Why is that?

we

she asks. Because

are too

much

living.

in a hurry.

Where are you now? the one on the left says. With the ghosts. I am with Gianna those two years in Perugia. Meeting secredy in the thirteenth-century alleys

through the spring

light,

over the plowed land.

of stone. Walking in the

fields

she well dressed and walking in heels

We are just outside the city walls

hidden under the thorny blackberry bushes and her breasts naked. I

am

with her those

many twilights

holding the heart of her

as she

in the olive orchards,

whimpers.

50

Now where are you?

he

says. I

am with Linda

those years and years. In American

Kobenhavn, on Greek

cities, in

islands season after season.

am with Michiko holding her clear in my mind

Lindos and Monolithos and the other for eleven years, East

the

way

Where

a native

are

can hold

you now? he

a bird sits in

blonde one

am

for

not

what

of his village

says. I

all

leaves

asks.

To

keep what

at

one moment.

standing on myself the

am

want

becoming. WTiat

air.

way

What do you want?

already have,

I

Then you

at peace, I tell her. I I

am

and morning

too much, he says sternly. I

all

I

her nest, with the babies half asleep underneath

and the world a

and West,

places.

fail. I

am hungry

you do? she

continue north, carrying the past in

51

You ask

are at peace, she says.

to

will

I say.

my arms,

asks.

I

will

flying into winter.

THE NEGLIGIBLE

I lie

in

in the

bed listening to

it

sing

dark about the sweetness

of brief love and the perfection of loves that

might have been. The

the disregarded. to

fail

at

that her

There

is

It is

spirit cherishes

because the body continues

remembering the smell of Michiko body

is

so clear in

me

a special pleasure in

on her spoon merging with in the distance

after

all

this time.

remembering the shine

faint

sounds

of her rising from the bathwater.

52

THE LOST HOTELS OF PARIS

The Lord by taking

gives everything and charges it

What a

back.

Like being young for allowed to to

bargain.

a while.

visit hearts

of women,

go into their bodies so we

no longer

alone.

We

romantic love with of two years.

It is

We are

feel

are permitted

its

bountv and

right to

half-life

mourn

for the small hotels of Paris that used to be

when we used

to be.

My mansard looking

down on Notre Dame and

me

Venice

every morning

is

gone,

listening to the bell at night. is

no more. The best Greek

have drowned in acceleration. But not the keeping that

Ginsberg came to

is

islands

it’s

the having

the treasure.

my house

one afternoon

and said he was giving up poetry because I

it

told

lies,

that language distorts.

agreed, but asked what

that gets

it

we have

right even that

much.

We look up at the stars and they are not there. We see the memory of when they were, once upon

And

that too

is

a time.

more than enough.

53

FEATHERS OR LEAD

Him, she

said,

and him. They put us

and followed her back to the

villa.

in the

Our

second car

fear slowly

faded during the weeks. Everyone was kind but busy.

We could go anywhere on the and on the grounds

They

decided on

Before

I

Now we

this side

me

first

floor

of the fence.

and sent the other boy away.

had only glimpsed her

at the

ate together at opposite

upper windows.

ends of the

Candlelight eased her age, but not her

Once light

That

table.

guilt.

she said the world was an astonishing animal:

was it

its spirit

and noise was

its

mind.

was composed to feed on honor, but did not.

Another time she warned at night.

Told

me

me

about walking on the lawns

of heavy birds that flew after dark

croaking, “Feathers or lead, stone or fire?”

Mounting people who gave the wrong answer and riding them like horses across the whole county, beating them with their powerful wings. silently

on rainy

at four in the

days,

We would play cards

and have sardine sandwiches

morning, taking Uirns reading aloud

from Tolstoy. “What need do we have for consulates?” she said once before going upstairs, the grand

beginning to

on nature?

A

fill

with the dawn.

“Why insist

flower must be red or white, but

can be anything.

Our

room

victories are difficult

54

we

because the triumph

is

not in possessing excellence.

Month after month we lived like that. And with me telling her what it was like out there among the living. It is

found in reluctance.”

She was

steadily failing, like a Palladian palace

coming apart by the

tall

windows.

she said, “and

who

is

gracefully.

I

“I will

refuse

you

anyone to make

she smiled at

me

The

and

me

said,

last

morning she stood

not give you also

my blessing,”

my reasons. WTo

just?” V\dien they

“At

last.”

55

are you,

came

for her,

WHAT PLENTY

Hitting each other. Backing up

and hitting each other again in the

loud silence of the stars

and the roar of their headlights. Trying to force feeling and squeezing out pain. Eden built of iron and

grit.

Arcades fashioned entirely of guilt. Paradise of loss, of lipsticked nipples, lying to children about the soul.

Dead women

stuffed with flowers.

Abandoned cabs

in

empty

not listening to the red

streets

lights,

yellow nor green.

56

THE GARDEN

We come from a deep forest of years into a valley of an called loneliness.

unknown country

Without horse or dog

the heavens bottomless overhead.

We are like Marco Polo who came back with jewels hidden in the seams of his ragged clothes.

A sweet sadness,

a

tough happiness.

This beginner cobbles together and makes

lentil

after night. Sits

that

is

in the

kind of house

soup there night

on the great stone

a threshold, smelling pine trees

hot darkness.

between the

tall

WTen

moon

the

rises

trunks, he sings without

talent but with pleasure.

to

a

make courtesy with

Then

goes inside

his dear ghosts.

In the morning, he watches the two nuthatches,

the pair of finches with their

And

the chickadees.

There

new

his fingers

chipmunks

are

in the afternoon finding seeds

son.

between

with their exquisite hands.

He visits his

misbegotten garden where

the mint and chives flourish alongside

the few stunted tomatoes and eggplants.

They

are scarce because of ignorance.

He wonders

all

he has arrived,

the time where

why so much

has been

allowed him (even rain on the leaves

of sugar maples), and

even

now

so

much

to

why

there

is

come.

57

MUSIC IS IN THE PIANO ONLY WHEN IT IS PLAYED

We

are not

one with

body

the complexity our

as

nor the summer

wind makes

are a shape the

it

is,

We are not air

maple without purpose.

idling in the big

We

world.

this

passes through.

any more than the

in these leaves

We are not the wood

fire,

but the heat which

is

a

between the two.

We are certainly not the lake

nor the

but the something that

fish in

it,

pleased by them. a

We are

the stillness

marriage

is

when

mighty Mediterranean noon subtracts even the voices

of insects by the broken farmhouse.

when

We are evident

the orchestra plays, and yet are not part

of the strings or brass. Like the song that only in the singing, and

God but

does not

is

not the singer.

is

among

the church bells,

briefly resident there.

A lifetime

like that.

with pain and

on

live

loss,

Reality

is

We are occasional

ol easy happiness

trying always to

to the enterprise

exists

under way

not what we marry

in

mixed

name and hold

our chest.

as a feeling. It

is

what

walks up the dirt path, through the excessive heat

and giant

He

sky, the sea stretching away.

continues past the nunnery to the old

where he

will sit

on the terrace with

touching. In the quiet that

which

is

is

villa

her, their sides

the music of that place,

the dilference between silence and windlessness.

58

WINNING ON THE BLACK

The

silence

is

so complete he can hear

the whispers inside him. Mostly

of women.

we

Women

loved so

easily.

gone or dead. The ones

WTiat

that

we had then and

that

we once were and

It

seemed natural

Soon there

will

tracks in the

names

is it,*

he wonders,

don’t have now, are

no longer.

to he alive

back then.

be only the raccoon’s

snow down by

the river.

59

REFUSING HEAVEN

The

old

women

problem

are a

in black at early

for him.

they have seen Christ.

He

could

Mass tell

They make

to hold

up

as

his unusable soul.

He will

his childhood,

across the

two

he worked.

it

But he chooses

not abandon his

Nor

rivers of his youth.

The

life.

not the ninety-two bridges

along the banks where he became as

their eyes

though he needs girders

against the Lord.

Not

by

the kernel

of his being and the clarity around

seem meager,

in winter

a

the mills

young man

mills are eaten away,

again by the sun and

its

rusting.

He

and eaten

needs them

even though they are gone, to measure against.

The and

silver is is

worn down

the better for

it.

to the brass underneath

He

will

gauge

by the smell of concrete sidewalks

He a

is

like

home

and

in

joists.

after night rain.

an old ferry dragged on to the shore, its

smashed grandeur, with the giant beams

Like

a

wooden ocean out of control.

A beached heart. A cauldron of cooling melt.

60

THE FRIENDSHIP INSIDE US

Why the mouth? Why is it the mouth we put to mouth at the final moments? Why not the famous groin? Because the groin

The mouth

is

far away.

is

close

up against the

spirit.

We couple desperately all night before setting out for years in prison.

But that

We kiss the

person

we

the coffin

shut, because

is

the body’s goodbye.

love last thing before

touching the unknown. It is

is

it is

A kiss

our being is

the frontier in us.

where the courting becomes the courtship,

where the dancing ends and the dance begins.

The mouth in

is

our chief access to the intimacy

which she may

of the brain.

The way

The

reside.

Her mouth

is

the porch

forecourt of the heart.

to the mystery enthroned.

WTere we meet

momentarily amid the seraphim and the powers.

61

A THANKSGIVING DANCE

His

spirit

dances the long ago, and

on

Starlight

a

later.

country road in worn-out

western Pennsylvania.

The

smell of weeds

and rusting iron. And gladness. His

spirit

welcomes the

town

in a hill

filled

Italian

New Year’s

with the music

of glass crashing everywhere in the cobbled streets.

Champagne and

Too shy

first kisses.

to look at each other

between them. of after that.

Roman

the

He

and no language

dances alone, the dance

Now they sit amid

the heavy

sunlight and talk of the people

they are married to now.

He

secretly

dances the waltz she was in her astonishing beauty, drinking wine and laughing, the

behind her

filled

with winter rain.

62

window

HORSES AT MIDNIGHT WITHOUT A

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods. Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt. But

there’s

music

but the angel

in us.

flies

Hope

pushed down

up again taking us with

The summer mornings begin while we sleep, and walk with as

is

inch by inch us later

long-legged beauty through

the dirty streets.

It is

no

surprise

that danger and suffering surround us.

WTiat astonishes

is

the singing.

We know the horses are there in meadow

because

we can

the dark

smell them,

can hear them breathing.

Our

spirit persists like a

man

struggling

through the frozen valley

who suddenly and

smells flowers

realizes the

snow

is

melting

out of sight on top of the mountain,

knows

her.

that spring has begun.

63

MOON

IMMACULATE For Michiko

The

brain

is

dead and the body

no longer infected by the

is

spirit.

Now it is just machines talking to the machine. to

its

old,

Helping

it

back

pure journey.

64

MOREOVER

We are given the trees so we can know what God looks so

And

like.

rivers

we might understand Him.

women

so

however

The

we can

partial

We are allowed

get into beJ with the Lord,

and momentary that

passion, and then

we

while the dark goes on.

are single again

He

lived

woods

in the Massachusetts

is.

for

two

years.

Went out naked among the summer pines at midnight when the moon would allow it. He watched the aspens when the afternoon was at them. And listened to rain on the butternut

tree near his

window.

But when he

finally left,

The

garden he was midwife to

was

difficult

indifferent.

The

breeze

they did not care.

eight wild birds

he fed through both winters, when the snow

was starving them, forgot him immediately.

And

the three

women

he ate of and entered

who were his New World as immensity and landfall, are now only friends or dead. What we are given is taken away, but we manage to keep it secretly. utterly then

and before,

We lose everything, but make harvest of the consequence builds this

it

was to

us.

Memory

kingdom from the fragments

and approximation.

We are gleaners who

the barn for the winter that

comes on.

65

fill

A KIND OF

DECORUM

It is

burden enough that death

that

your old kimono

is still

Now I wonder what would catch on

fire again.

Would

lies

on

all

sides,

my closet. if my life did

locked in

happen I

break in

half,

part of me a storm and part like ice in a silver bowl? I lie

awake remembering the birds of Kyoto

calling

No

saying yes

No,

unh unh. No No, unh unh. And you You

night.

all

said yes

when

I

woke you

And even disgracefully Until all the men at the small

again in the dawn. at

lunchtime.

roamed about, hoping

The Buddha

tells

us

to see

inn

whoever that voice was.

we should

clear every obstacle

out of the way. “If you meet your mother in the path, kill her. If

But

the

Buddha

my spirit sings

while

I sit

in the

gets in the way,

like the

kill

him.”

perishing cicadas

back yard hitting an old pot.

66

A

WALK BLOSSOMING

The

opens

spirit

as life closes

down.

Tries to frame the size of whatever

Finds that dying makes us Realizes

we must

before time

we

is

God

is.

visible.

get to the loin of that

The part of which around. Not the good or

over.

are the wall

evil,

neither death nor afterlife but the importance

of what

we

contain meanwhile. (He walks along

remembering, biting into beauty, the heart eating into the naked

The body

is a

major nation, the mind

Together they define

The

spirit

can

know

rather than power. for

what

that

is

is

both

spirit.)

spirit

the

Lord soul

is

Hungers

and

a gift.

substantiality.

The

imdsible.

is

flesh.

as a flavor

ambitious for a sacrament

And

neither.

67

SECRET

FARMING

IN

They

bound angels with the barley

piled the

in the threshing ring

and drove the cow

and donkeys over them into the

all

day.

Threw

the mix

wind from the sea to separate

the blond meal from the gold of what

had been.

When

It

burned

in the

the night came, the

luminous

mound

air.

of grain

was almost higher than the farmhouse. But there were only eight sacks of the other.

68

DECEMBER NINTH, 1960

Walked around Bologna

at three in the

Beautiful, arcaded, deserted piazza

and winter

Got

the train at five of four. Slept badly

in a

hot compartment, curled up on

of the

seat.

No

morning. rain.

my half

dawn. Beginning to see

real

a little into the mist.

brindled with snow.

The looming mountain The higher pines crusted.

Oyster-white behind them, d he train running along a river

betueen the

hills.

Alostly apple orchards

with occasionally pale apples

Also vineyards.

No sense

No

near the top.

still

feeling of Italy here.

of the Umbrian peasants farming

with their white ocean.

A tractor

instead

putting out compost near an orchard with rotten red squash gourds. Later another in the river

steadily

with

a

man

standing

long-handled net, looking

down. Then the commuter

line betu^een

Bolzano and Merano. Changing pants on the

Checked

my

bag

in the station

toilet.

and walked

to the center of the town. Hotels everywhere.

Mountain scenery

Went

into the

in the

CIT

summer, skiing

and asked about Pound. (Because

home

the address had been

left at

They said he was not

there anymore.

the tourist office.

was I

still

there.

had been

sly.

I

in winter.

Herr Herschel

in Perugia.)

said, yes.

came out chuckling,

Then, waiting

from

as

to

Pound

though

for the first bus

to Tirolo. It leaves at ten-thirty. to be a half hour’s walk

Went

It’s

there.

69

supposed

NOT THE HAPPINESS BUT THE CONSEQUENCE OF HAPPINESS

He

wakes up

in the silence of the winter

the silence of birds not singing,

not hear his voice the

all

day.

brown owl sounded

woods,

knowing he

will

He remembers what

like

while he was sleeping.

The man wakes in the frigid morning thinking about women. Not with desire so much as with a of what is not. The January silence is the sound

sense

of his feet in the snow, a squirrel scolding, or the scraping

calls

of a single blue

Something of him dances

Many days

in the

there, apart

We go hand

down.

are rewarded alone, just as

into aloneness.

He

we

are married

walks the paths doing the strange

mathematics of the brain, multiplying the

He

last

four hours, watching her gradually stop

as the hospital slept.

Remembers

coldness of her head

when he

There It is,

is

light or

he decides,

How strange one

lives

more

light,

a quality

with

a wife.

a life

of its own.

It

the stunning

kissed her just after.

darkness and less darkness.

without definition.

to discover that

nobody knows what she

is

spirit.

thinks of caressing her feet as she kept dying.

For the

as

it is

he thinks, into the dark pleasure,

in hand,

we

and gravely mute.

woods he wonders what

that he has for so long hunted

but

jay.

Even

one

lives

after

is like.

with the heart

many years,

The

heart has

gets free of us, escapes,

ambitiously unfaithfrd. Dies out unaccountably

after eight years,

blooms unnecessarily and too

Like the arbitrary silence in the white woods, leaving tracks in the

snow he cannot 70

recognize.

late.

INFIDELITY

She

is

They

never dead

when he meets

eat noodles for breakfast as usual.

For eleven years he thought at the

it

was the

river

bottom of his mind dreaming.

Now' he knows she as the

her.

wind

in the trees.

is

is

living inside him,

sometimes

visible

As the roses and rhubarb

are in the garden and then not.

Her

ashes are by the sea in Kamakura.

Her

face

and hair and sweet body

in the old villa

on

a

mountain where

They slept

she lived the whole summer.

on the But

still

floor for eleven years.

now

she comes less and

less.

«

71

THE REINVENTION OF HAPPINESS

I

remember how

I’d lie

on

my roof

listening to the fat violinist

below

in the sleeping village

play Schubert so badly, so well.

t

72

LOOKING AT PITTSBURGH FROM PARIS

The

boat of his heart

is

tethered to the ancient

stone bridges. Beached on the Pacific

hills

with

thick evening fog flooding whitely over the ridge.

Running

in front

as a secret

of the Provencal summer.

Drowned

under the broad Monongahela River.

Forever richly laden with

Oak

Street and Umbria.

“There be monsters,” they warn

in the blank spaces

of the old maps. But the real danger insufficiency, the senseless repetition

is

the ocean’s

throughout

Calm and storms and calm again. Too impoverished for the human. We come to know the

empty

waters.

ourselves as

immense continents and archipelagoes

of endless bounty.

wooden

of a

ship.

Bobbing, rocking

and angels

all

He

waits

now

in the

hold

Becalmed, maybe standing

to.

The cargo of ghosts The wraiths, surprisingly,

softly.

around.

singing with the clear voices of young boys.

The for

angels clapping the rhythm. As he watches

morning, for the dark to give way and show

his landfall, the

new

country, his native land.

I

73

MY

ADORED YOU"

EYES

For Kerry O'Keefe

She came into

his life like arriving

through

a novel,

snagged

in her.

a

with

bits

of two earlier

lives

She was the daughter of

deputy attorney general. And when

that crashed she tried singing

Now she is in on

his

was

porch before really knowing him.

a

tough winter.

and bought

a

bad cold, and besides

was

like

to the department store

a brass bed, getting a

his size to lie

she

(It

who went

his first wife

When

and got married.

trouble again, leaving soup

Saying she heard he had it

halfway

down

still

salesman

so she could see

knew him only

if it fit.

at a distance.)

But when people grow up, they should know

You

can’t call

two children.

it

better.

romance when she alreadv had

He

had decided never again to get

involved with love.

Now everything

has gone wrong. She doesn’t just sing softly

up

to his

upstairs,

window. You can see them

in the dark

him singing badly and her not minding.

74

BEYOND PLEASURE

Gradually

we

realize

what

(however lovely or cruel)

Not what happens inside

is felt is

as

what the

his fence

feeling contains.

to us in childhood, but

what happened. Ken Kesey

beyond

not so important

what was

sitting in the

woods,

of whitewashed motorcycles, said

he was writing on acid he was not writing about

He to

when

it.

used what he wrote as blazes to find his way back

what he knew then. Poetry

feelings, delights

out what

Not

is

and passion, but the best searches

beyond pleasure,

the passion so

an ingress

to.

registers

much

as

is

outside process.

what the fervor can be

Poetry fishes us to find

a

world

part by part, as the photograph interrupts the flux to give us time to see each thing separate and enough.

The poem chooses part of our endless to know its merit with attention.

75

flowing forward

DUENDE

I

can’t

It’s

not

remember her name.

with that

The her

though

as

been

in

bed

many women.

truth

face.

I’ve

I

is I

can’t

even remember

kind of know

how

strong

her thighs were, and her beauty.

But what is

the

I

won’t forget

way she

tore

open

the barbecued chicken with her hands,

and wiped the grease on her breasts.

76

GOOD

THE

LIFE

\ATien he wakes up, a

over the side of the

weak sun

valley. It

is

just rising

eight

is

degrees below zero in the house.

He

makes

builds a fire and

for the birds

what

when

and examines the tracks

snow,

in fresh

still

lives here.

tr\dng to learn

He

is

his friend calls.

he plans to do today. letters,

he

behind

in his project

tells

every day for

She

tells

Puts out seeds

tea.

a

writing

poem

a

She asks what

To

write

some

her (because he

is

of writing one

month).

him how many

famous poets

letters

write each day. Says she doesn’t that as criticism. After they

he stands looking

at the

heaped high on the in

bed and

falling

starts

mean

hang up,

unanswered mail

table.

Gets back

reworking

his

poem.

77

HEDGEHOGS

FLAT

For Isaiah Berlin

When

the hedgehogs here at night

see a car and

coming

at

its

fierce lights

them, they do the one

big thing they know.

78

PROSPERO LISTENING TO THE NIGHT

The

intricate vast process has

a singularity

which

lies in

hearing the small owls,

a

produced

darkness

donkey snorting

in the barley field,

and frogs Sown near

the cove. V\Tiat he

is

the muteness of the in the valley.

lover for

is

dog

at

is

each farm

Their silence means no

abroad nor any vagrant looking

where

man, very in

listening to

to sleep. still,

But there

is

a

young

under the hea\y grapes

another part of Heaven. There are

women hoping behind

the dark

still

windows

of farmhouses. Like he can hear himself not hearing Verdi. \ATiat else don’t the dogs know?

79

THE END OF PARADISE

W^ien the angels found him of his kerosene lamp eating

sitting in the half light lentils, his

eyes widened.

The one wearing black looked at the one in red who shrugged, so he began writing, desperately. Wadded the message But

all

he said was could he leave

a note.

the front. Quickly

Amia on

into an envelope and wrote

began another, shoulders hunched,

afraid of

them.

Finished and wrote Pimpapoiii on

it.

Began

one and the heavy angel growled.

“I

have Schubert,”

the

man

offered, turning

said quietly that at least

When

on the

When

in black

man whimpered and

books and

drafts.

again and scrawled Suzanne across

growled again and the

The one

he didn’t say “So soon!”

the ink ran out, the

to the table piled with

tape.

a third

man

said

it.

He

struggled

finished

The one

in red

he would put on

his shoes.

they took him out into the smell of dry vetch

and the ocean, he began to hold back, pleading: “I didn’t I

put the addresses!

I

don’t want

them

to think

forgot.” “It doesn’t matter,” the better angel said,

“they have been dead for years.”

80

THE LOST WORLD

Think what all

it

was

he

like,

the time. Carl Ravazza

said. Pegg\^

making me crazy

with “Vieni Su” from

a

every night, the radio

filling fiiy

in

ballroom

New Jersey

in

room

dark

women

Pittsburgh with naked-shouldered

in black

and

gowns. Helen Forest and Helen O’Connell,

later the

young Sarah Vaughan out of Chicago

from midnight in the

Lee and Goodman

until rw'o.

Think of being

fifteen

middle of leafy June when Sinatra and Ray

Eberle both had number-one records of “Fools Rush In.”

Somebody

singing “Tenderly” and

somebody doing

“This Love of Mine.” Helplessly adolescent while the sound of All

romance was constantly everywhere.

day long out of windows along the

Sinatra witli “Close to You.”

And

all

street.

the bands. Artie

Shaw with “Green Eyes” and whoever was always “Begin the Beguine.” get there in time.

WTat

choice did

Me

desperate because

WTio can blame me I

for

I

playing

wouldn’t

my heart?

have? Harry^ James with “Sleepy

Lagoon.” Imagine, on

a

summer

night, “Sleepy

81

Lagoon”!

MAYBE VERY HAPPY

After she died he was seized

by

a great curiosity

about what

Not that he doubted how much she loved him. But he knew there must have been

it

was

some

like for her.

things she had not liked.

So he went

to her closest friend

and asked what she complained “It’s all

right,”

of.

he had to keep

saying, “I really won’t mind.”

Until the friend finally gave

in.

“She said sometimes you made drinking your tea

if it

a noise

was very hot.”

82

THE MANGER OF INCIDENTALS

We are surrounded by the absurd excess of the universe. By meaningless

bulk, vastness without size,

power without consequence. The stubborn that

is

present without being

Nothing the and

spirit

physics.

its

An

iteration

felt.

can marry. Merely phenomenon endless, endless of going on.

No habitat where the brain can recognize itself. No pertinence for the heart. Helpless duplication. The

horror of none of it being

No red

squirrels,

Nothing

that

no

alive.

flowers, not even weed.

knows what season

it is.

The stars uninflected by awareness. Miming without implication. We alone in front

of the cabin reach

and quickly perish.

its

The lamb

see the

iris

perfection is

born into happiness

We are blessed goes away. We can mourn. with powerful love and We live the strangeness of being momentary, and

is

eaten for Easter.

it

and

The

still

we

grand

are exalted Italy

by being temporary.

of meanwhile.

being small and slight that

is

It is

the fact of being brief,

the source of our beauty.

We are a singularity that makes music out of noise because we must hurrv. We make a harvest of loneliness and desiring

in the

blank wasteland of the cosmos.

83

THE THIRTY FAVORITE

I

woke up every morning on

in the

woman and

I

swamp. Most

would

and

To my small room

ot the time

my hydrant-size

light

set a

would leave

Nazi barracks that looked out

in the leftover a

made

walk across heautiftd Kobenhavn

to the island of Amager.

on

I

AMAGER

the fourth floor,

two-hunclred-year-old walls

of plaster and river grass. the

LIVES:

was winter.

it

iron stove

pot on top, putting in hamburger

and vegetables while the water was getting hot. Starting to type with I

planned to write

dollars already a

to get

beyond

a

in

numb

hands.

two weeks

The book

for a thousand

week behind (and threatening month). Out of money and no

Then the lovely smell room snug. 1 would ty]^)e

prospects.

of soup

and the

all

and

late into the night.

was

finished.

the frozen

Until the soup

Then 1 would

city,

day

start

back across

crunching over the moats,

loud in the silence.

The

Focused on her waiting

stars brilliant.

for

me, ready

sausages at two in the morning.

Me

to

fr)^

thinking idly

of the ancient Chinese poet writing in his poverty, “Ah,

is

this

not happiness.”

84

BURMA

Used, misled, cheated.

Our time

always shortening.

WTiat we cherish always temporar\^ Wliat we love is,

sooner or

visit

changed. But for

later,

our other

life.

Can

rejoice in

while

a

its

we can

being there

in its absence.

Giving thanks for what we are allowed

to think about

it,

for knowing

it is

grateful for there.

it

even

first

woman for a

Or

man at

moment,

as

wanes. rainy days

to cr\^ about losing

they loved. T he way

an upstairs

it

The way women on

sometimes go into the bedroom the

as

a

man remembers

window looking out he saw

he drov^e through

a

the

young

once,

sleeping village.

the brightness in the memor\^ of the failed hotel

where the waiters

in their

immaculate white uniforms

were barefoot. The elegant dining room

silent except for

the sound of rain falling in the tin buckets.

And

the whispering of giant overhead fans with broken

blades as they turned in the heat.

sound

And

of dead leaves on the lavish veranda.

occasionally the bright sound of broken glass.

All of

Like

in the piles

There was the scraping

a

it

a blessing.

The

being there. Being

giant bell ringing long after

you

85

alive then.

can’t hear

it.

WHAT

I’VE

GOT

After twenty hours in bed with I

should have at least

tea.

no

Got up

food,

I

decided

to light the lamp,

but the sweating and shivering started again

and

I

Slammed

staggered backwards across the room.

against the stone wall.

Came

to with blood

on

my head

and couldn’t figure out which way the bed was.

Crawled around searching for the matches but gave up,

remembering there was one It flared

left in a

box by the

and went out. “Exaggerated,”

and groped back toward

my desk,

I

stove.

said

feeling for the matches

with barefoot geisha steps. Began to shake and moan,

my teeth chattering like when

the hero did in the old movie

his malaria returned.

I

smiled but was worried.

No telephone and nobody going by out there in the I

could

I

was on

as I

call to. all

And God knows what

I

had. Realized

fours again. Interesting, something said

dragged myself onto the bed. Interesting?

another part

said. Interesting!

For

Christ’s sake!

86

field

TROUBLE

That

is

what the Odyssey means.

Love can

leave

you nowhere

in

New Mexico

raising peacocks for the rest of your

life.

The seriously happy heart is a problem. Not the easy excitement, but summer Mediterranean mixed with

in the

the rain and bitter cold of Februar)^

on the

Riviera, everything

in the violent winds. is

on

The pregnant

driven to hopes that are the

size for this world.

fire

Love

is

heart

wrong

always

disturbing in the heavenly kingdom.

Eden cannot manage

so

The

over the piazza

kids ran

from

all

much

ambition.

yelling and pointing and jeering at the

young Saint Chr\^sostom

standing dazed in the church doonv^ay

with the shining around his mouth

where the Madonna had kissed him.

87

IN

THE BEGINNING

In the

woke

morning when Eve and Adam

to

snow and

their minds,

they set out in marvelous clothes

hand

in

hand under the

trees.

Endlessly precision met them, until they

went grinning

in

time

with no word for their close escape from that

warm monotony

88

METIER

The Greek play

fishermen do not

on the beach and

write funny poems.

I

don’t

YLAPA

Having swum

in the jungle

pool

under the waterfall and struggled

down we

again through the wattle huts,

still

had three hours to wait

before the boat would go back.

The

only foreigners had

She was

He

also

British

how

and naked

was standard, with

and drunken in the

a galler)^.

talk

of sex

in

her

halter.

his stubble

at ten

morning. Telling us loudly

she stayed with

of his three hundred

him because a

month. She waded

through their old hatred picking up the sketches as each in turn blew in the

down

wind running before the storm.

90

AND WHATEVER

A TASTE FOR GRIT

More and more him

the incidental that

it is

makes

yearn, and he worries about that.

Why should

the single railroad tracks

December

curving away into the bare

and no houses matter? And

why is

the defeated he trusts?

because

Pittsburgh

is still

Is it

him

tangled in

trees

it

that he

has the picture on his wall of God’s head torn apart by jungle roots?

growing up with

in that brutal city left

a taste for grit

he saw in the It

Maybe

and whatever

him it

was

titanic rusting steel mills.

might be the reason he

of Paris. Perhaps

it is

finally

moved out

the scale

of those long ago winters that makes him restless

when people laugh

a lot.

Why the erotic matters so much. Not as pleasure but a

way

Hunting down the of Heaven

when

to get to

something darker.

soul, searching

the

work

is

out the iron

getting done.

91

MAYBE SHE

She might be here

On

HERE

IS

secretly.

her hands and knees

with her head tilted to

in the

before

down

a bit

peer around the doorjamb

morning, watching I

wake

Only her

face

me

up.

showing

and her shoulders. In

a slip,

her skin honey against the simple

white of two thin straps

and the worked edge of the bodice.

With her

right

hand

a little visible.

92

i

y

I

i

The

aiithoi'

wishes

to

thank Keiiy O'Keefe and Heniy

Lyman for their assistance

in preparing this book.

t

>

s

A NOTE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jack Gilbert was born

The Great

Fires: Poe?/is

finalist for

in Pittsburgh.

i^Sz-iggz;

He

is

the author of

Moiiolitbos,

Kochan.

A

a limited edition

recipient of a

grant from the National lives in

a

the Pulitzer Prize; and Views of Jeopardy, the

1962 winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize. published

which was

He

has also

of elegaic poems under the

title

Ciuggenheim Fellowship and

Endowment

Northampton, Massachusetts.

a

for the Arts, Gilbert

A NOTE

This book was

set in

ON THE TYPE

Janson,

a

typeface long thought to

have been made by the Dutchman Anton Janson,

who was a

practicing typefounder in Leipzig during the years 1668-

1687. However,

it

has been conclusively demonstrated that

these types are actually the 1702), a Hungarian,

work of Nicholas Kis (1650-

who most

probably learned his trade

from the master Dutch typefounder Dirk Voskens. type

is

The

an excellent example of the influential and sturdy

Dutch types

that prevailed in

England up to the time

\Tilliam Caslon (1692-1766) developed his rable designs

own incompa-

from them.

Composed

by Creative Graphics,

Allentown, Pennsylvania Printed and bound by United Book Press, Baltimore, Maryland

Designed by Robert

C.

Olsson

t

\

!

? >i|

f

I

«

4

»

i

(

A

\

.

.JiL J

< Q Z < QC c

He is the

Jack Gilbert was born in Pittsburgh. author of The Great Monolithos,

Fires: Poetas

which was

zer Prize; and

Vieu's

igSz-iggz;

a tinalist for

the Pulit-

of Jeopardy, the 1962

winner ot the Yale Younger Poets Prize. has also published giac

poems under

ient

of

a

a

the

limited edition of eletitle

Kochan.

The

recip-

Guggenheim Fellowship and

grant from the National .\rts,

He

Endowment

a

for the

Gilbert lives in Northampton, xMassa-

chusetts.

Jack Gilberts The Great Fires available in

is

Knopf paperback.

Jacket photogi'aph: Kailasa Temple, Ellora, India, hy Dale Satorsky

Jacket design by Ahby Weintraub

Alfred

/\.

/ Knopt, Publisher,

New

York

WWW. random house. coni/knopf/poe try

3/2005

PRAISE FOR JACK GILBERT’S POETRY

“A

rare latc-century

pleasure-poetry of constantly surprising

beauty and directness. Jack Gilbert stands with the modernist giants of the early century because,

he

among

other reasons,

not intimidated by them.”

is

-FRANK LENTRICCHIA

‘‘He takes himself

away

to a place

more inward than

is

safe to go;

from that awful silence and tightening, he returns to us

poems of savage compassion. a

necessary poet,

who

Gilbert

is

the rarest of beings:

teaches us not only

but to die creatively, and with

all

how

to live

meaning.”

-JAMES DICKEY

‘‘The rigor of Gilbert’s

of his means

.

.

.

purpose

is

matched by the economy

Serious and unflinching, Gilbert

who manages

to

come

at the

Romantic most

from an unrelentingly

the rare poet

is

effectively

classical base.”

-ALLEN HOEY, THE AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW

ISBN

1

-4000-4365-4

POETRY

5250 0 781400 043651