There are stories long told that have never been understood
And so many metaphors that Valentinus muttered to the frogs
And so much wainscoting that widows have painted over.
There are moments when the gold sun in Lisbon is gone.
We see houses in our dreams that need to be repaired
And horses that no one has fed for three weeks.
There are so many shoulders we have never touched with our fingers,
And there are days when I forget I have a mother.
We drink down so many angers at our mother’s breast.
There are so many cries no one makes during the wedding service.
There are so many poets whose poems no one reads
And so many pale bottles that the demons set out for milk.
Certain streams go into a mountain and never come out again.
Boys ride rafts down that dark tunnel, we mustn’t wait for them.
Sometimes a twin lives with us in the womb for a while and then vanishes at birth.
There is a man who walks toward us for days, for years, for sixty years
And arrives, opens the bed clothes, sleeps with us until dawn,
Leaving behind a piece of ivory from the narwhal’s horn, pierced with many holes.
THE CHINESE PEAKS
For Donald Hall
I love the mountain peak
but I know also its rolling
foothills
half-invisible
in mist and fog.
The Seafarer gets up
long before dawn to read.
His soul
is a whale feeding
on the Holy Word.
The soul who loves the peak
also inhales the deep
breath rising
from the mountain
buried in mist.
LETTER TO JAMES WRIGHT
My dear James, do you know that nothing has happened
Since you died? Ammons is still writing garbage,
And the Maximus Poems are back in print. “Well, I am tired
Of the lost maples of heaven; I want news
Of the living, of you.” Rexroth is gone. He was one of the
Funniest men in the world, and he got a biographer
With no sense of humor. “I remember Rexroth saying,
‘I’ll cold-cock Santa Claus if he comes near.’ It’s the least
An anarchist can do. Eisenhower couldn’t find
The Brazilian flag if it were up his butt.” Roger Hecht died
Along with Morgan Blum; Kenyon fumbled your papers
And lost them; they’ve named a street after you
In Martins Ferry. “Do you remember that cliff
We once imagined—hundreds of swallow holes,
And an old Chinese poem rolled up inside
Each hole? We can’t unroll them here. We have
To climb inside.” Even butterflies unfold. . . .
“That tenderness . . . By God, I’ll try anything.”
WALLACE STEVENS AND FLORENCE
Oh Wallace Stevens, dear friend,
You are such a pest. You are so sure.
You think everyone is in your family.
It is you and your father and Mozart—
And ladies tasting cold rain in Florence,
Puzzling out inscriptions, studying the gold flake.
As if life were a visit to Florence,
A place where there are no maggots in the flesh,
No one screaming, no one afraid.
Your job, your joy, your morning walk,
As if you walked on the wire of the mind,
High above the elephants; you cry out a little but never fall.
As if we could walk always high above the world,
No bears, no witches, no Macbeth,
No one screaming, no one in pain, no one afraid.
ON THE OREGON COAST
For William Stafford
The waves come—the large fourth wave
Looming up, thinking, crashing down—all
Roll in so prominently that I become small
And write this in a cramped script, hard to read.
Well, all this fury, prominent or not
Is also hard to read, and the ducks don’t help,
Settling down in furry water, shaking
Themselves, and then forgetting it within a minute.
Remembering the fury, it is up to us, even
Though we feel small compared to the loose
Ocean, to keep sailing and not land,
And figure out what to say to our children.
WHEN WILLIAM STAFFORD DIED
Well, water goes down the Montana gullies.
“I’ll just go around this rock and think
About it later.” That’s what you said.
When death came, you said, “I’ll go there.”
There’s no sign you’ll come back. Sometimes
My father sat up in the coffin and was alive again.
But I think you were born before my father,
And the feet they made in your time were lighter.
One dusk you were gone. Sometimes a fallen tree
Holds onto a rock, if the current is strong.
I won’t say my father did that, but I won’t
Say he didn’t either. I was watching you both.
If all a man does is to watch from the shore,
Then he doesn’t have to worry about the current.
But if affection has put us into the stream,
Then we have to agree to where the water goes.
THOMAS AND THE CODFISH’S PSALM
1
The Gaiety of Form
How sweet to weight the line with all these vowels!
Body, Thomas, the codfish’s psalm. The gaiety
Of form lies in the labor of its playfulness.
The chosen vowel reappears like the evening star
Westerly, in the solemn return the astronomers love.
It comforts us, says: “I am here, be calm.”
When a vowel returns three times, then it becomes
A note; and the whole stanza turns to music.
2
The Turtle’s Work
Climbing on shore to give her brood a home,
The turtle gathers each day bits of primitive hay,
Piling her leathery eggs at pale midnight.
Obedient to some other moon, to her longing
And the night, her claws bury the eggs
Gleaming in the moonlight, cover them with sand.
Though she cannot protect them from the gulls on shore,
Some young find their way to the enormous sea.
HONORING SAND
In memory of Joseph Campbell
We know the road the gods take, but we do not know
Who will walk on it. All moves slowly
In the soul. There is so much time
We can stay in grieving another hundred years.
The first harp came from an empty turtle.
The ocean thistle that has given up its flowering
Stays there, and its stem teaches us to go down.
Forget the flower; learn to know the sand.
GRATITUDE TO OLD TEACHERS
When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?
Water that once could take no human weight—
We were students then—holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness.
THOUGHTS IN THE CABIN
Why do I suddenly feel free of panic?
Here a summer afternoon, wind-
Blown lake, a cabin of strong logs.
I can live and die with no more
Fame; I’d like grou
nd to walk on,
A few books, occasionally a storm.
I know stories I can tell, and I may
Or may not. There is more
To learn: the wind and the screendoor.
The granary of images, the Norwegian
Lore, the power of Shmat-Razum,
Good or evil, success or failure.
Expect something else from me—
Less—and don’t rule out
Misdirection, silence, misinformation.
II
VISITING MY FATHER
1
Your chest, hospital gown
Awry, looks
Girlish today.
It is your bluish
Reptile neck
That has known weather.
I said to you, “Are
You ready to die?”
“I am,” you said,
“It’s too boring
Around here.” He has in mind
Some other place
Less boring. “He’s
Not ready to go,”
The doctor said.
There must have been
A fire that nearly
Blew out, or a large
Soul, inadequately
Feathered, that became
Cold and angered.
Some four-year-old boy
In you, chilled by your
Mother, misprized
By your father, said,
“I will defy, I will
Win anyway, I
Will show them.”
When Alice’s well-
Off sister offered to
Take your two boys
During the Depression,
You said it again.
Now you bring that
Defiant mood to death.
The four-year-old
Old man in you does as
He likes: he likes
To stay alive.
Through him you
Get revenge,
Persist, endure,
Overlive, overwhelm,
Get on top.
You gave me
This, and I do
Not refuse it.
It is
In me.
2
My Father at Eighty-Six
You are eighty-
Six, and while we
Talk suddenly
Fall asleep.
Would you have been
Proud of me
If I had lived
More like you?
In this same hospital
Room, drying out
Thirty-five years
Ago, you said to me:
“Are you happy?”
I was twenty-eight.
“Happiness is not one
Of the aims I have
Set for my life.”
You were alarmed.
I was bluffing, as
Isolated as you.
Now you have almost
Reached the last station.
Shall I say that you
Misspent your life?
You stood vibrating
On a threshing machine,
Pulleys, choppers, shakers
Beneath you,
And kept your balance
Mostly.
I walked on a rope,
Carrying six
Children on my shoulders,
Felt their love.
A woman had
A message for me
And it arrived.
Now for the first time
I can see your skull
Below your closed
Grape-like eyes.
Some modest,
Luminous
Thing has happened.
Is that all?
What did we expect?
3
The Hard Breathing
Your hard breathing
We all three
Notice. To continue
To live here,
One must take air.
But taking air
Commits you
To sharing it
With wolves and cattle.
When breathing stops
You will be free
Of that company.
You came from the water
World, and do not
Want to change
Again. My mother
Does not remember
The water world.
Nieces are here
In this world, nephews,
Classmates, a son.
She sits with puzzled eyes
Now, as if to say,
“Where is that
Reckless man
For whom I gladly left
My father?
Is it this man
With gaunt cheeks
On the bed?
All those times
I drove into town,
Carefully, over
Packed snow, is this
What it comes to?” Yes,
Yes, it is, my
Dear Mother.
The tablecloths
You saved are all
Gone; the baked
Corn dish you
Made for your boys,
The Christmas Eves,
Opening perfume—
Evening in Paris—
From your husband,
The hope that a man
Would alter his
Habits for you—
They are all gone.
The nurse takes my father
For his bath.
You and I
Wait here for Jacob
To come back.
“What sort of
Flowers are those?”
“Daisies,” I say.
A few minutes later,
You ask again.
What can I do but
Feel the invisible
River go through
Me, and sit
Here with you?
4
Something Has Come
My mother and I sit
In the hospital room.
What can we say
To each other?
That we are nothing
When the Man
Leaves the room?
That we are bound
By our breathing
To this troubled place?
That I am a son
And you are a mother,
And that something
Has come
Between us,
So that we forget
What has saved us.
5
The Komodo Dragon
My father and I
Or so apart
In a cold sea.
Each of us senses
The other’s strokes,
But we swim far from
The care of women.
I swim on, asking
My shoulders why
My lower half
Feels so heavy.
Only my arms
Lift, the ocean
Pulls the rest
Of me down.
I know that far
Below us, scattered
On the ocean floor,
There are Model A
Engines, spoked wheels
From horse rakes,
Engine blocks
Broken apart,
Snapped plow-
Shares, drive shafts
Sticking from sand,
Useless cutter-bars.
Our failures have
Solidified there,
Rusting
In saline water.
We worked all day
Through till mid-
Night and couldn’t
Keep the swather
Going, nothing helps,
Drove a piston
Right through the block.
It won’t do.
And behind us
A large beast
Swims—four or
&
nbsp; Five miles back,
Spines on his nose,
Fins like the
Komodo dragon,
Spiny whiskers,
Following us.
6
The Pharaoh’s Servant
My father’s large ears
Hear everything.
A hermit wakes
And sleeps in a hut
Underneath
His gaunt cheeks.
His eyes blue, alert,
Disappointed,
And suspicious,
Complain I
I do not bring him
The same sort of
Jokes the nurses
Do. He is a bird
Waiting to be fed—
Mostly beak—an eagle
Or a vulture,
Or the Pharaoh’s servant
Just before death.
My arm on the bedrail
Rests there, relaxed,
With new love. All
I know of the Troubadours
I bring to this bed.
I do not want
Or need to be shamed
By him any longer.
The general of shame
Has discharged
Him, and left him
In this small provincial
Egyptian town.
If I do not wish
To shame him, then
Why not love him?
His long hands,
Large, veined,
Capable, can still
Retain hold of what
He wanted:
Six farms. But
Is that what he
Desired? Some
Powerful engine
Of desire goes on
Turning inside his body.
He never phrased
What he desired,
And I am
His son.
7
Prayer for My Father
Your head is still
Restless, rolling
East and west—
That body in you
Insisting on living
Is the old hawk
For whom the world
Darkens. If I
Am not with you
When you die,
That would be grievous