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    Circus Days and Nights

    Page 3
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      Seen or unseen

      in a shield of light,

      at the tent top

      where rays stream in

      watching the pinwheel

      turns of the players

      dancing

      in light:

      Lady,

      we are Thy acrobats;

      jugglers;

      tumblers;

      walking on wire,

      dancing on air,

      swinging on the high trapeze:

      we are Thy children,

      flying in the air

      of that smile:

      rejoicing in light.

      Lady,

      we perform before Thee,

      walking a joyous discipline,

      thin thread of courage,

      slim high wire of dependence

      over abysses.

      What do we know

      of the way of our walking?

      Only this step,

      this movement,

      gone as we name it.

      Here

      at the thin

      rim of the world

      we turn for Our Lady,

      who holds us lightly:

      we leave the wire,

      leave the line,

      vanish

      into light.

      The tent is soaked in afternoon light. Filled with sound.

      Pilgrims wander in at the wide door, full of wonder.

      The expanse of it!

      Waving walls.

      Tiers of seats.

      Can this have been built in one day?

      They enter, parents guiding: they have seen more places.

      Yet look: a child is leading.

      Filled with wonder, the tent is strange;

      circus horses and circus men.

      Clowns are from a far-off land.

      The tent shuts out the wind, and heat, the dust and rain, and locks

      light in.

      Through the wide door: they roll like marbles; first a few, and

      later many.

      Tent flap leads to the field beyond: performers cross;

      their plumed hats shake; their red and gold capes

      billow in the wind.

      The family

      running lightly into the ring

      leads one horse with them

      and leaves two others standing in the track.

      There is a flourish of trumpets.

      The Cristianis approach the center of the ring,

      raise their hands,

      smile,

      and bow.

      The music starts again.

      The horse trots rhythmically around the ring,

      five Cristianis stand in a row,

      marking time,

      in rhythm with the hoofbeats.

      At a signal from Lucio

      they run across the ring

      to meet the horse

      when he comes around.

      They fork-jump as he passes

      and land all sitting on his back.

      Applause.

      The horse runs halfway around;

      the riders, relaxed,

      lift their hands to show how easily it is done.

      Then they leap off,

      Belmonte first,

      Corky,

      Ortans,

      Mogador,

      and Oscar.

      Once more raise their hands and smile.

      Music again,

      the horse starts around

      and the boys,

      Belmonte,

      Mogador,

      Oscar,

      make jumps to his back,

      land standing with arms upraised.

      Leaping separately

      but riding together.

      As they come around

      Lucio,

      in baggy pants,

      oversized jacket and battered hat,

      steps out in front.

      The boys shout: “Hey! get out of the way!”

      Lucio doesn’t.

      The boys jump down from the horse.

      “Get out of the way. What are you? Drunk?”

      Lucio shrugs,

      walks over to the ring,

      sits down, begins to ponder.

      Again music.

      The boys begin their run to the horse

      when Lucio slides across the ring

      somersaults through the horse’s legs

      over the ring curb

      onto the track.

      Gasp.

      He tries again from outside the ring.

      Somersaults through the flying hooves

      into the ring.

      Picking up a bamboo pole

      he vaults magnificently

      to the horse’s back.

      Trembling he lands

      standing on one foot

      flailing his arms,

      sure to topple.

      Shouts.

      At last he finds it:

      the point of balance.

      Secure,

      both feet planted firmly,

      he leans back

      thumbs in his pockets:

      never a doubt in his mind.

      He pulls a newspaper from his hip pocket,

      slaps it open, begins to read,

      then turning

      still reading

      he takes a huge step

      off the horse’s tail

      like an old man

      descending from a bus.

      PENELOPE AND MOGADOR

      One time Penelope the tightrope walker asked Mogador

      how he was able to land so gracefully after he did a

      somersault on horseback.

      Mogador said:

      It is like a wind that surrounds me

      or a dark cloud,

      and I am in it,

      and it belongs to me

      and it gives me the power

      to do these things.

      And Penelope said, Oh, so that is it.

      And Mogador said, I believe so.

      The next day in the ring, Mogador leaped up on the horse.

      He sat on it sideways and jogged halfway around the ring;

      then he stood up on the horse’s back with a single leap;

      he rode around balancing lightly in time to the music;

      he did a split-jump—touching his toes with his hands;

      he did a couple of entrechats—braiding his legs in

      midair like a dancer:

      then Oscar threw him a hoop.

      Mogador tossed it up in the air and spun it.

      He caught it,

      leapt up,

      and did a somersault through it!

      He thought:

      I am a flame,

      a dark cloud,

      a bird;

      I will land like spring rain

      on a mountain lake

      for the delight of Penelope the tightrope walker;

      He landed on one foot, lost his balance, waved his arms

      wildly, and fell off the horse.

      He looked at Penelope,

      leapt up again,

      did a quick entrechat,

      and Oscar tossed him the hoop.

      He spun it into the air and caught it.

      He did a somersault through it

      and he thought:

      It is like a dark cloud, and I am in it;

      it belongs to me,

      and it gives me the power

      to do these things.

      He landed on one foot, lost his balance, waved his arms

      wildly and fell off the horse.

      Penelope the tightrope walker looked very calm,

      Mogador leapt on the horse again.

      Oscar frowned and tossed him the hoop.

      Mogador threw it into the air and caught it;

      leapt up and did a somersault through it.

      He thought:

      I am a bird and will land like a bird!

      He landed on one foot, lost his balance, waved his arms wildly

      and fell off the horse.

      Now in the Cristiani family, when you fall off three times,

      the
    y grab you by one ear

      and bend you over,

      and one of the brothers

      kicks you.

      And that is what they did to Mogador.

      Then the circus band started playing again.

      And Mogador looked at Penelope:

      then he looked at the horse and flicked his ear with his hand;

      he jumped up on the horse and landed smartly;

      he stood up in one leap and caught the hoop;

      and then he did a somersault through it.

      He didn’t think anything.

      He just did a somersault—

      and landed with two feet on the horse’s back.

      Then he rode halfway around the ring

      and got off with a beautiful scissors leap.

      Penelope applauded

      and, clasping her hands overhead, shook them

      like a boxer,

      Mogador looked at her,

      then back at the horse,

      and with a gesture of two arms he said

      it was nothing.

      ORTANS

      Ortans stands on one end of a teeterboard:

      Mogador and Belmonte,

      from the height of two tables,

      jump

      down

      and

      land

      on the other end.

      Ortans flips into the air,

      does a two and a half turn,

      and lands neatly in a high chair.

      Relaxed as a rag doll,

      gracious as a queen,

      looking as though she had been there all afternoon.

      She lolls a moment in the chair,

      gives the audience a glance

      and a beautiful smile.

      Then she daintily dismounts

      into her brothers’ arms;

      lifts her right hand,

      curtseys on tiptoe, and disappears.

      LA LOUISA

      Her toes almost touch the top of the tent;

      she lies out, balanced at the arch of her back, her toes are pointed,

      her long slim legs stretch before her,

      her waist is taut,

      her whole body is semi-relaxed.

      Her arms lie out gracefully behind her head,

      her long hair rides behind her as she swings forward:

      there is a flower in her hair,

      it hugs her head as she swings back.

      Back and forth,

      back and forth.

      Now she drops.

      Headfirst:

      her hair

      and the flower

      tumbling toward the ground.

      Look away!

      Precipito-

      volissimo-

      volmente!

      She has caught herself,

      is hanging by her feet;

      she swings back and forth,

      her back beautifully arched,

      her hands and fingers poised,

      the flower riding in her long hair.

      She pulls herself up,

      hangs by her hands,

      grasps the rope between her legs,

      slides down it to the ground.

      Bows graciously,

      accepts applause

      with lifted arm,

      And leaves the ring.

      Our dreams have tamed the lions,

      have made pathways in the jungle,

      peaceful lakes; they have built new

      Edens ever sweet and ever changing.

      By day from town to town we carry

      Eden in our tents and bring its wonders to the children who have lost

      their dream of home.

      evening

      They are with me now, the golden people; their limbs

      are intertwined in golden light, moving in a heavy sea

      of memory: they come the beautiful ones, with evening

      smiles: heavy-lidded people, dark of hair and gentle

      of aspect, whose eyes are portals to a land of dusk.

      Their melancholy holds me now: sadness of princes, and

      the sons of princes: the melancholy gaze of those I

      have not seen since childhood.

      For childhood was full of wonder, full of visions: the

      boy on horseback, either in a dream or on the plain,

      approaching: the two gypsy girls who stood together and

      asked the mysterious question. Truth and the dream so

      mingled in their eyes I could not tell which of the two

      had spoken.

      Once more now they are with me, golden ones,

      living their dream in long afternoons of sunlight;

      riding their caravans in the wakeful nights.

      After supper light on fields, prairie, long yellow

      light on fields aspiring, fields looking up grass singing

      high grass singing yellow light on green grass growing,

      the wide round horizon, the long tired light on the field

      and the green grass high yearning up aspiring to heaven

      to the dome sky heaven the grass growing up to the sky

      and the light dying, the sun wearily sleepily smiling

      lying down, with a sighing song, a long smiling sigh

      over the fields and the grass rising, thin prayer rising

      tufted to the air above the field to the sky the dome

      sky thin made of light air the dome above the field and

      the field breathing the air full rich golden grass smelling

      sweet and tired with sun dying sun lying down, dying down

      in west.

      The sunset city trembled with fire, the air trembled

      in fiery light, a fiery clarity stretched west across the

      walks, the tongues of air licked up the building sides, the

      wings of fire hovered over the churches and houses, steeples

      and stores of the wide flat city that stretched to the sea.

      The walk like a drum was stretched as though over the

      hollow kettle of ground, the hollow darkness under the walk

      resounded as he walked toward the sunset, and the street

      glowed like a drum in firelight, like a drumskin glowed the

      walk and road as he walked toward the light, walked slowly

      toward the light through the fiery clarity of the burning

      air now cooled with evening as sun set. Walls of glass

      reflected the fire of sun, took fire from it, were kindled

      and blazed bright, so as he walked down the drumskin city,

      he was walled in fire and walked toward fire, and in the

      fire dark caverns were, dark doorways in the walls of fire,

      portals in the panes of brass where these men sat on folding

      camp chairs waiting while the world went round, bald men

      sat on folding camp chairs waiting while the world went

      round, their drumskin heads took fire from the sun, kindled

      and blazed, were copper drums, brass helmets glowing above

      the drumskin walks, each in his dark portal surrounded,

      tipped on his camp stool in doors darkness; brass accent

      in the walls of glass. In the fiery city they sat on

      camp stools waiting while the world went round.

      This is our camp, our moving city; each day we

      set the show up: jugglers calm amid currents, riding

      the world, joggled but slightly as in a howdah, on

      the grey wrinkled earth we ride as on elephant’s

      head.

      THE DUST OF THE EARTH

      The dust of the day hangs in the air,

      motes in the light,

      dust of the trampling multitude,

      dust of the elephants padding by,

      dust no one stirred till the circus came,

      it hangs like a veil!

      Dust of the earth

      riding the twilight,

      silently moving

      each sphere

      each molecule

      riding the
    air,

      in wakening twilight

      could

      whirling

      turn to earth

      to planets,

      support the verdure of creation

      the moving animals and men,

      could raise from its own green growing

      white clouds and dark

      alive with lightning,

      could ripple with seas

      flow with rivers

      reflect the waters,

      the mountains and sky.

      But where does the first mote come from,

      the first gliding sphere?

      the midway

      The paintings on the sideshow walls,

      the banners and signs

      are dark and strange:

      “Look at the two-headed boy, the armless wonder,

      the lion tamer,

      the harlem band,

      the seal boy,

      the sword swallower,

      fire eater,

      tattooed woman,

      snake charmer,

      and the man who throws knives at his wife.”

      In the darkening twilight,

      the last of sunset.

      Banners

      heraldic and strange:

      Beowulf lives here,

      ogres inside,

      but gay, strange music,

      come in and look,

      stand considering on the midway

      soon you will come in and look.

      SNAKE CHARMER

      “You see this snake?

      he looks terrible, don’t he?

      But in the southwest where I come from

      we got ’em like cats to kill mice.”

      She strokes his head,

      folds him gently,

      and puts him back in the box.

      Picking out a larger one,

      she holds it aloft in both arms:

      “This here is the same kind of snake,”

      she says,

      “Only bigger.”

      DOG ACT

      Girl in white ten-gallon hat, jeweled band; white shirt,

      jeweled sleeves; white gauntlets jeweled with flowers and

      stars; skirt, white doeskin, fringed; spurred and jeweled

      high-heeled boots, white with red interior, striding in a

      wash of small white dogs.

      Yapping, prancing, barrel-walking, ladder-climbing, table-

      mounting, somersaulting, hopping at her hissed

      command through tiny shiny hoops.

      COLONEL ANGUS

     


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