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.
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