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    Circus Days and Nights

    Page 6
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      swing-move seems to

      culminate the whole turn

      to greet the crowd, proclaim

      a modest triumph and

      before it falls and you leap

      with a slow scissors from

      the horse (it seems bowed

      with gratitude) arched

      like a rain of mercy, a

      blessing on the moment.

      And then

      you smile.

      When your hand goes out (like) that;

      Where do you feel it?

      Is it something in the head,

      in the whole body,

      in the hand?

      Do you know what I mean?”

      “Yes, I do know what you mean. But it

      is hard to say. When the hand goes

      out that way, the muscles don’t

      lead it, and neither does the mind.

      The flesh doesn’t lead the spirit

      nor the spirit the flesh. It is a

      kind of wedding of the spirit

      and flesh.”

      (He had

      said it before,

      the first day I came

      “It is like a wind

      or a dark cloud

      that surrounds you

      and you are in it,

      and it belongs to you

      and it gives you the power

      to do these things”)

      “It is all a feeling;

      knowing when to

      turn your head

      to the right

      or the left.

      Knowing how it should feel

      so it will have

      (beautiful movement).

      I almost think

      I could do the somersault

      better with my eyes closed,

      not looking down at the horse

      to see where I land.

      I know where he should be

      and I should be.

      It is (all a matter of feeling

      how it should be)”

      Actually the audience doesn’t have

      much to do with it

      We talked about the fact that

      it wasn’t the danger,

      it wasn’t the skill,

      it wasn’t the applause

      that made the act what it was.

      It was principally the grace;

      the bringing into being,

      for a moment,

      the beautiful thing,

      the somersault,

      the leap,

      the entrechat on horseback.

      The skill,

      of course, has something to do

      with it. It is pleasant

      to know you can do anything

      so difficult. It is good when you

      have mastered it, and you are

      really in competition with yourself.

      “When we make a mistake in

      the ring we are very angry. The

      audience doesn’t know, but we

      know.”

      But it is a pleasure

      to do anything

      so difficult

      and do it

      gracefully.

      Then we talked about talking.

      It was good, Mogador said,

      to talk thus

      “Whatever is withheld is lost.

      Whatever we give away,

      whatever we throw away,

      what we disburden ourselves of

      is profit to us.

      We keep giving things away,

      throwing them out

      like old chairs out of a house;

      keep destroying

      until

      we can destroy

      no more.”

      “Because what is left

      is indestructible”

      I said.

      We were driving down a

      dirt road (now due east)

      toward the 2 o’clock

      rising sun.

      I lit a cigarette

      and handed it to

      Mogador.

      Man,

      with his

      specialized eye,

      and

      specialized hand,

      and

      foot

      & brain

      surveys the earth

      from his upright position

      and finds

      that all that moves & breathes

      obeys

      or

      could obey him.

      Order the earth then, man,

      for earth’s own good

      & for thy good.

      This seems

      to be

      the advice

      of those

      who study.

      Order the earth

      for its own good,

      and thus fulfill

      in loving

      thy duty

      and

      thy life.

      Mogador,

      I still haven’t gotten to say the thing

      I want to say about you and the whole

      family. It is that, to a greater degree than

      almost anyone I know, you are what you

      are. You are an acrobat in a family of

      acrobats. And you have arrived at that

      generation in the family which is most to be

      desired, the time of ripeness, the moment

      of fullest awareness of function and responsibility

      of producing beauty, songs of

      praise.

      You wanted to call this book “Unfolded

      Grace.” You said that early in the morning

      when we were both too tired to talk more,

      and you pointed out that it meant a

      lot of things. Unfolded Grace: the

      acrobat in somersault unfolding,

      landing lightly on horseback; the

      family in its generations unfolding, and

      arriving at the same moment, those

      same moments of unfolding grace.

      Why talk about the somersault,

      the leap and landing as such a

      great thing. It is great and small.

      It is a high achievement for man &

      no achievement at all for god or angel.

      It is proud and humble. It represents

      graceful victory over so many obstacles;

      the most elegant solution of so many

      problems. And yet like the blossoming

      of the smallest flower or the highest palm,

      it is a very little thing, and very

      great.

      Think, Mogador, of the freedom, in a

      world of bondage, a world expelled

      from Eden; the freedom of the priest,

      the artist, and the acrobat. In a

      world of men condemned to earn their

      bread by the sweat of their brows, the

      liberty of those who,

      like the lilies of the field, live by

      playing. For playing is like Wisdom before

      the face of the Lord. Their play is

      praise. Their praise is prayer. This

      play, like the ritual gestures of the

      priest, is characterized by grace;

      Heavenly grace unfolding, flowering

      and reflected in the physical grace

      of the player.

      I had a friend, a Hindu monk named

      Bramachari, whose monastery

      near Calcutta was called Sri Angan,

      which he translated as “The Playground of the Lord.”

      That is the key to the whole matter,

      the monks playing joyously and decorously

      before the Lord, praise the Lord. The

      playground, though sown with tares,

      is a reflection of Eden. I think there

      can be a “Circus of the Lord.”

      For we are all wanderers in the

      earth, and pilgrims. We have no

      permanent habitat here. The migration

      of people for foraging & exploiting can

      become, with grace, in (the latte
    r days)

      a traveling circus. Our tabernacle must

      in its nature be a temporary tabernacle.

      We are wanderers in the earth, but

      only a few of us in each generation

      have discovered the life of charity, the

      living from day to day, receiving

      our gifts gratefully through grace,

      and rendering them, multiplied

      through grace, to the giver. That

      is the meaning of your expansive, outward

      arching gesture of the arm in

      the landing; the graceful rendering,

      the gratitude and giving.

      After

      his

      act

      the

      juggler

      crossed

      the

      road

      quietly

      lightly

      in

      slim

      white

      suit:

      a

      moving

      pillar

      a

      path

      of

      light

      in

      the

      darkness.

      VOYAGE TO PESCARA

      Never touched earth—once in my life—

      lived in a dream, always, until

      the circus began to come

      toward Rome …

      Whirling (in Peter’s jeep) near the ancient Forum,

      we saw the signs (first one, then another)

      and said: We will go and take pictures;

      the life of a clown;

      a day at the circus.

      It will come in two weeks.

      For two weeks I thought about the circus.

      The day it arrived I was first on the field (Circus Maximus).

      Soon after came the men with a truckload of sawdust

      to spread in the ring.

      Each day, on Peter’s roof, I would write about the circus.

      And when I had written

      would go back

      and look again.

      Yesterday the circus pulled into town and I went to watch it. I walked over to the Circus Maximus and saw the small red car with the awning in front of it, and stood there and looked at the table under the awning, and saw the folded posters for the circus. I rounded the trailer and looked in the window; nobody in there, but coffeepots were on the stove. There were children playing on the field; young boys playing a game like soccer. I started to walk away when around the bend came a big truck with three men: a dark fat hairy man driving, a dark young sharp-nosed mustached man sitting beside him, on the back of the truck a blond young man, slim, tanned, with muscles rippling swift as lightning. Relaxedly the blond man sat on the truck, joggling as it bumped along over the ground of the Circus Maximus. The truck was full of dirt; of earth. Why does the circus need a truck of earth? They drove a little way into the field, and then the three stood on the back and shoveled the dirt onto the ground. “Terra for the piste,” a watcher explained (soft earth to overlay the stony flat top of the Circus Maximus). They shoveled it off onto the ground. The blond man was an acrobat. He should have been dressed in tumbler’s tights. He should have finished a flying act and taken a majestic bow. They went on laying terra for the piste.

      People seeing I was a stranger asked me questions about the circus:

      When would it be in?

      How long would it stay?

      Where had it been?

      Where was it going?

      A car came around the bend pulling a white clean trailer, like a white neat beetle in the rear.

      In the window of the low convertible,

      the face of an acrobat.

      Eyes alive

      aimed like slingshots

      alert as a rabbit’s

      features clean

      trim;

      tendons

      of the face

      pulled back

      like bowstrings;

      well fleshed

      but not

      a molecule

      to spare;

      radiance of an

      acrobat.

      When they dismounted from the car

      I asked them

      if they were not acrobats

      yes, they said,

      with diffidence

      (they did not want to be thought

      more than they were,

      nor too much less).

      Their wives, young girls,

      weary from travel,

      nostalgic

      for Paris.

      Now they had set their

      feet to earth

      at Rome,

      and would give

      a show.

      They said, “Look, it is coming.”

      Down the street a long line of red trucks

      (high as elephants,

      slow as caterpillars,

      lettered in gold)

      came rolling;

      stopped before the baths of Caracalla,

      waited a long time.

      Then the first truck

      turned into the lot,

      festooned with roustabouts.

      They rode like feathers

      on the van,

      rakish,

      calm;

      watching the morning

      with eyes

      that looked to its center,

      the center of morning,

      the gyroscope

      that whirls

      at the center

      of the

      world.

      The clear-eyed

      rakish

      people,

      innocent

      pirates,

      angel

      desperadoes;

      towns,

      roads

      and forests

      had washed through them,

      trees

      had plucked thin

      the webs

      from their eyes.

      They had been washed clean.

      They had been combed like wool.

      Their eyes were clear and radiant

      as the wool of dew.

      They joggled as the trucks bumped.

      They were on a flying ship.

      They had sailed in and landed here.

      They had moored like angels

      among us.

      They had brought honor

      again

      to the field.

      They were almost weary

      but they were alert

      (alive)

      moving always outward

      from the center,

      the center was

      deep

      deep

      deep;

      the center was deeper

      than all their centers.

      The center

      was a center

      all their

      roots

      could enter.

      One had a bandanna

      around his head,

      and one a black felt hat.

      The door of the first truck opened

      and one dismounted.

      His eyes were blue

      as depths

      of the sea;

      within them

      more than fire

      of sun.

      He wore a

      stocking cap

      over the live curls

      of his head;

      over the high

      bones of his cheeks

      was live

      sun-textured

      flesh.

      He was stocky

      (muscular)

      moved on the land like a mariner;

      took off his shirt with an arc of

      his hand,

      began to drop it

      as a gesture

      on the ground,

      but seeing one

      watch him,

      he held and did not let

      his mantle fall

      (when will the mantle of his acceptance

      fall like a blessing

      on the field?)

      The circus is here

      and this cloth shirt


      is the first cloth to touch it;

      the first

      and smallest

      curtain

      of the

      tabernacle.

      Now they will stake out

      the place of the ring;

      the place of the tent.

      Soon on its masts

      the tent will rise

      like a wing

      obscuring the earth,

      the ruins,

      the dome of

      St. Peter’s,

      and stand alone

      between

      earth

      and sky.

      The trucks move like caterpillars

      around in a ring;

      the red truck marking

      the area

      of wonder.

      Now the old Circus Maximus is alive.

      It had slept very patiently

      (waiting)

      and now it lives again,

      as though spring

      had flowered.

      From the tail of a plane,

      where the swifts flew,

      issued rectangular

      light

      square

      particles of paper,

      falling slowly,

      drifting snow

      above the trimmed trees

      to the roofs below

      and to the streets

      Martedi

      3 luglio

      a 21.30

      Grande Debutto

      Zoo Circus

      al Circo Massimo

      Colosalle Sarraglio

      And there in the tent

      he had seen it being made:

      the dark tent

      with the flap that led

      to the field beyond

      the Circus Maximus

      and beyond it

      San Pietro’s;

      three rings

      and the dark blue tent,

      the ribs that led down

      diagonally to the ground;

      the rings full

      of the sifted earth

      and sawdust

      enough to keep the horses happy

      but not to break the fall of acrobats.

      Zavata, the clown-ringmaster,

      in a blue-striped shirt,

      directing,

      harried, but bright;

      there is much to put up

      to arrange for an opening.

      Tonight it must go well.

      If tonight is good

      we shall stay in Rome a month,

     


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