One phrase is enough
in the present tense,
the past and even future;
it’s enough so that anything
borne on words
begins to rustle, sparkle,
flutter, float,
while seeming
to stay changeless
but with a shifting shadow;
it’s enough that there is talk
of someone next to someone
or someone next to something;
about Sally who has a kitty
or no longer has a kitty;
or about other Sallys
kitties or not kitties
from other primers
ruffled by the wind;
it’s enough if within eyeshot
an author places temporary hills
and makeshift valleys;
if on this occasion
he hints at a heaven
apparently firm and enduring;
if there appears beneath a writing hand
at least one thing
that is called someone’s;
if in black on white,
at least in thought,
for some serious or silly reason,
question marks are placed,
and if in response,
a colon:
HERE
2009
Here
I can’t speak for elsewhere,
but here on Earth we’ve got a fair supply of everything.
Here we manufacture chairs and sorrows,
scissors, tenderness, transistors, violins,
teacups, dams, and quips.
There may be more of everything elsewhere,
but for reasons left unspecified they lack paintings,
picture tubes, pierogies, handkerchiefs for tears.
Here we have countless places with vicinities.
You may take a liking to some,
give them pet names,
protect them from harm.
There may be comparable places elsewhere,
but no one thinks they’re beautiful.
Like nowhere else, or almost nowhere,
you’re given your own torso here,
equipped with the accessories required
for adding your own children to the rest.
Not to mention arms, legs, and astounded head.
Ignorance works overtime here,
something is always being counted, compared, measured,
from which roots and conclusions are then drawn.
I know, I know what you’re thinking.
Nothing here can last,
since from and to time immemorial the elements hold sway.
But see, even the elements grow weary
and sometimes take extended breaks
before starting up again.
And I know what you’re thinking next.
Wars, wars, wars.
But there are pauses in between them too.
Attention!—people are evil.
At ease—people are good.
At attention wastelands are created.
At ease houses are constructed in the sweat of brows,
and quickly inhabited.
Life on Earth is quite a bargain.
Dreams, for one, don’t charge admission.
Illusions are costly only when lost.
The body has its own installment plan.
And as an extra, added feature,
you spin on the planets’ carousel for free,
and with it you hitch a ride on the intergalactic blizzard,
with times so dizzying
that nothing here on Earth can even tremble.
Just take a closer look:
the table stands exactly where it stood,
the piece of paper still lies where it was spread,
through the open window comes a breath of air,
the walls reveal no terrifying cracks
through which nowhere might extinguish you.
Thoughts That Visit Me on Busy Streets
Faces.
Billions of faces on the earth’s surface.
Each different, so we’re told,
from those that have been and will be.
But Nature—since who really understands her?—
may grow tired of her ceaseless labors
and so repeats earlier ideas
by supplying us
with preworn faces.
Those passersby might be Archimedes in jeans,
Catherine the Great draped in resale,
some pharaoh with briefcase and glasses.
An unshod shoemaker’s widow
from a still pint-sized Warsaw,
the master from the cave at Altamira
taking his grandkids to the zoo,
a shaggy Vandal en route to the museum
to gasp at past masters.
The fallen from two hundred centuries ago,
five centuries ago,
half a century ago.
One brought here in a golden carriage,
Another conveyed by extermination transport,
Montezuma, Confucius, Nebuchadnezzar,
their nannies, their laundresses, and Semiramida,
who only speaks English.
Billions of faces on the earth’s surface.
My face, yours, whose—
you’ll never know.
Maybe Nature has to shortchange us,
and to keep up, meet demand,
she fishes up what’s been sunk
in the mirror of oblivion.
An Idea
An idea came to me
for a rhyme? a poem?
Well, fine—I say—stay awhile, we’ll talk.
Tell me a little more about yourself.
So it whispered a few words in my ear.
Ah, so that’s the story—I say—intriguing.
These matters have long weighed upon my heart.
But a poem about them? I don’t think so.
So it whispered a few words in my ear.
It may seem that way—I reply—
but you overestimate my gifts and powers.
I wouldn’t even know where to start.
So it whispered a few words in my ear.
You’re wrong—I say—a short, pithy poem
is much harder than a long one.
Don’t pester me, don’t nag, it won’t turn out.
So it whispered a few words in my ear.
All right then, I’ll try, since you insist.
But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I write, tear it up, and toss it out.
So it whispered a few words in my ear.
You’re right—I say—there are always other poets.
Some of them can do it better.
I’ll give you names and addresses.
So it whispered a few words in my ear.
Of course I’ll envy them.
But this one should . . . it ought to have . . .
So it whispered a few words in my ear.
Exactly, to have the qualities you’ve listed.
So let’s change the subject.
How about a cup of coffee?
It just sighed.
And started vanishing.
And vanished.
Teenager
Me—a teenager?
If she suddenly stood, here, now, before me,
would I need to treat her as near and dear,
although she’s strange to me, and distant?
Shed a tear, kiss her brow
for the simple reason
that we share a birth date?
So many dissimilarities between us
that only the bones are likely still the same,
the cranial vault, the eye sockets.
Since her eyes seem a little larger,
her eyelashes are longer, she’s taller,
and the whole body is tightly sheathed
in smooth, unblemished skin.
Relatives and friends still link us, it is true,
but in her world nearly all are living,
while in mine almost no one survives
from that shared circle.
We differ so profoundly,
talk and think about completely different things.
She knows next to nothing—
but with a doggedness deserving better causes.
I know much more—
but not for sure.
She shows me poems,
written in a clear and careful script
I haven’t used for years.
I read the poems, read them.
Well, maybe that one
if it were shorter
and touched up in a couple of places.
The rest do not bode well.
The conversation stumbles.
On her pathetic watch
time is still cheap and unsteady.
On mine it’s far more precious and precise.
Nothing in parting, a fixed smile
and no emotion.
Only when she vanishes,
leaving her scarf in her haste.
A scarf of genuine wool,
in colored stripes
crocheted for her
by our mother.
I’ve still got it.
Hard Life with Memory
I’m a poor audience for my memory.
She wants me to attend her voice nonstop,
but I fidget, fuss,
listen and don’t,
step out, come back, then leave again.
She wants all my time and attention.
She’s got no problem when I sleep.
The day’s a different matter, which upsets her.
She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly,
stirs up events both important and un-,
turns my eyes to overlooked views,
peoples them with my dead.
In her stories I’m always younger.
Which is nice, but why always the same story.
Every mirror holds different news for me.
She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders.
And takes revenge by hauling out old errors,
weighty, but easily forgotten.
Then comforts me, it could be worse.
She wants me to live only for her and with her.
Ideally in a dark, locked room,
but my plans still feature today’s sun,
clouds in progress, ongoing roads.
At times I get fed up with her.
I suggest a separation. From now to eternity.
Then she smiles at me with pity,
since she knows it would be the end of me too.
Microcosmos
When they first started looking through microscopes
a cold fear blew and it is still blowing.
Life hitherto had been frantic enough
in all its shapes and dimensions.
Which is why it created small-scale creatures,
assorted tiny worms and flies,
but at least the naked human eye
could see them.
But then suddenly beneath the glass,
foreign to a fault
and so petite,
that what they occupy in space
can only charitably be called a spot.
The glass doesn’t even touch them,
they double and triple unobstructed,
with room to spare, willy-nilly.
To say they’re many isn’t saying much.
The stronger the microscope
the more exactly, avidly they’re multiplied.
They don’t even have decent innards.
They don’t know gender, childhood, age.
They may not even know they are—or aren’t.
Still they decide our life and death.
Some freeze in momentary stasis,
although we don’t know what their moment is.
Since they’re so minuscule themselves,
their duration may be
pulverized accordingly.
A wind-borne speck of dust is a meteor
from deepest space,
a fingerprint is a far-flung labyrinth,
where they may gather
for their mute parades,
their blind iliads and upanishads.
I’ve wanted to write about them for a long while,
but it’s a tricky subject,
always put off for later
and perhaps worthy of a better poet,
even more stunned by the world than I.
But time is short. I write.
Foraminifera
Why not, let’s take the Foraminifera.
They lived, since they were, and were, since they lived.
They did what they could since they were able.
In the plural since the plural,
although each one on its own,
in its own, since in its own
small limestone shell.
Time summarized them later
in layers, since layers,
without going into details,
since there’s pity in the details.
And so I have before me
two views in one:
a mournful cemetery made
of tiny eternal rests
or,
rising from the sea,
the azure sea, dazzling white cliffs,
cliffs that are here because they are.
Before a Journey