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Beards of   water some of them have. Others are blowing whistles of   water. Faces astonished that constant   water jumps from their mouths. Jaws of lions are snarling   water through green teeth over chins of moss. Dolphins toss jets of   water from open snouts to an upper theater of   water. Children are riding swans and   water coils from the S-shaped necks and spills in flat foils from pincered bills. A solemn curly-headed bull puts out a swollen tongue of   water. Cupids naked are making   water into a font that never is full. A goddess is driving a chariot through   water. Her reins and whips are tight white   water. Bronze hoofs of horses wrangle with   water. Marble faces half hidden in leaves. Faces whose hair is leaves and grapes of stone are peering from living leaves. Faces with mossy lips unlocked always uttering   water, water wearing their features blank their ears deaf, their eyes mad or patient or blind or astonished at   water always uttered out of their mouths.

[Introduction] Lo now! four other acts upon the stage, Childhood, and Youth, the Manly, and Old-age. The first: son unto Phlegm, grand-child to water, Unstable, supple, moist, and cold’s his Nature. The second: frolic claims his pedigree; From blood and air, for hot and moist is he. The third of fire and choler is compos’d, Vindicative, and quarrelsome dispos’d. The last, of earth and heavy melancholy, Solid, hating all lightness, and all folly. Childhood was cloth’d in white, and given to show, His spring was intermixed with some snow. Upon his head a Garland Nature set: Of Daisy, Primrose, and the Violet. Such cold mean flowers (as these) blossom betime, Before the Sun hath throughly warm’d the clime. His hobby striding, did not ride, but run, And in his hand an hour-glass new begun, In dangers every moment of a fall, And when ‘tis broke, then ends his life and all. But if he held till it have run its last, Then may he live till threescore years or past. Next, youth came up in gorgeous attire (As that fond age, doth most of all desire), His Suit of Crimson, and his Scarf of Green. In’s countenance, his pride quickly was seen. Garland of Roses, Pinks, and Gillyflowers Seemed to grow on’s head (bedew’d with showers). His face as fresh, as is Aurora fair, When blushing first, she ‘gins to red the Air. No wooden horse, but one of metal try’d: He seems to fly, or swim, and not to ride. Then prancing on the Stage, about he wheels; But as he went, death waited at his heels. The next came up, in a more graver sort, As one that cared for a good report. His Sword by’s side, and choler in his eyes, But neither us’d (as yet) for he was wise, Of Autumn fruits a basket on his arm, His golden rod in’s purse, which was his charm. And last of all, to act upon this Stage, Leaning upon his staff, comes up old age. Under his arm a Sheaf of wheat he bore, A Harvest of the best: what needs he more? In’s other hand a glass, ev’n almost run, This writ about:This out, then I am done. His hoary hairs and grave aspect made way, And all gave ear to what he had to say. These being met, each in his equipage Intend to speak, according to their age, But wise Old-age did with all gravity To childish childhood give precedency, And to the rest, his reason mildly told: That he was young, before he grew so old. To do as he, the rest full soon assents, Their method was that of the Elements, That each should tell what of himself he knew, Both good and bad, but yet no more then’s true. With heed now stood, three ages of frail man, To hear the child, who crying, thus began. Childhood Ah me! conceiv’d in sin, and born in sorrow, A nothing, here to day, but gone to morrow, Whose mean beginning, blushing can’t reveal, But night and darkness must with shame conceal. My mother’s breeding sickness, I will spare, Her nine months’ weary burden not declare. To shew her bearing pangs, I should do wrong, To tell that pain, which can’t be told by tongue. With tears into this world I did arrive; My mother still did waste, as I did thrive, Who yet with love and all alacity, Spending was willing to be spent for me. With wayward cries, I did disturb her rest, Who sought still to appease me with her breast; With weary arms, she danc’d, and By,By, sung, When wretched I (ungrate) had done the wrong. When Infancy was past, my Childishness Did act all folly that it could express. My silliness did only take delight, In that which riper age did scorn and slight, In Rattles, Bables, and such toyish stuff. My then ambitious thoughts were low enough. My high-born soul so straitly was confin’d That its own worth it did not know nor mind. This little house of flesh did spacious count, Through ignorance, all troubles did surmount, Yet this advantage had mine ignorance, Freedom from Envy and from Arrogance. How to be rich, or great, I did not cark, A Baron or a Duke ne’r made my mark, Nor studious was, Kings favours how to buy, With costly presents, or base flattery; No office coveted, wherein I might Make strong my self and turn aside weak right. No malice bare to this or that great Peer, Nor unto buzzing whisperers gave ear. I gave no hand, nor vote, for death, of life. I’d nought to do, ‘twixt Prince, and peoples’ strife. No Statist I: nor Marti’list i’ th’ field. Where e’re I went, mine innocence was shield. My quarrels, not for Diadems, did rise, But for an Apple, Plumb, or some such prize. My strokes did cause no death, nor wounds, nor scars. My little wrath did cease soon as my wars. My duel was no challenge, nor did seek. My foe should weltering, with his bowels reek. I had no Suits at law, neighbours to vex, Nor evidence for land did me perplex. I fear’d no storms, nor all the winds that blows. I had no ships at Sea, no fraughts to loose. I fear’d no drought, nor wet; I had no crop, Nor yet on future things did place my hope. This was mine innocence, but oh the seeds Lay raked up of all the cursed weeds, Which sprouted forth in my insuing age, As he can tell, that next comes on the stage. But yet me let me relate, before I go, The sins and dangers I am subject to: From birth stained, with Adam’s sinful fact, From thence I ‘gan to sin, as soon as act; A perverse will, a love to what’s forbid; A serpent’s sting in pleasing face lay hid; A lying tongue as soon as it could speak And fifth Commandment do daily break; Oft stubborn, peevish, sullen, pout, and cry; Then nought can please, and yet I know not why. As many was my sins, so dangers too, For sin brings sorrow, sickness, death, and woe, And though I miss the tossings of the mind, Yet griefs in my frail flesh I still do find. What gripes of wind, mine infancy did pain? What tortures I, in breeding teeth sustain? What crudities my cold stomach hath bred? Whence vomits, worms, and flux have issued? What breaches, knocks, and falls I daily have? And some perhaps, I carry to my grave. Sometimes in fire, sometimes in water fall: Strangely preserv’d, yet mind it not at all. At home, abroad, my danger’s manifold That wonder ‘tis, my glass till now doth hold. I’ve done: unto my elders I give way, For ‘tis but little that a child can say. Youth My goodly clothing and beauteous skin Declare some greater riches are within, But what is best I‘ll first present to view, And then the worst, in a more ugly hue, For thus to do we on this Stage assemble, Then let not him, which hath most craft dissemble. Mine education, and my learning‘s such, As might my self, and others, profit much: With nurture trained up in virtue‘s Schools; Of Science, Arts, and Tongues, I know the rules; The manners of the Court, I likewise know, Nor ignorant what they in Country do. The brave attempts of valiant Knights I prize That dare climb Battlements, rear‘d to the skies. The snorting Horse, the Trumpet, Drum I like, The glist‘ring Sword, and well advanced Pike. I cannot lie in trench before a Town, Nor wait til good advice our hopes do crown. I scorn the heavy Corslet, Musket-proof; I fly to catch the Bullet that‘s aloof. Though thus in field, at home, to all most kind, So affable that I do suit each mind, I can insinuate into the breast And by my mirth can raise the heart deprest. Sweet Music rapteth my harmonious Soul, And elevates my thoughts above the Pole. My wit, my bounty, and my courtesy Makes all to place their future hopes on me. This is my best, but youth (is known) alas, To be as wild as is the snuffing Ass, As vain as froth, as vanity can be, That who would see vain man may look on me: My gifts abus‘d, my education lost, My woful Parents‘ longing hopes all crost; My wit evaporates in merriment; My valour in some beastly quarrel‘s spent; Martial deeds I love not, ‘cause they’re virtuous, But doing so, might seem magnanimous. My Lust doth hurry me to all that’s ill, I know no Law, nor reason, but my will; Sometimes lay wait to take a wealthy purse Or stab the man in’s own defence, that’s worse. Sometimes I cheat (unkind) a female Heir Of all at once, who not so wise, as fair, Trusteth my loving looks and glozing tongue Until her friends, treasure, and honour’s gone. Sometimes I sit carousing others’ health Until mine own be gone, my wit, and wealth. From pipe to pot, from pot to words and blows, For he that loveth Wine wanteth no woes. Days, nights, with Ruffins, Roarers, Fiddlers spend, To all obscenity my ears I bend, All counsel hate which tends to make me wise, And dearest friends count for mine enemies. If any care I take, ‘tis to be fine, For sure my suit more than my virtues shine. If any time from company I spare, ‘Tis spent in curling, frisling up my hair, Some young Adonais I do strive to be. Sardana Pallas now survives in me. Cards, Dice, and Oaths, concomitant, I love; To Masques, to Plays, to Taverns still I move; And in a word, if what I am you’d hear, Seek out a British, bruitish Cavalier. Such wretch, such monster am I; but yet more I want a heart all this for to deplore. Thus, thus alas! I have mispent my time, My youth, my best, my strength, my bud, and prime, Remembring not the dreadful day of Doom, Nor yet the heavy reckoning for to come, Though dangers do attend me every hour And ghastly death oft threats me with her power: Sometimes by wounds in idle combats taken, Sometimes by Agues all my body shaken; Sometimes by Fevers, all my moisture drinking, My heart lies frying, and my eyes are sinking. Sometimes the Cough, Stitch, painful Pleurisy, With sad affrights of death, do menace me. Sometimes the loathsome Pox my face be-mars With ugly marks of his eternal scars. Sometimes the Frenzy strangely mads my Brain That oft for it in Bedlam I remain. Too many’s my Diseases to recite, That wonder ‘tis I yet behold the light, That yet my bed in darkness is not made, And I in black oblivion’s den long laid. Of Marrow full my bones, of Milk my breasts, Ceas’d by the gripes of Serjeant Death's Arrests: Thus I have said, and what I’ve said you see, Childhood and youth is vain, yea vanity. Middle Age Childhood and youth forgot, sometimes I’ve seen, And now am grown more staid that have been green, What they have done, the same was done by me: As was their praise, or shame, so mine must be. Now age is more, more good ye do expect; But more my age, the more is my defect. But what’s of worth, your eyes shall first behold, And then a world of dross among my gold. When my Wild Oats were sown, and ripe, and mown, I then receiv’d a harvest of mine own. My reason, then bad judge, how little hope Such empty seed should yield a better crop. I then with both hands graspt the world together, Thus out of one extreme into another, But yet laid hold on virtue seemingly: Who climbs without hold, climbs dangerously. Be my condition mean, I then take pains My family to keep, but not for gains. If rich, I’m urged then to gather more To bear me out i’ th’ world and feed the poor; If a father, then for children must provide, But if none, then for kindred near ally’d; If Noble, then mine honour to maintain; If not, yet wealth, Nobility can gain. For time, for place, likewise for each relation, I wanted not my ready allegation. Yet all my powers for self-ends are not spent, For hundreds bless me for my bounty sent, Whose loins I’ve cloth’d, and bellies I have fed, With mine own fleece, and with my household bread. Yea, justice I have done, was I in place, To cheer the good and wicked to deface. The proud I crush’d, th’oppressed I set free, The liars curb’d but nourisht verity. Was I a pastor, I my flock did feed And gently lead the lambs, as they had need. A Captain I, with skill I train’d my band And shew’d them how in face of foes to stand. If a Soldier, with speed I did obey As readily as could my Leader say. Was I a laborer, I wrought all day As cheerfully as ere I took my pay. Thus hath mine age (in all) sometimes done well; Sometimes mine age (in all) been worse than hell. In meanness, greatness, riches, poverty Did toil, did broil; oppress’d, did steal and lie. Was I as poor as poverty could be, Then baseness was companion unto me. Such scum as Hedges and High-ways do yield, As neither sow, nor reap, nor plant, nor build. If to Agriculture I was ordain’d, Great labours, sorrows, crosses I sustain’d. The early Cock did summon, but in vain, My wakeful thoughts up to my painful gain. For restless day and night, I’m robb’d of sleep By cankered care, who sentinel doth keep. My weary breast rest from his toil can find, But if I rest, the more distrest my mind. If happiness my sordidness hath found, ‘Twas in the crop of my manured ground: My fatted Ox, and my exuberous Cow, My fleeced Ewe, and ever farrowing Sow. To greater things I never did aspire, My dunghill thoughts or hopes could reach no higher. If to be rich, or great, it was my fate. How was I broil’d with envy, and with hate? Greater than was the great’st was my desire, And greater still, did set my heart on fire. If honour was the point to which I steer’d, To run my hull upon disgrace I fear’d, But by ambitious sails I was so carried That over flats, and sands, and rocks I hurried, Opprest, and sunk, and sack’d, all in my way That did oppose me to my longed bay. My thirst was higher than Nobility And oft long’d sore to taste on Royalty, Whence poison, Pistols, and dread instruments Have been curst furtherers of mine intents. Nor Brothers, Nephews, Sons, nor Sires I’ve spar’d. When to a Monarchy my way they barr'’d, There set, I rid my self straight out of hand Of such as might my son, or his withstand, Then heapt up gold and riches as the clay, Which others scatter like the dew in May. Sometimes vain-glory is the only bait Whereby my empty school is lur’d and caught. Be I of worth, of learning, or of parts, I judge I should have room in all men’s hearts; And envy gnaws if any do surmount. I hate for to be had in small account. If Bias like, I’m stript unto my skin; I glory in my wealth I have within. Thus good, and bad, and what I am, you see, Now in a word, what my diseases be: The vexing Stone, in bladder and in reins, Torments me with intolerable pains; The windy cholic oft my bowels rend, To break the darksome prison, where it’s penn’d; The knotty Gout doth sadly torture me, And the restraining lame Sciatica; The Quinsy and the Fevers often distaste me, And the Consumption to the bones doth waste me, Subject to all Diseases, that’s the truth, Though some more incident to age, or youth; And to conclude, I may not tedious be, Man at his best estate is vanity. Old Age What you have been, ev’n such have I before, And all you say, say I, and something more. Babe's innocence, Youth’s wildness I have seen, And in perplexed Middle-age have been, Sickness, dangers, and anxieties have past, And on this Stage am come to act my last. I have been young, and strong, and wise as you But now,Bis pueri senes is too true. In every Age I’ve found much vanity. An end of all perfection now I see. It’s not my valour, honour, nor my gold, My ruin’d house, now falling can uphold; It’s not my Learning, Rhetoric, wit so large, Now hath the power, Death’s Warfare, to discharge. It’s not my goodly house, nor bed of down, That can refresh, or ease, if Conscience frown; Nor from alliance now can I have hope, But what I have done well, that is my prop. He that in youth is godly, wise, and sage Provides a staff for to support his age. Great mutations, some joyful, and some sad, In this short Pilgrimage I oft have had. Sometimes the Heavens with plenty smil’d on me, Sometimes, again, rain’d all adversity; Sometimes in honour, sometimes in disgrace, Sometime an abject, then again in place: Such private changes oft mine eyes have seen. In various times of state I’ve also been. I’ve seen a Kingdom flourish like a tree When it was rul’d by that Celestial she, And like a Cedar others so surmount That but for shrubs they did themselves account. Then saw I France, and Holland sav’d,Calais won, And Philip and Albertus half undone. I saw all peace at home, terror to foes, But ah, I saw at last those eyes to close, And then, me thought, the world at noon grew dark When it had lost that radiant Sun-like spark. In midst of griefs, I saw some hopes revive (For ‘twas our hopes then kept our hearts alive); I saw hopes dash’t, our forwardness was shent, And silenc’d we, by Act of Parliament. I’ve seen from Rome, an execrable thing, A plot to blow up Nobles and their King. I’ve seen designs at Ree and Cades cross’t, And poor Palatinate for every lost. I’ve seen a Prince to live on others’ lands, A Royal one, by alms from Subjects’ hands. I’ve seen base men, advanc’d to great degree, And worthy ones, put to extremity, But not their Prince’s love, nor state so high, Could once reverse, their shameful destiny. I’ve seen one stabb’d, another lose his head, And others fly their Country through their dread. I’ve seen, and so have ye, for ‘tis but late, The desolation of a goodly State. Plotted and acted so that none can tell Who gave the counsell, but the Prince of hell. I’ve seen a land unmoulded with great pain, But yet may live to see’t made up again. I’ve seen it shaken, rent, and soak’d in blood, But out of troubles ye may see much good. These are no old wives’ tales, but this is truth. We old men love to tell, what’s done in youth. But I return from whence I stept awry; My memory is short and brain is dry. My Almond-tree (gray hairs) doth flourish now, And back, once straight, begins apace to bow. My grinders now are few, my sight doth fail, My skin is wrinkled, and my cheeks are pale. No more rejoice, at music’s pleasant noise, But do awake at the cock’s clanging voice. I cannot scent savours of pleasant meat, Nor sapors find in what I drink or eat. My hands and arms, once strong, have lost their might. I cannot labour, nor I cannot fight: My comely legs, as nimble as the Roe, Now stiff and numb, can hardly creep or go. My heart sometimes as fierce, as Lion bold, Now trembling, and fearful, sad, and cold. My golden Bowl and silver Cord, e’re long, Shall both be broke, by wracking death so strong. I then shall go whence I shall come no more. Sons, Nephews, leave, my death for to deplore. In pleasures, and in labours, I have found That earth can give no consolation sound To great, to rich, to poor, to young, or old, To mean, to noble, fearful, or to bold. From King to beggar, all degrees shall find But vanity, vexation of the mind. Yea, knowing much, the pleasant’st life of all Hath yet amongst that sweet, some bitter gall. Though reading others’ Works doth much refresh, Yet studying much brings weariness to th’ flesh. My studies, labours, readings all are done, And my last period can e’en elmost run. Corruption, my Father, I do call, Mother, and sisters both; the worms that crawl In my dark house, such kindred I have store. There I shall rest till heavens shall be no more; And when this flesh shall rot and be consum’d, This body, by this soul, shall be assum’d; And I shall see with these same very eyes My strong Redeemer coming in the skies. Triumph I shall, o’re Sin, o’re Death, o’re Hell, And in that hope, I bid you all farewell.

I He stood outside the gates of Lhasa for four days singing I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed, but the berries are delicious if you remember to wash them.

“Wake to the sun,” the rooster croaked, First bird of the day. The world, light-flecked, Chiselled its lineaments into form. Where was all that fine light coming from? “Trance at the wonder,” the second sang. Whose five dry notes urged the ongoing Afternoon on. “Why wake and stir?” It asked. And asked. There was no answer. “Live through the muddle.” That from the next one. Not very helpful. It looked like rain, Or fog in the offing. Twilight. Then It sang again from an oak or pine. Silence. How I waited for the fourth! Time was a negative dipped into its bath, The dark a fixative that slowly made For every windowpane its window shade. No messages arrived. No music bared The soul for its penitence. Up the stairs No hint of a footfall. The night passed. “Croak by your hand,” said the crow at last.

I Eagerly Like a woman hurrying to her lover Night comes to the room of the world And lies, yielding and content Against the cool round face Of the moon. II Night is a curious child, wandering Between earth and sky, creeping In windows and doors, daubing The entire neighborhood With purple paint. Day Is an apologetic mother Cloth in hand Following after. III Peddling From door to door Night sells Black bags of peppermint stars Heaping cones of vanilla moon Until His wares are gone Then shuffles homeward Jingling the gray coins Of daybreak. IV Night’s brittle song, sliver-thin Shatters into a billion fragments Of quiet shadows At the blaring jazz Of a morning sun.

The mountain north of Pasadena has severe and angular back canyons where the light is always unexpected, out of place, too simple for the clutter of the granite blocks along the creeks. The slopes have low rough shrubs, some firebreaks. It rains sometimes, and then the soils wash easily through Rubio and Eaton canyons to the small catch-basins and the storage tanks. The bedrocks tilt toward the west, and so the seepage drains that way. Along a wall of the Arroyo, it comes down in springs named Tibbets, Ivy, Flutterwheel. These are the only steady water, and the Indiana colony had hauled it out in tubs and barrels to their lots. They’d cleared the greasewood from the flats and planted groves of orange and peach trees, built their houses in the California Style with battened redwood boards. Nearer the Arroyo, on its terraces, they saved a few live oak. They’d have December picnics there and afterward would walk from that side, down the bluff. The floor was cool, and there were sycamore and alder, loose irregular new channels through the willows. On the other side, and south, below the San Rafaels, more oak, the sun. They’d take a new way back. Their lots extended east to the Lake Vineyard Land and Water Company. And as a grudging compromise between that tract and theirs, the Central School was built in the dry neat rows of the orchards east of where they lived. Excursion parties from the Middle West were taken mostly with the climate. At the citrus fairs, the charts and produce showed them that it didn’t freeze. Storms were rare and offered the consoling interest of a flood in the Arroyo, loud and stupid boulders the size of safes colliding down the wash. A new hotel faced south on Colorado. Like the Ward Block to its right across Fair Oaks, it was substantial, frame, with dormers and brick chimneys. Each had its widow’s walk and looked as much like Boston as it needed to. Someone from Los Angeles brought in a telephone. He hooked it up in the store on the southeast corner, rode back downtown and called and asked for so-and-so, who wasn’t there. From that one crossing, there were fewer lots each month, new storefronts and more traffic, speculating boomers and pikers, midnight sales, bands and free lunches at the auctions. Owners were induced to move east on Colorado to more eligible locations, but the cross-streets led through dusty tent-lined orchards to the chaparral. The boom came back toward the center and was done. What they’d been selling was the weather and a place to live, and that was what was left. As their one industry, the Novelty Works of Mr. Wakeley went on stuffing scorpions and trapdoor spiders, horny toads, small animals and birds. The balance of trade was not in Pasadena’s favor. But there were jobs. James Scoville kept men doing rockwork on the banks above his groves. The Arroyo narrowed there, and so he had them build a pumphouse and a dam and turn a railroad trestle upside down between two concrete footings. This was the central bridge. It crossed to open ranchland that would subdivide more slowly than the woodlots on the bluffs. Another bridge, La Loma, farther south, was taller, with a wider span and sycamores around its girders. It had replaced the Johnston bridge and made it easier to sell the tracts. The wealth of the invisible elite went into homes on Grand and Orange Grove, Raymond, Nithsdale Rd., Arroyo Terrace, Bellefontaine, new bungalows that looked much less expensive than they were. In their commissions, Charles and Henry Greene used common and available materials, stones from the Arroyo, bricks, a simple flexible pine frame of 2 x 4s and hand-split cedar shakes, porches that were railed with the same rough timber as the posts and beams and trusses and the overhanging rafters for the roof. Their costs were mostly labor. They’d show the workers where they wanted terraces and knolls, what trees and shrubs to save. A local factory expanded to keep up with them, and they’d make daily visits there to oversee the millmen and the carvers or the quality of lumber that had just been shipped. Their mason did exactly what they called for on retaining-walls, the color of the fill, which stone or clinker at what angle to the rest. Each minor thing they cared about earned what it had to do with matters that were not their business. Where the money for a house had come from, what the Mayor had in mind, or Public Works, or how the street would look with lights— affairs like these beyond the garden stayed accessible, a movement to and from the house implicit in its horizontal lines. The roof was long and relatively flat. Beams above the frames of doors and windows were much broader than the frames themselves and paralleled the covered entryways and porches. Even the stairs inside were less than vertical, each section of the railing carved from a single piece of teak and joined to all the other teak—the notched and interlocking kickplates, the splines and level boards that were the facing of the well. Their stairs were furniture. A bench along a landing had the same insistent finish as the inglehook, the same square ebony caps for screwheads as the chairs and tables. Everything showed you how it went together. A scarf or box-joint, metal straps, continuous sure banding from the hallway into any room. There was tile and leaded glass, but it was mostly wood—mahoganies and walnuts, oak, redwood or white cedar wainscots, doweled and pegged loose furniture in teak or birch or lignum-vitae, a smooth self-lubricating wood that didn’t crack. The grain inside was outside too in rafters and stiff rounded beam-ends that were oiled and rubbed. They looked penetrable to light, looked as if they could absorb and carry it at any single time toward the one best place inside. Lucile’s house on Holliston was miles from the Arroyo. But it was imitation Greene & Greene, a less impressive version of their simplest large two-story frames. Its eaves on both the north and south reached almost to the neighbors’ lots, lots that for several blocks each way repeated themselves with slightly different houses. The man she’d bought it from was still a pharmacist at Lake and Villa. He didn’t know me and I never spoke to him. He had a massive tumor on his neck and jaw, and I would be amazed each time I saw him that he wasn’t dead. Until a year or so before he’d sold the house, there’d been an organ with the pipes extending to an upstairs bedroom, probably the room across the hall from Donna’s. There would have been no floor between the first and second stories, our den and sewing room a single shaftlike chamber that the sound would fill. It’s just as likely that the floor had been there all along, exactly as we knew it, with the organ somewhere else. But of all the rooms downstairs, only the den could open to the room above it. With the ranks of pipes along the wall that backed against the stairs, there would have been high windows to the south and west, and possibly, around three sides, a thin railed walk one got to from the upstairs hall. I might let myself care more about how well or what he played if it were clearer to me how the organ looked. If I know anything about its wood, I know it from the oak-frame sliding doors between the den and living room. So if the console had been quartered oak, the case was walnut—no tracery around the pipes, the same plain cuts as for the cabinets and counters everywhere downstairs. How many manuals there were, or knobs with nameplates for the pitches and the stops, if the bench was free or fixed, or whether the pedals for the naturals were strips that flared slightly in their alignment toward the darker sharps— the whole clear shape of it in that one place remains as closed to me as how it worked, as the feeders and the reservoirs, the valves, the layers of coarse felt between the double panels of the swell-box; as how the sliders kept the air below the upper-boards and pipes and let it go and let it sound the way he wanted it to sound, the wind inside the pipe striking against a lip and coming back, contained and vibrant for the time he kept it there. Its shock to the air outside the pipe was how it sounded, the way he wanted it to sound, or as it might have sounded if the room were larger and the sounds dispersed and mixed less palpably, went on together with the light or darkness in the room. There wouldn’t have been time between the sounds to count them to be sure that nothing of the piece was missing. Nor was there time for me, at any moment in the sewing room, to know the changes that the light had worked downstairs. Not that I would have tried to know, or done much more than suffer my current fit of pouting. I’d hear Lucile walk past the stairs toward the kitchen in her busy self-important way. Maybe she’d leave. From a back window of the sewing room, I’d see her in her car and starting out the driveway. These were the least obstructed windows in the house. Late in the day, haze showed its tired agreement with the house next door, the shingles dull and olive like the rusted screens, the asphalt paper on the roof. I could see my aunt’s back yard on Chester. Trees as far west of us as Lake marked off the streets in staggered elevations—palms, short rows of deodars and jacarandas. At night, from a window in the southern wall, the top three letters on the tower for the academy kept coming on one at a time, then all together. [...] Richard Arkwright was a barber. He toured the markets and the farms and bought the hair of country girls and made it into wigs. When he hired John Kay to build a frame for spinning thread from the strands of cotton, manufacture was domestic—looms and jennies in the kitchens of the small freeholders and the farmers who would sell their cloth to merchants. Wool was the English staple trade, a privilege of the landed graziers. All gentlemen wore silk. Raw cotton was a coarse adherent fiber from Brazil and the Antilles. It had to be opened and cleaned and have its strands laid parallel by two large cards that worked it back and forth between them. Drawing made the slivers equal in thickness by redoubling them, and roving made them thicker still and left them ready to be spun. Arkwright’s water-frame replaced the hand’s inexpert pulling and pushing, movements that begin and end and can’t repeat themselves exactly. At Cromford, with the money of two hosiers, he built a gas-lit mill above the Derwent. He needed journeymen clockmakers who did tooth and pinion, a smith who forged and filed. Afraid that no one man would know “all that I should expect he might,” he was “determined to let no person see the works.” He wanted “locks and hangings for the windows; good latches for the outer doors, and for the inner doors as well.” To make the other money come to him, he specified as little as he could in all his patents. And as he sold the plans, he built six factories in Lancashire. At Glasgow, he was made an honorary burgess and was taken to the Falls of Clyde, at New Lanark, where he would build another mill. He advertised for weavers, framework-knitters. Children who were seven could have constant employment. In the riot against machines, they burned his mill near Chorley. He was threatened: “I will lie in wait for you in this town Nottingham or wherever I most likely to find you. I will ashure shute you as your name is what it is. Dam you do you think the town must be ruled by such a barber as you.” Contemporaries thought he was a Newton or Napoleon. He was knighted and named High Sheriff of Derbyshire. He claimed that he could pay the national debt if he were left alone to make his money; and when he died, the income from his mills was more than that of most German principalities. He was asthmatic. An economist of time, he worked at English grammar as he traveled in a post-chaise with four horses driven always at top speed. He lost his patents at a trial in 1785. The industry was open. In the damp valleys, at breaks in the long profiles of the streams, new spinning mills went up. They were too far outside the towns to worry that they’d be inspected—close enough to send their thread to upland workshops by the new trans-Pennine turnpike roads, or by the new canal that crossed the valley of the Calder, through the Craven drumlins east to the other watershed, and Leeds. There was so much thread that barns were fitted up with handlooms that could weave good fustians and cambrics. Cotton was its own new country, and the landlords feared the moneyed men. Land could itself be capital, the business of the aristocracy. Each landlord had his broken straggling plots, their furrows running lengthwise to the rounded headlands where the plough would turn. He knew which land was his, but it was open and was grazed collectively by several owners. Between harvest and sowing, even his farmers’ pigs would graze there with the sheep. Cows grazed the catchwork meadows on the terraces, or at the watersides. Enclosure was the landlords’ plan to change their strips of arable to larger straighter fields. They would appropriate the wastes—the marshes and moors, the peat-bogs where the farmers got their fuel. Commons had been “a profit which a man hath in the land of another, as to pasture beasts thereon, cut wood, catch fish, hunt coneys, and the like.” In most of the Midland parishes, there were now Acts for Enclosure of the Open and Common Fields, new roads with wide grass verges to a ditch, then quickset hedgerows, ash, occasional small farmsteads with a croft, no lanes, the landlord’s manor and his park, and in the fields the thickets for his foxes. It cost him less to graze than till. The stiff clay soils would hold a year of wheat, another of spring corn, lie fallow. The land would yield him more if he could save the labor of his farmers and the cottagers. Tenure at Will was his prerogative to put them off the land when he was through with them. As he engrossed more farms, they set his hedges, drained and marled the looser tracts and planted clover, turnips, and lucerne. He managed breeds of stock and turned them out to graze the even turf across the hillocks. Enclosure had made “fat beasts, and lean poor people.” With no one skill peculiar to themselves, they left the villages for workshops in the north. The Earl of Leicester said “I look around and see no other house than mine. I am like the ogre in the tale, and have eaten up all my neighbors.”

(i) (for Robert Grey) caged by dappled light unlike Rilke’s beast     content this side of heaven (ii) perennial green ephemeral butterfly what time’s time enough? (iii) red roof in full leaf sail now grey threatening sky cry blue land ahoy! (iv) in this green waiting birds trill leaves quiver then time interjects its train!

I. Blood We wondered if the rumors got to her. I’d seen her with that other girl behind The Stop and Shop when I was walking home from school one day. I swear, the two of them were kissing, plain as that, the grass so high it brushed their cheeks. I told my teacher so, and maybe it was her who called their folks. Before too long, it was like everyone in town had heard. We waited for them at the dime store once, where Cedric grabbed her tits and said I’ll learn you how to love how God intended it, you ugly fucking dyke. Thing was, she wasn’t ugly like you’d think. She had a certain quality, a shyness maybe, and I’d describe the way she laughed as kind of gentle. Anyway, we never saw her with that girl again. They say she got depressed— shit, at the service all of us got tearful. I got to thinking what an awful sight it was, all that red blood—it wasn’t in the papers, but I heard Melissa’s mother, who was the nurse in the Emergency that night, say how she was just covered up in blood. I can’t think how you bring yourself to cut your throat like that yourself—I asked the counselor they called in to the school, and she said something like,What better ink to write the language of the heart? I guess it proves that stuff from Bible school they say, that such a life of sin breeds misery. II. Phlegm “My brain is draining from my head,” he said as once again he blew his nose. The clock read 3 A.M.; its second hand swept slowly through another viscous minute. Dead to even nurses sticking them for new IVs, the other ones slept off their benders soundlessly. “I’m losing my intelligence,” he said, and blew. My patience waned. He thought he was the president: Dementia, KS, HIV were printed in his problem list. “And plus, I’m getting feverish.” I can’t recall his name, but I remember hating him—grim wish that he would hurry up and die. Just then, he took my hand, and kissed the back of it as though I were a princess in his foreign land. “My lady, you are beautiful,” he said, and coughed again. Unsure of what to say, my own throat burned. He said, “You can’t know what I feel.” III. Bile A gun went off and killed a little girl The day my friend was diagnosed with cancer. I walked through Central Park; a black dog snarled At squirrels chattering like they had answers. The day my friend was diagnosed with cancer I dreamed of killing someone with a knife. The squirrels, chattering, had likely answers To all my angry questions about life— A homeboy threatened someone with a knife Not far from where a cop showed off his gun, An angry answer to most questions about life. I watched the squirrels hop, the yuppies run; The cop approached the black kids with his gun. I wondered how much longer she would live; The squirrels scattered when the homeboy ran. I wondered if she’d ever been in love, I wondered who would pray for her to live, Forgive her for her anger and her weaknesses. I wondered why it hurt to fall in love. The cop tried aiming past me, towards the woods. Forgive us for our anger, for our weaknesses: Through Central Park, past the black dog’s snarls, The cop gave chase. A skirmish in the woods. The gun went off—No! shrieked a little girl. IV. Melancholy We picked at it with sticks at first, until an older kid named Samuel arrived. He dropped a heavy rock right on its skull; we watched as thick black slime began to ooze from somewhere just below its heart—or where we thought its heart should be. “Raccoon,” said someone solemnly. The landscaper— sweat gleaming, like the polished figurines my mother wouldn’t ever let me touch— regarded us with keen suspicion from across the street. We learned what it could teach; like any body’s secrets, the sublime receded toward the fact of death. I knew both sadness, and disgust in love’s untruths.

I know a place where the sun is like gold, And the cherry blooms burst with snow, And down underneath is the loveliest nook, Where the four-leaf clovers grow. One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith, And one is for love, you know, And God put another in for luck— If you search, you will find where they grow. But you must have hope, and you must have faith, You must love and be strong – and so— If you work, if you wait, you will find the place Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

All the baby knows is the flop of her limbs and the milky blue vein of sleep and the parking lot of her animal fear, the cars left there overnight, windshields dark and thick with dew. The rest is completely unknown, the complete darkness of her white room, where she sleeps on a clean sheet printed with baby crocodiles and lions wearing diapers.