Louise Glück

We’re all dreamers; we don’t know who we are. Some machine made us; machine of the world, the constricting family. Then back to the world, polished by soft whips. We dream; we don’t remember. Machine of the family: dark fur, forests of the mother’s body. Machine of the mother: white city inside her. And before that: earth and water. Moss between rocks, pieces of leaves and grass. And before, cells in a great darkness. And before that, the veiled world. This is why you were born: to silence me. Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece. I improvised; I never remembered. Now it’s your turn to be driven; you’re the one who demands to know: Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant? Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us; it is your turn to address it, to go back asking what am I for? What am I for?

It is not the moon, I tell you. It is these flowers lighting the yard. I hate them. I hate them as I hate sex, the man’s mouth sealing my mouth, the man’s paralyzing body— and the cry that always escapes, the low, humiliating premise of union— In my mind tonight I hear the question and pursuing answer fused in one sound that mounts and mounts and then is split into the old selves, the tired antagonisms. Do you see? We were made fools of. And the scent of mock orange drifts through the window. How can I rest? How can I be content when there is still that odor in the world?

On nights like this we used to swim in the quarry, the boys making up games requiring them to tear off  the girls’ clothes and the girls cooperating, because they had new bodies since last summer and they wanted to exhibit them, the brave ones leaping off  the high rocks — bodies crowding the water. The nights were humid, still. The stone was cool and wet, marble for  graveyards, for buildings that we never saw, buildings in cities far away. On cloudy nights, you were blind. Those nights the rocks were dangerous, but in another way it was all dangerous, that was what we were after. The summer started. Then the boys and girls began to pair off but always there were a few left at the end — sometimes they’d keep watch, sometimes they’d pretend to go off  with each other like the rest, but what could they do there, in the woods? No one wanted to be them. But they’d show up anyway, as though some night their luck would change, fate would be a different fate. At the beginning and at the end, though, we were all together. After the evening chores, after the smaller children were in bed, then we were free. Nobody said anything, but we knew the nights we’d meet and the nights we wouldn’t. Once or twice, at the end of summer, we could see a baby was going to come out of all that kissing. And for those two, it was terrible, as terrible as being alone. The game was over. We’d sit on the rocks smoking cigarettes, worrying about the ones who weren’t there. And then finally walk home through the fields, because there was always work the next day. And the next day, we were kids again, sitting on the front steps in the morning, eating a peach.  Just that, but it seemed an honor to have a mouth. And then going to work, which meant helping out in the fields. One boy worked for an old lady, building shelves. The house was very old, maybe built when the mountain was built. And then the day faded. We were dreaming, waiting for night. Standing at the front door at twilight, watching the shadows lengthen. And a voice in the kitchen was always complaining about the heat, wanting the heat to break. Then the heat broke, the night was clear. And you thought of  the boy or girl you’d be meeting later. And you thought of  walking into the woods and lying down, practicing all those things you were learning in the water. And though sometimes you couldn’t see the person you were with, there was no substitute for that person. The summer night glowed; in the field, fireflies were glinting. And for those who understood such things, the stars were sending messages: You will leave the village where you were born and in another country you’ll become very rich, very powerful, but always you will mourn something you left behind, even though you can’t say what it was, and eventually you will return to seek it.

1 Is that an attitude for a flower, to stand like a club at the walk; poor slain boy, is that a way to show gratitude to the gods? White with colored hearts, the tall flowers sway around you, all the other boys, in the cold spring, as the violets open. 2 There were no flowers in antiquity but boys’ bodies, pale, perfectly imagined. So the gods sank to human shape with longing. In the field, in the willow grove, Apollo sent the courtiers away. 3 And from the blood of the wound a flower sprang, lilylike, more brilliant than the purples of Tyre. Then the god wept: his vital grief flooded the earth. 4 Beauty dies: that is the source of creation. Outside the ring of trees the courtiers could hear the dove’s call transmit its uniform, its inborn sorrow— They stood listening, among the rustling willows. Was this the god’s lament? They listened carefully. And for a short time all sound was sad. 5 There is no other immortality: in the cold spring, the purple violets open. And yet, the heart is black, there is its violence frankly exposed. Or is it not the heart at the center but some other word? And now someone is bending over them, meaning to gather them— 6 They could not wait in exile forever. Through the glittering grove the courtiers ran calling the name of their companion over the birds’ noise, over the willows’ aimless sadness. Well into the night they wept, their clear tears altering no earthly color.

—After Robert Pinsky Defier of closed space, such as the head, opener Of the sealed passageways, so that Sunlight entering the nose can once again Exit the ear, vaporizer, mist machine, whose Soft hiss sounds like another human being But less erratic, more stable, or, if not like a human being, Carried by one, by my mother to the sick chamber Of my childhood — as Freud said, Why are you always sick, Louise ? his cigar Confusing mist with smoke, interfering With healing—Embodied Summoner of these ghosts, white plastic tub with your elegant Clear tub, the water sanitized by boiling, Sterile, odorless, In my mother’s absence Run by me, the one machine I understand: what Would life be if we could not buy Objects to care for us And bear them home, away from the druggists’ pity, If we could not carry in our own arms Alms, alchemy, to the safety of our bedrooms, If there were no more Sounds in the night, continuous Hush, hush of warm steam, not Like human breath though regular, if there were nothing in the world More hopeful than the self, Soothing it, wishing it well.

Two women with the same claim came to the feet of the wise king. Two women, but only one baby. The king knew someone was lying. What he said was Let the child be cut in half; that way no one will go empty-handed. He drew his sword. Then, of the two women, one renounced her share: this was the sign, the lesson. Suppose you saw your mother torn between two daughters: what could you do to save her but be willing to destroy yourself—she would know who was the rightful child, the one who couldn’t bear to divide the mother.

Over the still world, a bird calls waking solitary among black boughs. You wanted to be born; I let you be born. When has my grief ever gotten in the way of your pleasure? Plunging ahead into the dark and light at the same time eager for sensation as though you were some new thing, wanting to express yourselves all brilliance, all vivacity never thinking this would cost you anything, never imagining the sound of my voice as anything but part of you— you won't hear it in the other world, not clearly again, not in birdcall or human cry, not the clear sound, only persistent echoing in all sound that means good-bye, good-bye— the one continuous line that binds us to each other.

I asked for much; I received much. I asked for much; I received little, I received next to nothing. And between? A few umbrellas opened indoors. A pair of shoes by mistake on the kitchen table. O wrong, wrong—it was my nature. I was hard-hearted, remote. I was selfish, rigid to the point of tyranny. But I was always that person, even in early childhood. Small, dark-haired, dreaded by the other children. I never changed. Inside the glass, the abstract tide of fortune turned from high to low overnight. Was it the sea? Responding, maybe, to celestial force? To be safe, I prayed. I tried to be a better person. Soon it seemed to me that what began as terror and matured into moral narcissism might have become in fact actual human growth. Maybe this is what my friends meant, taking my hand, telling me they understood the abuse, the incredible shit I accepted, implying (so I once thought) I was a little sick to give so much for so little. Whereas they meant I was good(clasping my hand intensely)— a good friend and person, not a creature of pathos. I was not pathetic! I was writ large, like a queen or a saint. Well, it all makes for interesting conjecture. And it occurs to me that what is crucial is to believe in effort, to believe some good will come of simply trying, a good completely untainted by the corrupt initiating impulse to persuade or seduce— What are we without this? Whirling in the dark universe, alone, afraid, unable to influence fate— What do we have really? Sad tricks with ladders and shoes, tricks with salt, impurely motivated recurring attempts to build character. What do we have to appease the great forces? And I think in the end this was the question that destroyed Agamemnon, there on the beach, the Greek ships at the ready, the sea invisible beyond the serene harbor, the future lethal, unstable: he was a fool, thinking it could be controlled. He should have said I have nothing, I am at your mercy.

All day I tried to distinguish need from desire. Now, in the dark, I feel only bitter sadness for us, the builders, the planers of wood, because I have been looking steadily at these elms and seen the process that creates the writhing, stationary tree is torment, and have understood it will make no forms but twisted forms.

Spiked sun. The Hudson’s Whittled down by ice. I hear the bone dice Of blown gravel clicking. Bone- pale, the recent snow Fastens like fur to the river. Standstill. We were leaving to deliver Christmas presents when the tire blew Last year. Above the dead valves pines pared Down by a storm stood, limbs bared . . . I want you.