260 Childhood poems

Each night after reading three books to my two children— we each picked one—to unwind them into dreamland, I'd turn off the light and sit between their beds in the wide junk-shop rocker I'd reupholstered blue, still feeling the close-reading warmth of their bodies beside me, and ask them to talk about the day—we did this, we did that, sometimes leading somewhere, sometimes not, but always ending up at the happy ending of now. Now, in still darkness, listening to their breath slow and ease into sleep's regular rhythm. Grown now, you might've guessed. The past tense solid, unyielding, against the acidic drip of recent years. But how it calmed us then, rewinding the gentle loop, and in the trusting darkness, pressing play.

I’ve long had what Soviet psychiatrists called “a tendency toward vagrancy.” At four I would run away from home repeatedly for a whole day, alone or sometimes with a friend named Boris of like age. Knew full well we “just can’t do this,” but nudge for nudge and wink for wink, we’d board the trolleybus #10, I think, buy tickets at four kopeks each from our gleanings and savings of the week, stick them into the ticket punch on the wall, watch the chad fall as you pulled, and ride all across Kishinev in half an hour to get off near that unforgettable restaurant built in the likeness of a huge wine barrel. We peered inside, it was cool. Then we had options: go and splash in the local artificial lake (I couldn’t swim yet), wonder in between along the banks, catching frogs to take home in a glass jar to populate a small construction pond (why did we always use my shirt to do this?), or go and explore the local flea market, which was not at all safe to do, but even at four it’s nice to have options. (One guy sold what we thought was a gun, we asked him and he confirmed it.) Those were days of cholera epidemics in Moldova. We’d buy peasant-cooked fodder corn on the cob when we got hungry, haggled with old ladies over pennies. We wouldn’t catch the return trolley until sunset. Then it’s always the same picture: the wicket creaks open, the landlord’s mutant barks through froth, my wet shirt clings. I step out of the dark toward my mother waiting by the door of our “temporary house” on Kaluga Street, which was a bit of a dirt road, probably still is. She has been crying, takes me inside. Room and kitchen (no bathroom or running water): the room had a brick stove, the kitchen a dirt floor (with mice and sometimes grass) and a white washstand — these lines are all that has survived of them. There was great beauty in their squalor. She has been crying, takes me inside, says she will scold me later. I know it will be soon. First she must call the cops to tell them I’ve been found. Of course, back then I didn’t understand anything: neither how a poet harms his mother, nor how alienated (thank you, Marx, for that term) one can be from the start, and free in the grip of that greatest paradox of all — a happy Soviet childhood.

That child was dangerous. That just-born Newly washed and silent baby Wrapped in deerskin and held warm Against the side of its mother could understand The language of birds and animals Even when asleep. It knew why Bluejay Was scolding the bushes, what Hawk was explaining To the wind on the cliffside, what Bittern had found out While standing alone in marsh grass. It knew What the screams of Fox and the whistling of Otter Were telling the forest. That child knew The language of Fire As it gnawed at sticks like Beaver And what Water said all day and all night At the creek's mouth. As its small fingers Closed around Stone, it held what Stone was saying. It knew what Bear Mother whispered to herself Under the snow. It could not tell Anyone what it knew. It would laugh Or cry out or startle or suddenly stare At nothing, but had no way To repeat what it was hearing, what it wanted most Not to remember. It had no way to know Why it would fall under a spell And lie still as if not breathing, Having grown afraid Of what it could understand. That child would learn To sit and crawl and stand and begin Putting one foot forward and following it With the other, would learn to put one word It could barely remember slightly ahead Of the other and then walk and speak And finally run and chatter, And all the Tillamook would know that child Had forgotten everything and at last could listen Only to people and was safe now.

Nights we could not sleep— summer insects singing in dry heat, short-circuiting the nerves— Grandma would light a lamp, at the center of our narrow room, whose clean conspiracy of light whispered to the tall blank walls, illuminating them suddenly like the canvas of a dream. Between the lamp and wall her arthritic wrists grew pliant as she molded and cast improbable animal shapes moving on the wordless screen: A blackbird, like a mynah, not a crow. A dark horse’s head that could but would not talk. An ashen rabbit (her elusive self) triggered in snow that a quivering touch (like death’s) sent scampering into the wings of that little theater of shadows that eased us into dreams.

Then was the grown-up world of tall decision, Its beauty of late nights denied a child; World of bewildering gifts, and strange derision, Alien alike whether it frowned or smiled, Yet your least wish was governed by its laws. The landscape and the weather both were odd, Exploding with effects that hid a cause Serene and lonely as the Will of God. Recall it: peopled by an august race, Immune to the passions that attack the young, And knowing all. There every commonplace Must be translated from a marvellous tongue. Now is the world of grandeur dwindled, shrunk To what the stupidest can understand. The shabby treasures of an exile’s trunk Include no passport to that wonderland, Though you are told you are a citizen. The scenery is changed, the climate dull; The fateful masks are faces, gods are men; Most nights are long and few are magical. But there are strangers even here: their speech Is rich in barbarous mystery, their ways Are private, who live wholly beyond reach, Admired and feared, though none of us obeys Their foreign rule. No dictators, and yet Strong utterly. While we, with pity wrung For what they must do, suffer, learn, forget, Feel shy when we approach them. They are young.

There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs And islands of Winander! many a time, At evening, when the earliest stars began To move along the edges of the hills, Rising or setting, would he stand alone, Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake; And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls That they might answer him.—And they would shout Across the watery vale, and shout again, Responsive to his call,—with quivering peals, And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause Of silence such as baffled his best skill: Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise Has carried far into his heart the voice Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene Would enter unawares into his mind With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received Into the bosom of the steady lake. This boy was taken from his mates, and died In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs Upon a slope above the village-school; And through that churchyard when my way has led On summer-evenings, I believe that there A long half-hour together I have stood Mute—looking at the grave in which he lies!

There was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very good indeed, But when she was bad she was horrid.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread; And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

You can’t imagine the goats who were my only friends as a child how they tore at my underwear, hitting their heads into my legs, playfully throwing me into the air. How their snores rattled the night. How their milk tasted sweet and thick and altogether wild. How they followed me through the orchard and up into the rocky fields above and ate blueberries through the afternoon. How at twilight I’d walk down, a hand on two goats’ backs and they’d talk me all the way down. How many times I was beaten about the face and shoulders and back. How the goat smell kept me from properly experiencing food. How I crept out to the goats in the night and slept very well there the goats licking my bruises as though I were sacred and wounded and divine.

Little paper cuds we made by ripping the corners or edges from homework and class notes then ruminating them into balls we’d flick from our fingertips or catapult with pencils or (sometimes after lunch) launch through striped straws like deadly projectiles toward the necks of enemies and any other target where they’d stick with the tiniest splat, I hope you’re still there, stuck to unreachable ceilings like the beginnings of nests by generations of wasps too ignorant to finish them or under desktops with blunt stalactites of chewing gum, little white words we learned to shape and hold in our mouths while waiting to let them fly, our most tenacious utterance.