505 History and politics poems

In spite of all the learned have said, I still my old opinion keep; The posture, that we give the dead, Points out the soul's eternal sleep. Not so the ancients of these lands— The Indian, when from life released, Again is seated with his friends, And shares again the joyous feast. His imaged birds, and painted bowl, And venison, for a journey dressed, Bespeak the nature of the soul, Activity, that knows no rest. His bow, for action ready bent, And arrows, with a head of stone, Can only mean that life is spent, And not the old ideas gone. Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way, No fraud upon the dead commit— Observe the swelling turf, and say They do not lie, but here they sit. Here still a lofty rock remains, On which the curious eye may trace (Now wasted, half, by wearing rains) The fancies of a ruder race. Here still an aged elm aspires, Beneath whose far-projecting shade (And which the shepherd still admires) The children of the forest played! There oft a restless Indian queen (Pale Shebah, with her braided hair) And many a barbarous form is seen To chide the man that lingers there. By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews; In habit for the chase arrayed, The hunter still the deer pursues, The hunter and the deer, a shade! And long shall timorous fancy see The painted chief, and pointed spear, And Reason's self shall bow the knee To shadows and delusions here.

‘How can the red men be forgotten, while so many of our states and territories, bays, lakes, and rivers, are indelibly stamped by names of their giving?’ Ye say they all have passed away, That noble race and brave, That their light canoes have vanished From off the crested wave; That ’mid the forests where they roamed There rings no hunter shout, But their name is on your waters, Ye may not wash it out. ’Tis where Ontario’s billow Like Ocean’s surge is curled, Where strong Niagara’s thunders wake The echo of the world. Where red Missouri bringeth Rich tribute from the west, And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps On green Virginia’s breast. Ye say their cone-like cabins, That clustered o’er the vale, Have fled away like withered leaves Before the autumn gale, But their memory liveth on your hills, Their baptism on your shore, Your everlasting rivers speak Their dialect of yore. Old Massachusetts wears it, Within her lordly crown, And broad Ohio bears it, Amid his young renown; Connecticut hath wreathed it Where her quiet foliage waves, And bold Kentucky breathed it hoarse Through all her ancient caves. Wachuset hides its lingering voice Within his rocky heart, And Alleghany graves its tone Throughout his lofty chart; Monadnock on his forehead hoar Doth seal the sacred trust, Your mountains build their monument, Though ye destroy their dust. Ye call these red-browned brethren The insects of an hour, Crushed like the noteless worm amid The regions of their power; Ye drive them from their father’s lands, Ye break of faith the seal, But can ye from the court of Heaven Exclude their last appeal? Ye see their unresisting tribes, With toilsome step and slow, On through the trackless desert pass A caravan of woe; Think ye the Eternal’s ear is deaf? His sleepless vision dim? Think ye the soul’s blood may not cry From that far land to him?

I sing of an old land where the gods have taken shelter underground, where the human idols eat human sacrifice, where hatred runs the business of philanthropy, where blazing dragons eclipse the wronged ghosts, where silence and smiles are the trace of wisdom, where words imitate spears and swords, where truth is always a bloody legend. I speak of the old land not out of love or wonderment. Like my ancestors who were scattered into the smoky winds, who scrambled to leave home or rushed towards the approaching enemies, I join those who fled and returned, who disappeared in other lands bearing no hope but persistence, no honor but the story, no fortune but parents and children, singing a timeless curse, a curse that has bound us together and rooted us deep in the wreck of our homeland. I touch the land at night— My hands trace the map on the wall, from mountains to villages and to rivers, from plains to cities and to seashores. I see the green fields of the South, the dark soil and birch woods of the North, and snow swirling in summer. I dream of myself in that land, not for happiness or harvest. I dream of suffering together with my people, of being understood and useful, of being left alone and able to sleep, of my children refusing my land so they will not repeat my life, of talking and walking with friends, of completing the work and dying with ease. I weep for the old land, for its vast narrowness, for its profound stupidity, for its chaos and tenacity, for its power to possess those of my kind to devour us to nourish itself to seize our hearts and throats and mix our moans with songs— songs of monstrous grandeur and merciless devotion, songs crazed by the cycle of that land.

For the earth has spoken, to you, her magma Creole. Full-throated syllables, up- rising from deep down, an honest elocution — rudimentary sound: guttural nouns, forthright, strong, the rumbled conviction of verbs unfettered by reticence as the first poetry of creation. A secret has passed between you so wonderfully terrible, it laid your cities prostrate, raptured your citizenry. Now, we look to your remnant courtesy cable TV and garble theories thinking ourselves saved. Only the wise among us pin our ears to the ground, listening in hope of catching even a half syllable of the language forming like a new world on your tongue.

There are stones even here worn into a malevolence by time gritting the teeth and tearing the eyes with the memory. Out in the desert, the wind is a sculptor working the ephemera of sand. Desperately editing steles to write the names of thousands of slaves who died to make Pharaoh great. It is a fool’s game. And we are like the blind musician at the hotel who tells us with a smile: I’ll see you later. The guard at the pyramid eyes me. Are you Egyptian? he demands, then searches my bag for a bomb. At the hotel they speak Arabic to me, don’t treat me like the white guests, and I guess, even here, with all the hindsight of history we haven’t learned to love ourselves. I cannot crawl into the tombs, and cannot explain why. How do you say: In my country they buried me alive for six months? And so you lie and tell yourself this is love. I am protecting the world from my rage. Rabab tells me: We know how to build graves here. I nod. I know. It is the same all over Africa. Do you have a knife? Do you have one? the guards at the museum ask Breyten and me, searching us. We call this on ourselves. We are clearly political criminals. I trace the glyphs chipped into stone. As a writer I am drawn to this. If I could I too would carve myself into eternity. Breyten watching me says: Don’t tell me you’ve found a spelling mistake in it! A line of miniature statues is placed into the tomb to serve the pharaoh. One for each day of the year. Four hundred. The overseers are a plus. I think even death will not ease the lot of the poor here. Statues: it seems the more I search the world for differences the more I find it all the same. Perhaps the Buddha was a jaded traveler too when he said we are all one. Mona argues about who should pay to see the mummies. It isn’t often I can treat a girl to a dead body, Breyten insists. A woman nearby tells her husand she can see dead bodies at work. Why pay? Do you think she works in a hospital? I ask. That or the U.S. State Department, Breyten agrees. From the top of Bab Zwelia, flat rooftops spread out like a conference of coffee tables. Broken walls, furniture, pots, litter the roofs like family secrets sunning themselves. Two white goats on a roof chew their way through the debris. On the Nile, Rabab sings in Arabic, tells me she wants to be Celine Dion. She is my sister calling me home to Egypt. Perhaps one day I will be ready. For now it is enough to know I can be at home here.

Not by hammering the furious word, Nor bread stamped in the streets, Nor milk emptied in gutter, Shall we gain the gates of the city. But I am a prophet without eyes to see; I do not know how we shall gain the gates of the city. August, 1943

They are dying out and I want to reach them before they are gone Not that I know what I would say to them when I get there Their songs rippling beneath temporary sky As I approach, as I am doing now Even though I am nowhere near wherever they are Swirling in blossoming dust and dreaming they are not They are dying out and I want to reach them before they are gone Just as I want to reach myself before I too am gone Another blossom sliding into slime What notes do I hear drenched in fiery sky Are these ghosts rising up before me Or gasps of dust near a lake covered by algae They are dying out and I want to reach them before their names vanish Before they become ghosts dying in pink algae and ruined vowels Not that I know what their songs say Telling sting of monstrous human torrent Wheeling above burning story of lost lives Tapering branches of smoke, red and yellow leaves falling They are dying out and I want to reach them Before my name joins theirs in plastic matrimony Before a blue-eyed undertaker powders my nose Or I turn to powder in squirt gun of unprofitable insects Secrets folded away never rinsed in scum corner History erasing traces of its nothing new

Wyatt, with no insurance on his own head, watching the execution of Anne Boleyn from his cell in the Tower, while beyond on Tower Hill her lovers also are executed, reflects upon his wasted virtue and now redundant innocence, rueful he ever did let his name be known beyond the door of his soul or hung his star from fate thrones.

In art, politics, school, church, business, love or marriage—in a piece of work or in a career— strongly spent is synonymous with kept. — Robert Frost She taught me the names of flowers: calendula, ranunculus, Iceland poppy. And the medicinal uses of herbs: Fenugreek opens up a stuffy head; goldenseal lubricates the cracked mucous membranes. Over a circa 1820 American dropleaf table, she told me asparagus was the broom of the kidneys. I hadn't understood at first and thought she'd used a German word I pictured as brüm and not as the little stalks standing on their heads, sweeping out the impurities. I learned to make the perfect roux for soufflé and became her efficient assistant in the kitchen—dicing and chopping, she once told me, with unparalleled patience. Then one day she began to accidentally break my Depression glassware, and I recalled how she'd giggled when she told me that in two years of marriage she had single-handedly decimated her husband's glass collection dating from 1790 to 1810, including a rare wedding goblet. In the doorway to the back porch she stated simply that my presence made her feel strangled, it was nothing I was doing or could do. We saw a therapist for six years, while my collection dwindled then became memory. With unparalleled patience I jumped through hoop after burning hoop, the therapist pointed out, but I heard that as praise for my prowess and continued to balance Bauer plates on my nose on command; hold growling tigers off with Windsor dining room chairs; juggle career, job, hope, and nightly tempests with unparalleled dexterity. I could reassemble anything: shattered pictures of us crossing the street with canes in the future, my hand under her elbow. My heart. But what I lacked, I can see now, was the ability to dissemble. Finally, she brought home a Cuisinart food processor, and I started hearing the minutes slicing away with ferocious velocity, time doing its soft-shoe faster and faster like Fred Astaire on amphetamines. Memories of flowers and herbs were sacrificed to the angry god of its vortex. Your voice is like acid on my skin, she said after twelve years, then grabbed her Cuisinart and left me behind like so much history.

—for Paul Metcalf A linear projection: a route. It crosses The ocean in many ships. Arriving in the new Land, it cuts through and down forests and it Keeps moving. Terrain: Rock, weaponry. Dark trees, mastery. Grass, to yield. Earth, Reproachful. Fox, bear, coon, wildcat Prowl gloomily, it kills them, it skins them, Its language alters, no account varmint, its Teeth set, nothing defeats its obsession, it becomes A snake in the reedy river. Spits and prays, Keeps moving. Behind it, a steel track. Cold, Permanent. Not permanent. It will decay. This Does not matter, it does not actually care, Murdering the buffalo, driving the laggard regiments, The caring was a necessary myth, an eagle like A speck in heaven dives. The line believes That the entire wrinkled mountain range is the Eagle’s nest, and everything tumbles in place. It buries its balls at Wounded Knee, it rushes Gold, it gambles. It buys plastics. Another Ocean stops it. Soon, soon, up by its roots, Severed, irrecoverably torn, that does not matter, It decides, perpendicular from here: escape. A prior circle: a mouth. It is nowhere, Everywhere, swollen, warm. Expanding and contracting It absorbs and projects children, jungles, Black shoes, pennies, blood. It speaks Too many dark, suffering languages. Reaching a hand Toward its throat, you disappear entirely. No Wonder you fear this bleeding pulse, no wonder.