873 Life poems

Sometimes it’s the shoes, the tying and untying, the bending of the heart to put them on, take them off, the rush of blood between the head and feet, my face, sometimes, if I could see it, astonished. Other times the stairs, three, four stages at the most, “flights” we call them, in honor of the wings we’ll never have, the fifth floor the one that kills the breath, where the bird in the building flies to first. Love, too, a leveler, a dying all its own, the parts left behind not to be replaced, a loss ongoing, and every day increased, like rising in the night, at 3:00 am, to watch the snow or the dead leaf fall, the rings around the streetlight in the rain, and then the rain, the red fist in the heart opening and closing almost without me. “ — Yesterday brought to today so lightly!” The morning, more and more, like evening. When I bend to tie my shoes and the blood fills the cup, it’s as if I see into the hidden earth, see the sunburned path on which I pass in shoes that look like sandals and arrive at a house where my feet are washed and wiped with my mother’s hair and anointed with the autumn oils of wildflowers.

The village life, and every care that reigns O'er youthful peasants and declining swains; What labour yields, and what, that labour past, Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last; What forms the real picture of the poor, Demands a song—the Muse can give no more. Fled are those times, if e'er such times were seen, When rustic poets praised their native green; No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse, Their country's beauty or their nymphs' rehearse; Yet still for these we frame the tender strain, Still in our lays fond Corydons complain, And shepherds' boys their amorous pains reveal, The only pains, alas! they never feel. On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign, If Tityrus found the Golden Age again, Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong, Mechanic echoes of the Mantuan song? From truth and nature shall we widely stray, Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way? Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains, Because the Muses never knew their pains. They boast their peasants' pipes, but peasants now Resign their pipes and plod behind the plough; And few amid the rural tribe have time To number syllables and play with rhyme; Save honest Duck, what son of verse could share The poet's rapture and the peasant's care? Or the great labours of the field degrade With the new peril of a poorer trade? From one chief cause these idle praises spring, That themes so easy few forbear to sing; They ask no thought, require no deep design, But swell the song and liquefy the line; The gentle lover takes the rural strain, A nymph his mistress and himself a swain; With no sad scenes he clouds his tuneful prayer, But all, to look like her, is painted fair. I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms For him that gazes or for him that farms; But when amid such pleasing scenes I trace The poor laborious natives of the place, And see the mid-day sun, with fervid ray, On their bare heads and dewy temples play; While some, with feebler heads and fainter hearts, Deplore their fortune, yet sustain their parts: Then shall I dare these real ills to hide In tinsel trappings of poetic pride? No, cast by Fortune on a frowning coast, Which can no groves nor happy valleys boast; Where other cares than those the Muse relates, And other shepherds dwell with other mates; By such examples taught, I paint the cot, As truth will paint it, and as bards will not: Nor you, ye poor, of lettered scorn complain, To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain; O'ercome by labour and bowed down by time, Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, By winding myrtles round your ruined shed? Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour? Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er, Lends the light turf that warms the neighboring poor; From thence a length of burning sand appears, Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears; Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye: There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, And to the ragged infant threaten war; There poppies, nodding, mock the hope of toil, There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil; Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf, The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf; O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade, And the wild tare clings round the sickly blade; With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound, And a sad splendor vainly shines around. So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn, Betrayed by man, then left for man to scorn; Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose While her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose; Whose outward splendour is but folly's dress, Exposing most, when most it gilds distress. Here joyless roam a wild amphibious race, With sullen woe displayed in every face; Who far from civil arts and social fly, And scowl at strangers with suspicious eye. Here too the lawless merchant of the main Draws from his plough th' intoxicated swain; Want only claimed the labor of the day, But vice now steals his nightly rest away. Where are the swains, who, daily labor done, With rural games played down the setting sun; Who struck with matchless force the bounding ball, Or made the pond'rous quoit obliquely fall; While some huge Ajax, terrible and strong, Engaged some artful stripling of the throng, And, foiled, beneath the young Ulysses fell, When peals of praise the merry mischief tell? Where now are these?—Beneath yon cliff they stand, To show the freighted pinnace where to land; To load the ready steed with guilty haste; To fly in terror o'er the pathless waste, Or, when detected in their straggling course, To foil their foes by cunning or by force; Or, yielding part (when equal knaves contest), To gain a lawless passport for the rest. Here, wand'ring long amid these frowning fields, I sought the simple life that Nature yields; Rapine and Wrong and Fear usurped her place, And a bold, artful, surly, savage race; Who, only skilled to take the finny tribe, The yearly dinner, or septennial bribe Wait on the shore and, as the waves run high, On the tossed vessel bend their eager eye, Which to their coast directs its vent'rous way, Theirs, or the ocean's, miserable prey. As on their neighbouring beach yon swallows stand, And wait for favoring winds to leave the land; While still for flight the ready wing is spread: So waited I the favouring hour, and fled; Fled from these shores where guilt and famine reign, And cried, Ah! hapless they who still remain; Who still remain to hear the ocean roar, Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore; Till some fierce tide, with more imperious sway, Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away; When the sad tenant weeps from door to door, And begs a poor protection from the poor! But these are scenes where Nature's niggard hand Gave a spare portion to the famished land; Hers is the fault, if here mankind complain Of fruitless toil and labor spent in vain; But yet in other scenes, more fair in view, Where Plenty smiles—alas! she smiles for few And those who taste not, yet behold her store, Are as the slaves that dig the golden ore, The wealth around them makes them doubly poor. Or will you deem them amply paid in health, Labor's fair child, that languishes with wealth? Go then! and see them rising with the sun, Through a long course of daily toil to run; Like him to make the plenteous harvest grow, And yet not shard the plenty they bestow; See them beneath the dog-star's raging heat, When the knees tremble and the temples beat; Behold them, leaning on their scythes, look o'er The labour past, and toils to come explore; See them alternate suns and showers engage, And hoard up aches and anguish for their age; Through fens and marshy moors their steps pursue, When their warm pores imbibe the evening dew; Then own that labour may as fatal be To these thy slaves, as luxury to thee. Amid this tribe too oft a manly pride Strives in strong toil the fainting heart to hide; There may you see the youth of slender frame Contend with weakness, weariness, and shame: Yet urged along, and proudly loth to yield, He strives to join his fellows of the field; Till long-contending nature droops at last, Declining health rejects his poor repast, His cheerless spouse the coming danger sees, And mutual murmurs urge the slow disease. Yet grant them health, 'tis not for us to tell, Though the head droops not, that the heart is well; Or will you urge their homely, plenteous fare, Healthy and plain and still the poor man's share! Oh! trifle not with wants you cannot feel, Nor mock the misery of a stinted meal; Homely not wholesome, plain not plenteous, such As you who envy would disdain to touch. Ye gentle souls, who dream of rural ease, Whom the smooth stream and smoother sonnet please; Go! if the peaceful cot your praises share, Go, look within, and ask if peace be there: If peace be his—that drooping weary sire, Or theirs, that offspring round their feeble fire, Or hers, that matron pale, whose trembling hand Turns on the wretched hearth th' expiring brand. Nor yet can time itself obtain for these Life's latest comforts, due respect and ease; For yonder see that hoary swain, whose age Can with no cares except his own engage; Who, propped on that rude staff, looks up to see The bare arms broken from the withering tree, On which, a boy, he climbed the loftiest bough, Then his first joy, but his sad emblem now. He once was chief in all the rustic trade, His steady hand the straightest furrow made; Full many a prize he won, and still is proud To find the triumphs of his youth allowed. A transient pleasure sparkles in his eyes, He hears and smiles, then thinks again and sighs: For now he journeys to his grave in pain; The rich disdain him, nay, the poor disdain; Alternate masters now their slave command, And urge the efforts of his feeble hand; Who, when his age attempts its task in vain, With ruthless taunts of lazy poor complain. Oft may you see him, when he tends the sheep, His winter-charge, beneath the hillock weep; Oft hear him murmur to the winds that blow O'er his white locks and bury them in snow; When, roused by rage and muttering in the morn, He mends the broken hedge with icy thorn: "Why do I live, when I desire to be At once from life and life's long labour free? Like leaves in spring, the young are blown away, Without the sorrows of a slow decay; I, like yon withered leaf, remain behind, Nipped by the frost, and shivering in the wind; There it abides till younger buds come on, As I, now all my fellow-swains are gone; Then, from the rising generation thrust, It falls, like me, unnoticed to the dust. "These fruitful fields, these numerous flocks I see, Are others' gain, but killing cares to me; To me the children of my youth are lords, Slow in their gifts but hasty in their words: Wants of their own demand their care, and who Feels his own want and succors others too? A lonely, wretched man, in pain I go, None need my help and none relieve my woe; Then let my bones beneath the turf be laid, And men forget the wretch they would not aid." Thus groan the old, till, by disease oppressed, They taste a final woe, and then they rest. Theirs is yon house that holds the parish poor, Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door; There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play, And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day; There children dwell, who know no parents' care, Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there; Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed, Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed; Dejected widows with unheeded tears, And crippled age with more than childhood-fears; The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they! The moping idiot and the madman gay. Here too the sick their final doom receive, Here brought, amid the scenes of grief, to grieve, Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow, Mixed with the clamors of the crowd below; Here, sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan, And the cold charities of man to man: Whose laws indeed for ruined age provide, And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride; But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh, And pride embitters what it can't deny. Say ye, oppressed by some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose; Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance With timid eye to read the distant glance; Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease To name the nameless ever-new disease; Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, Which real pain, and that alone, can cure; How would ye bear in real pain to lie, Despised, neglected, left alone to die? How would ye bear to draw your latest breath, Where all that's wretched paves the way for death? Such is that room which one rude beam divides, And naked rafters form the sloping sides; Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen, And lath and mud is all that lie between; Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patched, gives way To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day. Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread, The drooping wretch reclines his languid head; For him no hand the cordial cup applies, Nor wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes; No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile, Nor promise hope till sickness wears a smile. But soon a loud and hasty summons calls, Shakes the thin roof, and echoes round the walls. Anon, a figure enters, quaintly neat, All pride and business, bustle and conceit; With looks unaltered by these scenes of woe, With speed that, entering, speaks his haste to go, He bids the gazing throng around him fly, And carries fate and physic in his eye; A potent quack, long versed in human ills, Who first insults the victim whom he kills; Whose murd'rous hand a drowsy bench protect, And whose most tender mercy is neglect. Paid by the parish for attendance here, He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer; In haste he seeks the bed where misery lies, Impatience marked in his averted eyes; And, some habitual queries hurried o'er, Without reply, he rushes on the door: His drooping patient, long inured to pain, And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain; He ceases now the feeble help to crave Of man, and mutely hastens to the grave. But ere his death some pious doubts arise, Some simple fears, which "bold bad" men despise; Fain would he ask the parish priest to prove His title certain to the joys above; For this he sends the murmuring nurse, who calls The holy stranger to these dismal walls; And doth not he, the pious man, appear, He, "passing rich with forty pounds a year"? Ah! no; a shepherd of a different stock, And far unlike him, feeds this little flock: A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task As much as God or man can fairly ask; The rest he gives to loves and labors light, To fields the morning and to feasts the night; None better skilled the noisy pack to guide, To urge their chase, to cheer them or to chide; Sure in his shot, his game he seldom missed, And seldom failed to win his game at whist; Then, while such honors bloom around his head, Shall he sit sadly by the sick man's bed To raise the hope he feels not, or with zeal To combat fears that ev'n the pious feel Now once again the gloomy scene explore, Less gloomy now; the bitter hour is o'er, The man of many sorrows sighs no more. Up yonder hill, behold how sadly slow The bier moves winding from the vale below; There lie the happy dead, from trouble free, And the glad parish pays the frugal fee. No more, oh Death! thy victim starts to hear Churchwarden stern, or kingly overseer; No more the farmer gets his humble bow, Thou art his lord, the best of tyrants thou! Now to the church behold the mourners come, Sedately torpid and devoutly dumb; The village children now their games suspend, To see the bier that bears their ancient friend: For he was one in all their idle sport, And like a monarch ruled their little court; The pliant bow he formed, the flying ball, The bat, the wicket, were his labours all; Him now they follow to his grave, and stand Silent and sad, and gazing, hand in hand; While bending low, their eager eyes explore The mingled relics of the parish poor. The bell tolls late, the moping owl flies round, Fear marks the flight and magnifies the sound; The busy priest, detained by weightier care, Defers his duty till the day of prayer; And, waiting long, the crowd retire distressed, To think a poor man's bones should lie unblessed.

Inside the veins there are navies setting forth, Tiny explosions at the waterlines, And seagulls weaving in the wind of the salty blood. It is the morning. The country has slept the whole winter. Window seats were covered with fur skins, the yard was full Of stiff dogs, and hands that clumsily held heavy books. Now we wake, and rise from bed, and eat breakfast! Shouts rise from the harbor of the blood, Mist, and masts rising, the knock of wooden tackle in the sunlight. Now we sing, and do tiny dances on the kitchen floor. Our whole body is like a harbor at dawn; We know that our master has left us for the day.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go. Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Great Nature has another thing to do To you and me; so take the lively air, And, lovely, learn by going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go.

Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors— Resting under my cedar tree at evening. The years went on. I sent the girls to Europe; I dowered them when married. I gave the boys money to start in business. They were strong children, promising as apples Before the bitten places show. But John fled the country in disgrace. Jenny died in child-birth— I sat under my cedar tree. Harry killed himself after a debauch, Susan was divorced— I sat under my cedar tree. Paul was invalided from over-study, Mary became a recluse at home for love of a man— I sat under my cedar tree. All were gone, or broken-winged or devoured by life— I sat under my cedar tree. My mate, the mother of them, was taken— I sat under my cedar tree Till ninety years were tolled. O maternal Earth, which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep!

For Harry Cobb Soon I’ll move to Norway. If that’s a bitter pill, well, swill, swallow. I’m going, and I won’t wallow, not in Norway, where they’re so beyond slave labor, with laws that say a clerk must work within five meters of a window through which she can see a tree and by that tree be seen. My mind’s made up. I will be Norwegian with Norwegian trees. I’ll be seer and be seen. It’s a scenic scene, it’s how it goes, I’m going. Tell the top brass, if they ask, I don’t give a damn about their asses. But I will miss the beeches and the ashes. It’s not their fault I’m leaving. They’re only trees, and leaving, I’m Norwegian.

So here hath been dawning Another blue Day: Think wilt thou let it Slip useless away. Out of Eternity This new Day is born; Into Eternity, At night, will return. Behold it aforetime No eye ever did: So soon it forever From all eyes is hid. Here hath been dawning Another blue Day: Think wilt thou let it Slip useless away.

A slow news day, but I did like the obit about the butcher who kept the same store for fifty years.   People remembered when his street was sweetly roaring, aproned with flower stalls and fish stands. The stock market wandered, spooked by presidential winks, by micro-winds and the shadows of earnings.   News was stationed around the horizon, ready as summer clouds to thunder-- but it moved off and we covered the committee meeting at the back of the statehouse, sat around on our desks, then went home early.   The birds were still singing, the sun just going down.   Working these long hours, you forget how beautiful the early evening can be, the big houses like ships turning into the night, their rooms piled high with silence.

I did not come here to sing a blues. Lately, I open my mouth & out comes marigolds, yellow plums. I came to make the sky a garden. Give me rain or give me honey, dear lord. The sky has given us no water this year. I ride my bike to a boy, when I get there what we make will not be beautiful or love at all, but it will be deserved. I’ve started seeking men to wet the harvest. Come, tonight I declare we must move instead of pray. Tonight, east of here, two boys, one dressed in what could be blood & one dressed in what could be blood before the wound, meet & mean mug & God, tonight, let them dance! Tonight, the bullet does not exist. Tonight, the police have turned to their God for forgiveness. Tonight, we bury nothing, we serve a God with no need for shovels, we serve a God with a bad hip & a brother in prison. Tonight, let every man be his own lord. Let wherever two people stand be a reunion of ancient lights. Let’s waste the moon’s marble glow shouting our names to the stars until we are the stars. O, precious God! O, sweet black town! I am drunk & I thirst. When I get to the boy who lets me practice hunger with him I will not give him the name of your newest ghost I will give him my body & what he does with it is none of my business, but I will say look, I made it a whole day, still, no rain still, I am without exit wound & he will say Tonight, I want to take you how the police do, unarmed & sudden & tonight, when we dream, we dream of dancing in a city slowly becoming ash.

Abandoned in a field near Yass a cobwebbed car once kept us warm and when it rained, though we shivered with sickness, there came a moment of perfect happiness, faces nestled in the vinyl, sleep coming on, surrounded by metal that in upcoming decades would oxidise to flakes. Asleep at last, last of the valium, we came to know a car too is a flower and pollen its decay. In the dry air at dawn the cicadas kept still. The space that mass sat in decided how mass was to move. We dreamed of valleys of olive trees, silver side out. The lions preened. We shivered with need. A mechanic showed me once how the spark-paths from spark-plugs looked, if you looked close enough, like mountain ravines from the air. The deeper the groove the faster the current. We shivered, this our habit, this flowing. It takes the breath away. There are gum trees crackling from it two decades later. I slept so still beneath that mass of dreams like sediment compressed beneath a lake. I woke and the tributes and glory were gone and the crops all withered and money was merely the index of anxiety. When we realised this our hearts swelled in exultation. Even time would forget there was reason for fear: that decay seemed to will itself upon us. I was off the air, delirious with substance. The kite hawks grew ashamed. All nature squirmed. I was off the air, light-headed with voracity. The theme just kept repeating itself, year in year out, same demon different bodies. A nurse said When you stay, when you leave those wet imprints in our airspace, these sheets smell like formaldehyde, like death. We had merely reached early, down the end of the river, the leprosarium of feeling, and all things stood for every other thing, creepers, vines, tendrils, anacondas, inert surrender, such listlessness, and yes the very rage with which we chased the very forms of it, the lineaments of nothingness, the powders of the comatose, the bliss. This was the state of the world. Heading backwards we learned the flea-fish was the smallest animal before the insect kingdom began. Forwards, there were only the sudden deaths of galaxies. And yet when we practised love there seemed on certain days an awful lot of space; and so much sky. Never had I lain then at Kangaroo Valley so comfortable in my own body. A virtual flatness and that centrifuge in the stomach stilled and my spine a spirit-level. The smell of coffee drifting in brought back to me that lily-white girl and that sad hour of need. How brittle every bone was then. How could one not be completely bedraggled by time or compulsion or duplicity? I was all those things and am. I was so tired with the not-being-here inside of it all that fatigue was like oxygen, given of all the givens, sensurround of the gods. But I was gulping and heaving by then. And that is all so long ago. Though when you forget the last time: most likely it is not the last time. And when dreams don’t come, when mastodons and minotaurs curdle in the night-reaches and the bulls lie fallow in dawn-sweats: sleep some more. Wait. Sleep on. And swim.