872 Life poems

to L. Y. I was told that I was a sad man. Sadness is a fatal disease in this place where happiness is a key to success. If you are sad, you are doomed to fail— you can’t please your boss, your long face won’t attract customers, a few sighs are enough to let your friends down. Yesterday afternoon I met Pham, a Vietnamese man who was once a general. He came to this country after nine years’ imprisonment. Now he works hard as a custodian and always avoids meeting his former soldiers here, because every one of them is doing better than he is. “Sadness,” he told me, “is a luxury for me. I have no time for it. If I feel sad I won’t be able to support my family.” His words filled me with shame, although I learned long ago a busy bee feels no sorrow. He made me realize I’m still a fortunate one and ought to be happy and grateful for having food in my stomach and books to read. I returned home humming a cheerful tune. My wife smiled wondering why I had suddenly become lighthearted. My son followed me, laughing and frolicking, while I was capering on the floor. Last night I went to a party in my dream. Voices and laughter were drifting in a large hall that was full of paintings and calligraphy. Strolling with ease I ran into the handwriting of yours hung in the air piece by piece waving like wings. Dumbfounded, I turned and saw you sitting on a chair, motionless, the same lean detached face, only your blue clothes had grown darker. Something snapped in my chest and my tears flowed. What’s the use of promising? I have promised, a hundred times, but never returned. Wherever we go our cause is the same: to make a living and raise children. If a poem arises, it’s merely an accidental blessing. For several hours my heart ached, but I woke up—smiling.

The plump lemon, the spoon's metal cuts off the shadow, the bursting overflow of pleasure, the dark night of the shriek, a nameless fire in the street, some blackened breadcrumbs...

An idle lingerer on the wayside's road, He gathers up his work and yawns away; A little longer, ere the tiresome load Shall be reduced to ashes or to clay. No matter if the world has marched along, And scorned his slowness as it quickly passed; No matter, if amid the busy throng, He greets some face, infantile at the last. His mission? Well, there is but one, And if it is a mission he knows it, nay, To be a happy idler, to lounge and sun, And dreaming, pass his long-drawn days away. So dreams he on, his happy life to pass Content, without ambitions painful sighs, Until the sands run down into the glass; He smiles—content—unmoved and dies. And yet, with all the pity that you feel For this poor mothling of that flame, the world; Are you the better for your desperate deal, When you, like him, into infinitude are hurled?

There’s wondering, idle thoughts, thinking over what was last said, some poetry in my head like traffic outside the window. In my forgetful marrow, I consider often lying words, like everything and all. Nothing is another matter. Nothing comes of everything and all. Something comes of nothing. I know the word no means no, yes, yes, except when they mean each other. There’s water, which means water, dishwater, that may mean worthless. It’s often better to say worthless when you mean it. I’ve come to meaning, that can mean reason for or reason to live, words I might say outright without first saying meaning. Then there is a mean man. How did mean come to have two meanings? Take a dictionary of homonyms and tell me how words got to sound alike with different meanings and spellings, a Sea of  Words which is a Chinese dictionary. Language has its ways, its altitude and latitude ... Stanley, baby, quit jerking on and off. I’m simply talking to myself. I am more familiar with the dark night and bright day of the body than the dark night of the soul. Light has an exaggerated reputation. Goethe’s last words were, “Mehr Licht!” Faust was dragged off to hell when he was content. Goethe preferred discontent, which needed light. The seed is contained discontent.

In this short Life that only lasts an hour How much - how little - is within our power

And fleetingly it seemed to him That in between one eye blink and the next Time paused, allowing time to be installed Within that countless interim, Coiled up, on hold, A memory predicted and recalled. Now, that weak muscle flexed, All that contained him started to unfold In front of him, a moving book In three dimensions he could wander through, At will, at any point, now, since, before, To feel, to listen and to look— A house, or suite Of rooms around a circling corridor, And waiting there, he knew, Were all the peopled days he’d not repeat. Slowly he stretched his hand to open The first door on his right. Why, this was easy: Christmas when he was seven, and his aunt Playing a polonaise by Chopin, Badly. “Lenore, We know you think you can, dear, but you can’t.” And he was resting, queasy From too much pudding. Now, another door: So far, so faint, not yet an I, A pulse of sense, he hung upon a web Of knitted blood. Above, the muffled heart Performed its mindless lullaby And in the womb He slept on half awake. That was his part Elsewhere, too, at the ebb Of his last consciousness. Another room: He recognized at once the face Of one who five years hence he would have bound As closely to him as a Siamese twin. How recklessly he would replace That loving care. Absorbed, now, in the dream of skin on skin, He whispered the profound And destined promises she’d never share. He shuddered, shut it, and proceeded. So room on room, all of his scenes, arranged In simultaneous succession, played Before him, unignored, unheeded, Each a tableau Vivant and drama, driven and yet stayed, Developing, unchanged. At last the time that paused for time to flow He saw was coming to an end. He saw himself before himself, distinct As when—a life ago—it came to him A single blink could comprehend, And then unfold, All time within that countless interim. He blinked. And then he blinked. And time continued as it coiled, on hold.

If you have a house you must think about it all the time as you reside in the house so it must be a home in your mind you must ask yourself (wherever you are) have I closed the front door and the back door is often forgotten not against thieves necessarily but the wind   oh   if it blows either door open   then the heat the heat you’ve carefully nurtured with layers of dry hardwood and a couple of opposing green brought in to slow the fire as well as the little pilot light in the convenient gas backup all of that care will be mocked because you have not kept the house on your mind but these may actually be among the smallest concerns   for instance the house could be settling   you may notice the thin slanting line of light above the doors   you have to think about that luckily you have been paying attention the house’s dryness can be humidified with vaporizers in each room and pots of water on the woodstove   should you leave for the movies after dinner   ask yourself have I turned down the thermometer and moved all wood paper away from the stove the fiery result of excited distraction could be too horrible to describe now we should talk especially to Northerners of the freezing of the pipe   this can often be prevented by pumping water continuously through the baseboard heating system allowing the faucet to drip drip continuously day and night   you must think about the drains separately   in fact you should have established their essential contribution to the ordinary kitchen and toilet life of the house digging these drains deep into warm earth if it hasn’t snowed by mid-December you must cover them with hay   sometimes rugs and blankets have been used   do not be troubled by their monetary value as this is a regionally appreciated emergency you may tell your friends to consider your house as their own   that is if they do not wear outdoor shoes when thumping across the gleam of their poly- urethaned floors they must bring socks or slippers to your house as well   you must think of your house when you’re in it and when you’re visiting the superior cabinets and closets of others   when you approach your house in the late afternoon in any weather   green or white   you will catch sight first of its new aluminum snow-resistant roof and the reflections in the cracked windows its need in the last twenty-five years for paint which has created a lovely design in russet pink and brown   the colors of un- intentioned neglect   you must admire the way it does not (because of someone’s excellent decision sixty years ago) stand on the high ridge deforming the green profile of the hill but rests in the modesty of late middle age under the brow of the hill with its back to the dark hemlock forest looking steadily out for miles toward the cloud refiguring meadows and mountains of the next state   coming up the road by foot or auto the house can be addressed personally House!   in the excitement of work and travel to other people’s houses with their interesting improvements we thought of you often and spoke of your coziness in winter   your courage in wind and fire   your small airy rooms in humid summer   how you nestle in spring into the leaves and flowers of the hawthorn and the sage green leaves of the Russian olive tree   House!   you were not forgotten

i

Such as there was in the littleness of that dawn could not be this. Not, certainly, the hove of an invasion fleet from Angleterre, flotilla wrought of shipwright, chandler, armorer as if Ice Age breeding stocks were on the move. The Planners had their weather oracles, haruspices their entrails. All divined the red planet aligned, full-moon visibility, high tides to clear the beachhead obstacles — but iffy weather.

I was hauling freight out of the Carolinas up to the Cumberland Plateau when, in Tennessee, I saw from the freeway, at 2 am a house ablaze. Water from the firehoses arced into luminescent rainbows. The only sound, the dull roar of my truck passing.  I found myself strangely happy. It was misfortune on that cold night falling on someone’s house, but not mine not mine.