96 Memory poems

This is her picture as she was: It seems a thing to wonder on, As though mine image in the glass Should tarry when myself am gone. I gaze until she seems to stir,— Until mine eyes almost aver That now, even now, the sweet lips part To breathe the words of the sweet heart:— And yet the earth is over her. Alas! even such the thin-drawn ray That makes the prison-depths more rude,— The drip of water night and day Giving a tongue to solitude. Yet only this, of love's whole prize, Remains; save what in mournful guise Takes counsel with my soul alone,— Save what is secret and unknown, Below the earth, above the skies. In painting her I shrin'd her face Mid mystic trees, where light falls in Hardly at all; a covert place Where you might think to find a din Of doubtful talk, and a live flame Wandering, and many a shape whose name Not itself knoweth, and old dew, And your own footsteps meeting you, And all things going as they came. A deep dim wood; and there she stands As in that wood that day: for so Was the still movement of her hands And such the pure line's gracious flow. And passing fair the type must seem, Unknown the presence and the dream. 'Tis she: though of herself, alas! Less than her shadow on the grass Or than her image in the stream. That day we met there, I and she One with the other all alone; And we were blithe; yet memory Saddens those hours, as when the moon Looks upon daylight. And with her I stoop'd to drink the spring-water, Athirst where other waters sprang; And where the echo is, she sang,— My soul another echo there. But when that hour my soul won strength For words whose silence wastes and kills, Dull raindrops smote us, and at length Thunder'd the heat within the hills. That eve I spoke those words again Beside the pelted window-pane; And there she hearken'd what I said, With under-glances that survey'd The empty pastures blind with rain. Next day the memories of these things, Like leaves through which a bird has flown, Still vibrated with Love's warm wings; Till I must make them all my own And paint this picture. So, 'twixt ease Of talk and sweet long silences, She stood among the plants in bloom At windows of a summer room, To feign the shadow of the trees. And as I wrought, while all above And all around was fragrant air, In the sick burthen of my love It seem'd each sun-thrill'd blossom there Beat like a heart among the leaves. O heart that never beats nor heaves, In that one darkness lying still, What now to thee my love's great will Or the fine web the sunshine weaves? For now doth daylight disavow Those days,—nought left to see or hear. Only in solemn whispers now At night-time these things reach mine ear; When the leaf-shadows at a breath Shrink in the road, and all the heath, Forest and water, far and wide, In limpid starlight glorified, Lie like the mystery of death. Last night at last I could have slept, And yet delay'd my sleep till dawn, Still wandering. Then it was I wept: For unawares I came upon Those glades where once she walk'd with me: And as I stood there suddenly, All wan with traversing the night, Upon the desolate verge of light Yearn'd loud the iron-bosom'd sea. Even so, where Heaven holds breath and hears The beating heart of Love's own breast,— Where round the secret of all spheres All angels lay their wings to rest,— How shall my soul stand rapt and aw'd, When, by the new birth borne abroad Throughout the music of the suns, It enters in her soul at once And knows the silence there for God! Here with her face doth memory sit Meanwhile, and wait the day's decline, Till other eyes shall look from it, Eyes of the spirit's Palestine, Even than the old gaze tenderer: While hopes and aims long lost with her Stand round her image side by side, Like tombs of pilgrims that have died About the Holy Sepulchre.

I begin the day like any other day: a decade staring back in the rearview mirror of the wrecked pickup truck: you standing so tall you’re already headless: until I turn around the cornfield blurs into the torn edges of an atlas: pull your hands out from under me to anoint this god- given country of yours: mottled bones singing the anthem of a star- spangled nation: this land given enough time to list its own possibilities: atrocities like a blade of dusk resting on my throat, I bruise: by standing I practice the sacred: & kneel how the body was built toward the bottomless insides of ghosts: the small of my back the sacrum: they say, the five disciples with pocked faces unlike your self-inflicted gunshot but a single entryway: an emptiness full of faith:rise to me as only you would after god has left you with these entrance wounds with no way out: the purpling field that goes on & on: recognizable as a heartbeat: a century- long orbit around a cage of stained glass: broken, you gather me in your image of failed flesh: piecing mirror after mirror back together through the night until nobody forgets: one hundred years of this landscape behind & before us continues to stir — even if the earth under our knees, under every American sky, had been turning west- ward for centuries.

Seeing photos of ancestors a century past is like looking at your own fingerprints— circles and lines you can't recognize until someone else with a stranger's eye looks close and says that's you.

Somebody has given my Baby daughter a box of Old poker chips to play with. Today she hands me one while I am sitting with my tired Brain at my desk. It is red. On it is a picture of An elk’s head and the letters B.P.O.E.—a chip from A small town Elks’ Club. I flip It idly in the air and Catch it and do a coin trick To amuse my little girl. Suddenly everything slips aside. I see my father Doing the very same thing, Whistling “Beautiful Dreamer,” His breath smelling richly Of whiskey and cigars. I can Hear him coming home drunk From the Elks’ Club in Elkhart Indiana, bumping the Chairs in the dark. I can see Him dying of cirrhosis Of the liver and stomach Ulcers and pneumonia, Or, as he said on his deathbed, of Crooked cards and straight whiskey, Slow horses and fast women.

Over a cup of coffee or sitting on a park bench or walking the dog, he would recall some incident from his youth—nothing significant—climbing a tree in his backyard, waiting in left field for a batter's swing, sitting in a parked car with a girl whose face he no longer remembered, his hand on her breast and his body electric; memories to look at with curiosity, the harmless behavior of a stranger, with nothing to regret or elicit particular joy. And although he had no sense of being on a journey, such memories made him realize how far he had traveled, which, in turn, made him ask how he would look back on the person he was now, this person who seemed so substantial. These images, it was like looking at a book of old photographs, recognizing a forehead, the narrow chin, and perhaps recalling the story of an older second cousin, how he had left long ago to try his luck in Argentina or Australia. And he saw that he was becoming like such a person, that the day might arrive when he would look back on his present self as on a distant relative who had drifted off into uncharted lands.

Like guns and cars, cameras are fantasy-machines whose use is addictive. —Susan Sontag I place a photograph of my uncle on my computer desktop, which means I learn to ignore it. He stands by a tank, helmet tilting to his right, bootlaces tightened as if stitching together a wound. Alive the hand brings up a cigarette we won't see him taste. Last night I smoked one on the steps outside my barn apartment. A promise I broke myself. He promised himself he wouldn't and did. I smell my fingers and I am smelling his. Hands of smoke and gunpowder. Hands that promised they wouldn't, but did. This album is a stop-loss . By a dim lantern or in the latrine he flips through it. He looks at himself looking nearly as he does— closest to himself then as he could be, just learning how to lean into his new body. He suspends there by standing order, a spreading fire in his chest, his groin. He is on stage for us to see him, see him? He stands in the noontime sun. A young soldier (pictured above) the son of an imam, brother to six, is among the latest casualties in the military campaign of Susangerd. your whole body in a photo your whole body sitting on a crate pressing your eyesocket to the viewfinder of a bazooka crouched as you balance the metal tube on your shoulder in one you guide a belt of ammo into the untiring weapon proud your elbow out as if mid-waltz your frame strong and lightly supporting the gun a kind of smile ruining the picture You’re posing. You’re scared. A body falls and you learn to step over a loosened head. You begin to appreciate the heft of your boot soles, how they propel you, how they can kick in a face– the collapse of a canopy bed in an aerial bombardment, mosquito netting doused in napalm–cheekbones fragile as moth wings beneath the heel. You tighten your laces until they hold together a capable man. Whatever rains, the weight of your feet swings you forward, goose-stepping pendulums a body less and less yours– a body, God knows, is not what makes you anyway. So the hands that said they never would begin finding grenade pins around their fingers, begin flipping through this album with soot under their nails you were not ready But they issued the shovel and the rifle and you dug But to watch you sitting there between the sandbags But to watch the sand spilling out the bullet holes But what did they expect But what did they really think a sheet of metal could prevent But I sat rolling little ears of pasta off my thumb like helmets But it was not a table of fallen men But my hand registered fatigue But the men in fatigues were tired of sleeping in shifts But you snuck into town and dialed home until you wrote your fingers were tired But the code for Shiraz was down But all of Shiraz was down But the sheet lightning above the Ferris wheel of rusted bolts But I am sure they are alright you wrote Well to reassure yourself But the wind like an old mouth shaking the unnamed evergreen outside my window But what I mean is I'd like very much to talk a bit Hello Operation Ramadan was an offensive in the Iran-Iraq War . It was launched by Iran in July 1982 near Basra and featured the use of human wave attacks in one of the largest land battles since World War II . Aftermath :The operation was the first of many disastrous offensives which cost thousands of lives on both sides. This one in general boosted the casualty limit up to 80,000 killed, 200,000 wounded, and 45,000 captured. In retrospect, the Iranians lacked effective command and control, air support, and logistics to sustain an attack in the first place. Saddam Hussein offered several ceasefire attempts in the following year, none of which were accepted by the Revolutionary regime. [6] [dead link] Congratulations and condolences They would say That's the house of a martyr pointing with their nose That's the mother of a martyr They are building a museum for the martyrs. Some metal shelf a white archival box with his personal effects . I am attempting my own myth-making. He didn’t want to have anything

based on an old photograph bought in a shop at Half Moon Bay, summer, 1999 No sound, the whole thing. Unknown folk. People waving from a hillside of ripple grass to people below in an ongoing meadow. Side rows of trees waving in a tide of wind, and because what is moving is not moving, you catch a state of stasis. Opposite of this inactivity you imagine distant music and buzzing and crickets and that special hot smell of summer. To the garden past the Bay to the meadow, cliff sheltered with low clouds, offset by nodding thistle. Tatter-wort and Stinking Tommy along footpath worn down by locals. But who and why? In the photograph itself you’re now looking the other way to unknown clusters of houses. Where forces are balanced to near perfection. Who could live in such a great swollen silence and solitude? You hear church bells from Our Lady’s Tears breaking that silence nicely but just in the right way so silence continues as though nothing else matters day after day. And anyway, each face seems so familiar. What do you do when you wave back? You wave vigorously. You remember your own meadow, your cliffside and town, photographs forgotten, the halfhearted motion of your hand, your grandmother’s church-folk gathering on a Sunday afternoon in saintly quietness. You name the people whose names are not written on the back. You forgive them for wrapping themselves in silence. You enter house after house and open top-floor windows and you wave down to future generations like this.

Proof Sheets: 36 Prints These photographs are the index of an hour, memory clocked along negative margins: one through twelve, one through twelve, one through twelve. Even in a sequence there is choice, as when I chose not to photograph silences between words— choice of the parted lips— or choose now a sequence out of time. Scissors: chopped time. Rearrangement is good: You are characters in a drama called then. You are figures for mythology. I shall make Phaedra blonde, Theseus dark, Hippolytus blonde— blue eyes: blue eyes; that will do— Antigone singing in the graveyard wind, a twelve-year old who is Jocasta alternate weeks. Neither imagination nor my willing flesh can move this hand one fraction of an inch; a shift of stance could have juxtaposed mouths. The fixed frame is the drama: Hippolytus at banquet; Phaedra in her chamber, behind her that painting blurred into an omen, as if Theseus were Creon, Meleager, shepherd, faun; Oedipus barefoot, hairskin beast; Antigone maenad, Helen, Artemis. Only out-of-focus figures move.

In the past we listened to photographs. They heard our voice speak. Alive, active. What had been distance was memory.    Dusk came, Pushed us forward,   emptying the laboratory   each night undisturbed by Erasure. In the city of X, they lived together. Always morose, her lips soothed him. The piano was arranged in the old manner, light entered the window, street lamps at the single tree. Emotion evoked by a single light on a subject is not transferable to photographs of the improved city. The camera, once commented freely amid rivering and lost gutters of treeless parks or avenue. The old camera refused to penetrate the unknown. Its heart was soft, unreliable. Now distributed is photography of new government building. We are forbidden to observe despair silent in old photographs.

When I wake now it’s below ocherous, saw-ridged pine beams. Haze streaks all three windows. I look up at the dog-eared, glossy magazine photo I’ve taken with me for years. It gets tacked like a claim to some new wall in the next place— Bill Russell & Wilt Chamberlain, one on one the final game of the 1969 NBA championship, two hard men snapped elbowing & snatching at a basketball as if it were a moment one of them might stay inside forever. I was with my father the night that game played on a fuzzy color television, in a jammed Fall River bar. Seagram & beer chasers for hoarse ex-jocks, smoke rifting the air. A drunk called him “Tiger” and asked about the year he’d made all-state guard— point man, ball-hawk, pacer. Something he rarely spoke of, & almost always with a gruff mix of impatience and shyness. Each year, days painting suburban tract houses & fighting with contractors followed by night shifts at the fire station followed by his kids swarming at breakfast and my mother trying to stay out of his way, each of the many stone-hard moments between 1941 & 1969— they made up a city of granite mills by a slate & blue river. That town was my father’s life, & still is. If he felt cheated by it, by its fate for him, to bear that disappointment, he kept it secret. That night, when he stared deep into a drunk’s memory, he frowned. He said nothing. He twisted on the stool, and ordered this guy a beer. Whatever my father & I have in common is mostly silence. And anger that keeps twisting back on itself, though not before it ruins, often, even something simple as a walk in the dunes at a warm beach. But what we share too is a love so awkward that it explains, with unreasoning perfection, why we still can’t speak easily to each other, about the past or anything else, and why I wake this far from the place where I grew up, while the wall above me claims now nothing has changed & all is different.