1630 Nature poems

Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.

And then I thought, Can I have more of this, would it be possible for every day to be a greater awakening: more light, more light, your face on the pillow with the sleep creases rudely fragmenting it, hair so stiff from paint and sheet rock it feels like the dirty short hank of mane I used to grab on Dandy’s neck before he hauled me up and forward, white flanks flecked green with shit and the satin of his dander, the livingness, the warmth of all that blood just under the skin and in the long, thick muscle of the neck— He was smarter than most of the children I went to school with. He knew how to stand with just the crescent of his hoof along a boot toe and press, incrementally, his whole weight down. The pain so surprising when it came, its iron intention sheathed in stealth, the decisive sudden twisting of his leg until the hoof pinned one’s foot completely to the ground, we’d have to beat and beat him with a brush to push him off, that hot insistence with its large horse eye trained deliberately on us, to watch— Like us, he knew how to announce through violence how he didn’t hunger, didn’t want despite our practiced ministrations: too young not to try to empathize with this cunning: this thing that was and was not human we must respect for itself and not our imagination of it: I loved him because I could not love him anymore in the ways I’d taught myself, watching the slim bodies of teenagers guide their geldings in figure eights around the ring as if they were one body, one fluid motion of electric understanding I would never feel working its way through fingers to the bit: this thing had a name, a need, a personality; it possessed an indifference that gave me logic and a measure: I too might stop wanting the hand placed on back or shoulder and never feel the desired response. I loved the horse for the pain it could imagine and inflict on me, the sudden jerking of head away from halter, the tentative nose inspecting first before it might decide to relent and eat. I loved what was not slave or instinct, that when you turn to me it is a choice, it is always a choice to imagine pleasure might be blended, one warmth bleeding into another as the future bleeds into the past, more light, more light, your hand against my shoulder, the image of the one who taught me disobedience is the first right of being alive.

Sometimes the rain shines Just when the sun reigns, And that was the way it is Beyond those French doors That late afternoon here In this mind’s early evening Where they still fade in That cool color Polaroid, Pastel shades of her prom dress, A bowl of double peonies, Promising, precocious, Trying, trying to open. • Their friend and he were tight Tight-rope walkers, self-taught Taut-trope-talkers, stalking Jamb-up, arm-in-arm And caroling to lucky stars Their bars and rebars, The night a carousel Of tryst and troth, Of casual carousals, Cocky arousals, Pitching the dark to the dark. (Streetlight and moth, Reader, she married both.) • But then there he was, In the morning’s mourning, Soi-disant Proustian mignon, Aesthetic ascetic And Kansas rube Reducing his thought To a bouillon cube That no one hot Ought ever pore over.

Often in summer, on a tarred bridge plank standing, Or downstream between willows, a safe Ophelia drifting In a rented boat — I had seen them come and go, Those wild bees swift as tigers, their gauze wings a-glitter In passionless industry, clustering black at the crevice Of a rotten cabbage tree, where their hive was hidden low. But never strolled too near. Till one half-cloudy evening Of ripe January, my friends and I Came, gloved and masked to the eyes like plundering desperadoes, To smoke them out. Quiet beside the stagnant river We trod wet grasses down, hearing the crickets chitter And waiting for light to drain from the wounded sky. Before we reached the hive their sentries saw us And sprang invisible through the darkening air, Stabbed, and died in stinging. The hive woke. Poisonous fuming Of sulphur filled the hollow trunk, and crawling Blue flame sputtered — yet still their suicidal Live raiders dived and clung to our hands and hair. O it was Carthage under the Roman torches, Or loud with flames and falling timber, Troy! A job well botched. Half of the honey melted And half the rest young grubs. Through earth-black smouldering ashes And maimed bees groaning, we drew out our plunder. Little enough their gold, and slight our joy. Fallen then the city of instinctive wisdom. Tragedy is written distinct and small: A hive burned on a cool night in summer. But loss is a precious stone to me, a nectar Distilled in time, preaching the truth of winter To the fallen heart that does not cease to fall.

[ Version 1: 1921 ] The quick sparks on the gorse bushes are leaping, Little jets of sunlight-texture imitating flame; Above them, exultant, the peewits are sweeping: They are lords of the desolate wastes of sadness their screamings proclaim. Rabbits, handfuls of brown earth, lie Low-rounded on the mournful grass they have bitten down to the quick. Are they asleep? — Are they alive? — Now see, when I Move my arms the hill bursts and heaves under their spurting kick. The common flaunts bravely; but below, from the rushes Crowds of glittering king-cups surge to challenge the blossoming bushes; There the lazy streamlet pushes Its curious course mildly; here it wakes again, leaps, laughs, and gushes. Into a deep pond, an old sheep-dip, Dark, overgrown with willows, cool, with the brook ebbing through so slow, Naked on the steep, soft lip Of the bank I stand watching my own white shadow quivering to and fro. What if the gorse flowers shrivelled and kissing were lost? Without the pulsing waters, where were the marigolds and the songs of the brook! If my veins and my breasts with love embossed Withered, my insolent soul would be gone like flowers that the hot wind took. So my soul like a passionate woman turns, Filled with remorseful terror to the man she scorned, and her love For myself in my own eyes' laughter burns, Runs ecstatic over the pliant folds rippling down to my belly from the breast-lights above. Over my sunlit skin the warm, clinging air, Rich with the songs of seven larks singing at once, goes kissing me glad. And the soul of the wind and my blood compare Their wandering happiness, and the wind, wasted in liberty, drifts on and is sad. Oh but the water loves me and folds me, Plays with me, sways me, lifts me and sinks me as though it were living blood, Blood of a heaving woman who holds me, Owning my supple body a rare glad thing, supremely good. [ Version 2: 1928 ] The quick sparks on the gorse-bushes are leaping Little jets of sunlight texture imitating flame; Above them, exultant, the peewits are sweeping: They have triumphed again o'er the ages, their screamings proclaim. Rabbits, handfuls of brown earth, lie Low-rounded on the mournful turf they have bitten down to the quick. Are they asleep? — are they living? — Now see, when I Lift my arms, the hill bursts and heaves under their spurting kick! The common flaunts bravely; but below, from the rushes Crowds of glittering king-cups surge to challenge the blossoming bushes; There the lazy streamlet pushes His bent course mildly; here wakes again, leaps, laughs, and gushes Into a deep pond, an old sheep-dip, Dark, overgrown with willows, cool, with the brook ebbing through so slow; Naked on the steep, soft lip Of the turf I stand watching my own white shadow quivering to and fro. What if the gorse-flowers shrivelled, and I were gone? What if the waters ceased, where were the marigolds then, and the gudgeon? What is this thing that I look down upon? White on the water wimples my shadow, strains like a dog on a string, to run on. How it looks back, like a white dog to its master! I on the bank all substance, my shadow all shadow looking up to me, looking back! And the water runs, and runs faster, runs faster, And the white dog dances and quivers, I am holding his cord quite slack. But how splendid it is to be substance, here! My shadow is neither here nor there; but I, I am royally here! I am here! I am here! screams the peewit; the may-blobs burst out in a laugh as they hear! Here! flick the rabbits. Here! pants the gorse. Here! say the insects far and near. Over my skin in the sunshine, the warm, clinging air Flushed with the songs of seven larks singing at once, goes kissing me glad. You are here! You are here! We have found you! Everywhere We sought you substantial, you touchstone of caresses, you naked lad! Oh but the water loves me and folds me, Plays with me, sways me, lifts me and sinks me, murmurs: Oh marvellous stuff! No longer shadow! — and it holds me Close, and it rolls me, enfolds me, touches me, as if never it could touch me enough. Sun, but in substance, yellow water-blobs! Wings and feathers on the crying, mysterious ages, peewits wheeling! All that is right, all that is good; all that is God takes substance! a rabbit lobs In confirmation, I hear sevenfold lark-songs pealing.

Behind the silo, the Mother Rabbit hunches like a giant spider with strange calm: six tiny babies beneath, each clamoring for a sweet syringe of milk. This may sound cute to you, reading from your pulpit of plenty, but one small one was left out of reach, a knife of fur barging between the others. I watched behind a turret of sand. If I could have cautioned the mother rabbit I would. If I could summon the Bunnies to fit him in beneath the belly's swell I would. But instead, I stood frozen, wishing for some equity. This must be why it's called Wild Life because of all the crazed emotions tangled up in the underbrush within us. Did I tell you how the smallest one, black and trembling, hopped behind the kudzu still filigreed with wanting? Should we talk now of animal heritage, their species, creature development? And what do we say about form and focus— writing this when a stray goes hungry, and away.

And how do you survive? Your long throat, your red-rag-to-a-bull head? You rise heavy in the night, stars drinking from your poppy neck. Your henna silks serenade me under the breadth of the Pyrenees. You move like an opera, open like sea anemones. You are earth’s first blood. How the birds love you, I envy your lipstick dress. You are urgent as airmail, animal red, Ash Wednesday crosses tattooed on your head. Your butterfly breath releases your scents, your secrets, bees blackening your mouth as your dirty red laundry all hangs out.

The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore. All's changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. But now they drift on the still water, Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake's edge or pool Delight men's eyes when I awake some day To find they have flown away?

There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go. There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross. There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go. There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis. There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot’s hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so. There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness. O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

for Joseph Cady Camden, 1882 Is it raining, Mary, can you see? I hear rain. Is the road black, is it shining? Dark, I can see for myself. Put on my red tie, red has life in it—most men I know dress like undertakers making sure they look mournful enough to manage their own funerals No accounting for taste: we should be grateful for that. Help me get to the window, I want to see Mickle Street. Don’t you hear it now, something like rain, off in the distance? My ear, maybe, is playing me tricks again; there was a rushing, like rain when it moves closer and starts a millstream in the trees. No? I guess my senses must be losing their touch. It was nothing. then, nothing more than a tantrum of the boneyard: best for me to hold still in this chair and listen to my beard grow. Now if hair was poetry, then your Walt Whitman would be a great success. I wear out trying to come to terms with the wrong weather— what you might call speaking terms. I don’t want to talk to much else. You tell them to go home, Mary, no visitors today—or one, just one: what else is a red tie for? Some English poet, keeps me up, coming all the way here from California, Colorado—coming to ask the usual questions. I don’t like questions that require answers: English questions. That’s a country of things answered. London is a city of things done with. Brooklyn is different, New Orleans, Washington they’re my cities of romance, all the cities of things begun. I may have been deliberate, even laborious, but I never looked for finish. Here, where’s his name? Bucke wrote about him after hearing one of his lectures. I had it somewhere. You let him in, Mary: no one else, no one ... I’m slipping—here it is, here’s the name!— slowly, maybe, but slipping. Who can say he has hold of what might be called a standing? That’s what they do say, though, all these visitors— they write, they call, and they stay: it makes a problem Doctor says: bar them. I can’t. I won’t. Still, they bother me. One young fellow walks in, says, “Walt, I should like to read you my epic and have your opinion of its worth.” “Thank you,” say I, “but I’ve been paralyzed once already.” Suppose someone took it in his head to come and sit here and say nothing! someone who knows even the first syllables of the great speech of silence ... Today’s visitor, maybe, will mind his tongue, maybe spare you the trouble of putting his latest tribute on the shelf with all the rest. Give me enemies rather than these disciples of mine. Best thing I ever heard of Browning is how he disapproves of all those Societies. Not that I quote Browning, or care for him, or read him: I’ve tried Browning on every way, but he don’t fit. Tennyson— now he has his place, a local English place: I don’t see how the world could make much use of him elsewhere— but the others: I conclude most literature was written on all fours, and the rest on stilts! ... There, Mary, the bell. I did hear that! I know my own bell, don’t I? Go on, go on down, bring the man up ... In here, Mr. Wilde. This room is not such a ruin as it seems: I find most things I search for without much trouble— found Dr. Bucke’s letter with your name, for instance. Found my red necktie as well. Come in, you cast a shadow where you stand. Come in, the chaos is more suspected than real. I suspect no chaos: I am convinced of the cosmos in your company, Walt Whitman! I greet you, sir, as America’s great voice.