1630 Nature poems

White hail pelting the frozen bog, I’m stuck in the first line of January, following my host’s dog on his walk through the stone century, around the quarry, slices of marble and mud, past a herd of miners exhaling smoke, past a barn smelling of merde, and back to where I’m stuck and broke. The fucking dog barks at the night, mad at the stars all his life and then again. I rethink kicking him out, but being cool, I let him in.

after Thomas James The strangers in the woods must mimic squirrels and crackle with the undergrowth. They must not flinch at the cruelty of breaking golden leaves with their feet, or of interring stones. And like any of these deciduous trees in autumn they must be stingy with shadow and move deceptively across the sludge. I listen to these strangers stirring with the evenings. I invent paths for them to the soft edge of the lake. Each descent is as graceful as a sinking ship, but less tragic somehow because these strangers don’t possess a lung. I cannot hear them breathe, yet the air is all whispers, all sighs—the same ethereal muscle that rubs the color off the foliage. I lost my way out of the woods on the night every bird went south or numb. A plump rat snatched the moon and dragged it by the white rope of its tail. The strangers were a cloak of silhouettes flattening against a trunk like bark. I must have disappeared among them because the mouth I touched was not my own and was cruelly closing in on someone’s rib. I carried such a bite on me, an arc of green and yellow on my side from the man who said he loved me. In that darkness I knew as much about him as I did of the amputee swimming his way up the hill with his only arm. So this is the home of the unturned stone where the fugitive keeps his kiss! Archeologists will discover a paradise in the place no touch died of neglect. Is it any wonder all things forgotten or abandoned find their way here? The winter is back, so too the bloated body of a book I tossed over the bridge last week. And there on the bench, is my old smoking habit, a cigarette glowing on my mouth like a beacon. I’m patient, waiting for the fugitive to claim me as his own. I’m as wise as any stranger here, alone but with the knowledge that the grief of separation is always brief.

The small white mutt of my Unsure Self trails the masterless Dog of the Dying World, watching him lope the endless block of yards he knew before his birth‚ . . . I imitate his muffled bark & snuffling breath, as round & round we trot as one through rustling browns of the dying world. For it's come to me now that a dog sniffing round for the perfect smell,& a place to pee in the chilly breeze, is the Rudiment of Life. And, if so, the Poetry of Fall is the dog of myself, untied at last, from the Rope of the World dreaming he'll one day snuffle past those crackling heaps of burning leaves, becalmed by the scent of smoky light, Alone.

What thing unto mine ear Wouldst thou convey,—what secret thing, O wandering water ever whispering? Surely thy speech shall be of her. Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer, What message dost thou bring? Say, hath not Love leaned low This hour beside thy far well-head, And there through jealous hollowed fingers said The thing that most I long to know— Murmuring with curls all dabbled in thy flow And washed lips rosy red? He told it to thee there Where thy voice hath a louder tone; But where it welters to this little moan His will decrees that I should hear. Now speak: for with the silence is no fear, And I am all alone. Shall Time not still endow One hour with life, and I and she Slake in one kiss the thirst of memory? Say, streams, lest Love should disavow Thy service, and the bird upon the bough Sing first to tell it me. What whisperest thou? Nay, why Name the dead hours? I mind them well. Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell With desolate eyes to know them by. That hour must still be born ere it can die Of that I'd have thee tell. But hear, before thou speak! Withhold, I pray, the vain behest That while the maze hath still its bower for quest My burning heart should cease to seek. Be sure that Love ordained for souls more meek His roadside dells of rest. Stream, when this silver thread In flood-time is a torrent brown, May any bulwark bind thy foaming crown? Shall not the waters surge and spread And to the crannied boulders of their bed Still shoot the dead drift down? Let no rebuke find place In speech of thine: or it shall prove That thou dost ill expound the words of Love. Even as thine eddy's rippling race Would blur the perfect image of his face I will have none thereof. O learn and understand That 'gainst the wrongs himself did wreak Love sought her aid; until her shadowy cheek And eyes beseeching gave command; And compassed in her close compassionate hand My heart must burn and speak. For then at last we spoke What eyes so oft had told to eyes Through that long-lingering silence whose half-sighs Alone the buried secret broke, Which with snatched hands and lips' reverberate stroke Then from the heart did rise. But she is far away Now; nor the hours of night grown hoar Bring yet to me, long gazing from the door, The wind-stirred robe of roseate gray And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day When we shall meet once more. Dark as thy blinded wave When brimming midnight floods the glen,— Bright as the laughter of thy runnels when The dawn yields all the light they crave; Even so these hours to wound and that to save Are sisters in Love's ken. Oh sweet her bending grace Then when I kneel beside her feet; And sweet her eyes' o'erhanging heaven; and sweet The gathering folds of her embrace; And her fall'n hair at last shed round my face When breaths and tears shall meet. Beneath her sheltering hair, In the warm silence near her breast, Our kisses and our sobs shall sink to rest; As in some still trance made aware That day and night have wrought to fulness there And Love has built our nest. And as in the dim grove, When the rains cease that hushed them long, 'Mid glistening boughs the song-birds wake to song,— So from our hearts deep-shrined in love, While the leaves throb beneath, around, above, The quivering notes shall throng. Till tenderest words found vain Draw back to wonder mute and deep, And closed lips in closed arms a silence keep, Subdued by memory's circling strain,— The wind-rapt sound that the wind brings again While all the willows weep. Then by her summoning art Shall memory conjure back the sere Autumnal Springs, from many a dying year Born dead; and, bitter to the heart, The very ways where now we walk apart Who then shall cling so near. And with each thought new-grown, Some sweet caress or some sweet name Low-breathed shall let me know her thought the same: Making me rich with every tone And touch of the dear heaven so long unknown That filled my dreams with flame. Pity and love shall burn In her pressed cheek and cherishing hands; And from the living spirit of love that stands Between her lips to soothe and yearn, Each separate breath shall clasp me round in turn And loose my spirit's bands. Oh passing sweet and dear, Then when the worshipped form and face Are felt at length in darkling close embrace; Round which so oft the sun shone clear, With mocking light and pitiless atmosphere, In many an hour and place. Ah me! with what proud growth Shall that hour's thirsting race be run; While, for each several sweetness still begun Afresh, endures love's endless drouth; Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet mouth, Each singly wooed and won. Yet most with the sweet soul Shall love's espousals then be knit; What time the governing cloud sheds peace from it O'er tremulous wings that touch the goal, And on the unmeasured height of Love's control The lustral fires are lit. Therefore, when breast and cheek Now part, from long embraces free,— Each on the other gazing shall but see A self that has no need to speak: All things unsought, yet nothing more to seek,— One love in unity. O water wandering past,— Albeit to thee I speak this thing, O water, thou that wanderest whispering, Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last. What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast, Its secret thence to wring? Nay, must thou hear the tale Of the past days,—the heavy debt Of life that obdurate time withholds,—ere yet To win thine ear these prayers prevail, And by thy voice Love's self with high All-hail Yield up the amulet? How should all this be told?— All the sad sum of wayworn days,— Heart's anguish in the impenetrable maze; And on the waste uncoloured wold The visible burthen of the sun grown cold And the moon's labouring gaze? Alas! shall hope be nurs'd On life's all-succouring breast in vain, And made so perfect only to be slain? Or shall not rather the sweet thirst Even yet rejoice the heart with warmth dispers'd And strength grown fair again? Stands it not by the door!— Love's Hour—Till she and I shall meet With bodiless form and unapparent feet That cast no shadow yet before, Though round its head the dawn begins to pour The breath that makes day sweet? Its eyes invisible Watch till the dial's thin-thrown shade Be born,—yea, till the journeying line be laid Upon the point that wakes the spell, And there in lovelier light than tongue can tell Its presence stands array'd. Its soul remembers yet Those sunless hours that passed it by; And still it hears the night's disconsolate cry, And feels the branches wringing wet Cast on its brow, that may not once forget, Dumb tears from the blind sky. But oh! when now her foot Draws near, for whose sake night and day Were long in weary longing sighed away,— The hour of Love, 'mid airs grown mute, Shall sing beside the door, and Love's own lute Thrill to the passionate lay. Thou know'st, for Love has told Within thine ear, O stream, how soon That song shall lift its sweet appointed tune. O tell me, for my lips are cold, And in my veins the blood is waxing old Even while I beg the boon. So, in that hour of sighs Assuaged, shall we beside this stone Yield thanks for grace; while in thy mirror shown The twofold image softly lies, Until we kiss, and each in other's eyes Is imaged all alone. Still silent? Can no art Of Love's then move thy pity? Nay, To thee let nothing come that owns his sway: Let happy lovers have no part With thee; nor even so sad and poor a heart As thou hast spurned to-day. To-day? Lo! night is here. The glen grows heavy with some veil Risen from the earth or fall'n to make earth pale; And all stands hushed to eye and ear, Until the night-wind shake the shade like fear And every covert quail. Ah! by another wave On other airs the hour must come Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home. Between the lips of the low cave Against that night the lapping waters lave, And the dark lips are dumb. But there Love's self doth stand, And with Life's weary wings far flown, And with Death's eyes that make the water moan, Gathers the water in his hand: And they that drink know nought of sky or land But only love alone. O soul-sequestered face Far off,—O were that night but now! So even beside that stream even I and thou Through thirsting lips should draw Love's grace, And in the zone of that supreme embrace Bind aching breast and brow. O water whispering Still through the dark into mine ears,— As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers?— Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring, Wan water, wandering water weltering, This hidden tide of tears.

... a separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power and a life-enhancing return ... Van Gennep: Rites de Passage Moth-force a small town always has, Given the night. What field-forms can be, Outlying the small civic light-decisions over A man walking near home? Men are not where he is Exactly now, but they are around him    around him like the strength Of fields.    The solar system floats on Above him in town-moths. Tell me, train-sound, With all your long-lost grief, what I can give. Dear Lord of all the fields what am I going to do? Street-lights, blue-force and frail As the homes of men, tell me how to do it    how To withdraw    how to penetrate and find the source Of the power you always had light as a moth, and rising With the level and moonlit expansion Of the fields around, and the sleep of hoping men. You?    I?    What difference is there?    We can all be saved By a secret blooming. Now as I walk The night    and you walk with me    we know simplicity Is close to the source that sleeping men Search for in their home-deep beds. We know that the sun is away    we know that the sun can be conquered By moths, in blue home-town air. The stars splinter, pointed and wild. The dead lie under The pastures.    They look on and help.    Tell me, freight-train, When there is no one else To hear. Tell me in a voice the sea Would have, if it had not a better one: as it lifts, Hundreds of miles away, its fumbling, deep-structured roar Like the profound, unstoppable craving Of nations for their wish. Hunger, time and the moon: The moon lying on the brain as on the excited sea    as on The strength of fields. Lord, let me shake With purpose.    Wild hope can always spring From tended strength.    Everything is in that. That and nothing but kindness.    More kindness, dear Lord Of the renewing green.    That is where it all has to start: With the simplest things. More kindness will do nothing less Than save every sleeping one And night-walking one Of us. My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can.

Glued-on trees alternating with strips of bricks and little pieces of song taped up everywhere as green and pink diamonds in a woods in a box when the room of the mind has an easy chair and 3 large trees. A 3-sided woods with a divan at the back, an argyle of bird song on top of a syncopation of stapled trees, concrete strips and birches tacked up for reflection, digression, analysis if the room in the mind means 3 large people conferring in a box of woods with a love seat out front. Bands of fluorescence and poplar and a tempo of tacked-up trees a needlepoint of bird song, home-sweet-home, where a sapling on an end table is lit stage right beside the wicker chair as well as the leather chair in the boxed woods. A gray-haired woman sits on the floor to read stacks of old journals out of a crate, a flaxen girl in a Scotch-plaid holiday dress who rolls in stage left. Pulses of gold and lamé trees in French and a disco ball in the boxed-in woods, if the many-roomed mind comes with a futon. The off-kilter, out-of-sync, the irregular pace of, the size 3 of, until a (Do Not) diagonal across the mountain range at the back of the mind, sound-split poles, stubs but glued-on, syncopation, many stapled, love lit: one by one, the leaves again taped up.

For RLB Pass by the showy rose, blabbing open, suckling a shiny beetle; pass by the changeless diamond that falls asleep in shadow— this love is a lichen, alga and fungus made one fleck, feeding on what it feeds, growing slightly faster than stone into a patch of gray lace, a double thumbprint, its bloom distinguishable, with practice, from its dormant phase, crocheting its singular habit over time, a faithful stain bound to its home, etching on the unmoved rock the only rune it knows.

Tu Fu, “Thoughts While Traveling at Night” There’s a wind in the grass — Is there here a boat’s mast claiming my lonely night too? I see the stars can’t be called hanged, exactly, just hanging down, not over emptiness, but honest ground, the moon trying the black skin of this river, black corpse    ... But, even plainer — I wonder if these words, my words, will ever bring me fame. I have my age, my injuries. They limit me. I’m like some spook bird I know, solo and roped between where rotting happens and a sky.

I do. Victim. Sales Met Wipe Her Less. Was a disappointment We say it. Study nature. Or Who Towering. Mispronounced Spelling. She Was Astonishing To No One For Fun Study from nature. I Am Pleased Thoroughly I Am Thoroughly Pleased. By. It. It is very likely. They said so. Oh. I want. To do. What Is Later To Be Refined. By Turning. Of turning around. I will wait.

Or how, when last sun,