1630 Nature poems

(From a Persian Carpet) Ash and strewments, the first moth-wings, pale Ardour of brief evenings, on the fecund wind; Or all a wing, less than wind, Breath of low herbs upfloats, petal or wing, Haunting the musk precincts of burial. For the season of newer riches moves triumphing, Of the evanescence of deaths. These potpourris Earth-tinctured, jet insect-bead, cinder of bloom— How weigh while a great summer knows increase, Ceaselessly risen, what there entombs?— Of candour fallen from the slight stems of Mays, Corrupt of the rim a blue shades, pensively: So a fatigue of wishes will young eyes. And brightened, unpurged eyes of revery, now Not to glance to fabulous groves again! For now deep presence is, and binds its close, And closes down the wreathed alleys escape of sighs. And now rich time is weaving, hidden tree, The fable of orient threads from bough to bough. Old rinded wood, whose lissomeness within Has reached from nothing to its covering These many corymbs’ flourish!—And the green Shells which wait amber, breathing, wrought Towards the still trance of summer’s centering, Motives by ravished humble fingers set, Each in a noon of its own infinite. And here is leant the branch and its repose of the deep leaf to the pilgrim plume. Repose, Inflections brilliant and mute of the voyager, light! And here the nests, and freshet throats resume Notes over and over found, names For the silvery ascensions of joy. Nothing is here But moss and its bells now of the root’s night; But the beetle’s bower, and arc from grass to grass For the flight in gauze. Now its fresh lair, Grass-deep, nestles the cool eft to stir Vague newborn limbs, and the bud’s dark winding has Access of day. Now on the subtle noon Time’s image, at pause with being, labours free Of all its charge, for each in coverts laid, Of clement kind; and everlastingly, In some elision of bright moments is known, Changed wide as Eden, the branch whose silence sways Dazzle of the murmurous leaves to continual tone; Its separations, sighing to own again Being of the ignorant wish; and sways to sight, Waked from it nighted, the marvelous foundlings of light; Risen and weaving from the ceaseless root A divine ease whispers toward fruitfulness, While all a summer’s conscience tempts the fruit.

Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned, Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring; And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank'd, and crown'd, A wild and giddy thing, And Health robust, from every care unbound, Come on the zephyr's wing, And cheer the toiling clown. Happy as holiday-enjoying face, Loud tongued, and "merry as a marriage bell," Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place; And where the troubled dwell, Thy witching charms wean them of half their cares; And from thy sunny spell, They greet joy unawares. Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude, And mantle laced with gems of garish light, Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude, And in the world's despite, Share the rude wealth that thy own heart beguiles; If haply so I might Win pleasure from thy smiles. Me not the noise of brawling pleasure cheers, In nightly revels or in city streets; But joys which soothe, and not distract the ears, That one at leisure meets In the green woods, and meadows summer-shorn, Or fields, where bee-fly greets The ear with mellow horn. The green-swathed grasshopper, on treble pipe, Sings there, and dances, in mad-hearted pranks; There bees go courting every flower that's ripe, On baulks and sunny banks; And droning dragon-fly, on rude bassoon, Attempts to give God thanks In no discordant tune. The speckled thrush, by self-delight embued, There sings unto himself for joy's amends, And drinks the honey dew of solitude. There Happiness attends With inbred Joy until the heart o'erflow, Of which the world's rude friends, Nought heeding, nothing know. There the gay river, laughing as it goes, Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides, And to the calm of heart, in calmness shows What pleasure there abides, To trace its sedgy banks, from trouble free: Spots Solitude provides To muse, and happy be. There ruminating 'neath some pleasant bush, On sweet silk grass I stretch me at mine ease, Where I can pillow on the yielding rush; And, acting as I please, Drop into pleasant dreams; or musing lie, Mark the wind-shaken trees, And cloud-betravelled sky. There think me how some barter joy for care, And waste life's summer-health in riot rude, Of nature, nor of nature's sweets aware. When passions vain intrude, These, by calm musings, softened are and still; And the heart's better mood Feels sick of doing ill. There I can live, and at my leisure seek Joys far from cold restraints—not fearing pride— Free as the winds, that breathe upon my cheek Rude health, so long denied. Here poor Integrity can sit at ease, And list self-satisfied The song of honey-bees. The green lane now I traverse, where it goes Nought guessing, till some sudden turn espies Rude batter'd finger post, that stooping shows Where the snug mystery lies; And then a mossy spire, with ivy crown, Cheers up the short surprise, And shows a peeping town. I see the wild flowers, in their summer morn Of beauty, feeding on joy's luscious hours; The gay convolvulus, wreathing round the thorn, Agape for honey showers; And slender kingcup, burnished with the dew Of morning's early hours, Like gold yminted new. And mark by rustic bridge, o'er shallow stream, Cow-tending boy, to toil unreconciled, Absorbed as in some vagrant summer dream; Who now, in gestures wild, Starts dancing to his shadow on the wall, Feeling self-gratified, Nor fearing human thrall. Or thread the sunny valley laced with streams, Or forests rude, and the o'ershadow'd brims Of simple ponds, where idle shepherd dreams, Stretching his listless limbs; Or trace hay-scented meadows, smooth and long, Where joy's wild impulse swims In one continued song. I love at early morn, from new mown swath, To see the startled frog his route pursue; To mark while, leaping o'er the dripping path, His bright sides scatter dew, The early lark that from its bustle flies, To hail his matin new; And watch him to the skies. To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent, The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn, With earnest heed, and tremulous intent, Frail brother of the morn, That from the tiny bent's dew-misted leaves Withdraws his timid horn, And fearful vision weaves. Or swallow heed on smoke-tanned chimney top, Wont to be first unsealing Morning's eye, Ere yet the bee hath gleaned one wayward drop Of honey on his thigh; To see him seek morn's airy couch to sing, Until the golden sky Bepaint his russet wing. Or sauntering boy by tanning corn to spy, With clapping noise to startle birds away, And hear him bawl to every passer by To know the hour of day; While the uncradled breezes, fresh and strong, With waking blossoms play, And breathe Æolian song. I love the south-west wind, or low or loud, And not the less when sudden drops of rain Moisten my glowing cheek from ebon cloud, Threatening soft showers again, That over lands new ploughed and meadow grounds, Summer's sweet breath unchain, And wake harmonious sounds. Rich music breathes in Summer's every sound; And in her harmony of varied greens, Woods, meadows, hedge-rows, corn-fields, all around Much beauty intervenes, Filling with harmony the ear and eye; While o'er the mingling scenes Far spreads the laughing sky. See, how the wind-enamoured aspen leaves Turn up their silver lining to the sun! And hark! the rustling noise, that oft deceives, And makes the sheep-boy run: The sound so mimics fast-approaching showers, He thinks the rain's begun, And hastes to sheltering bowers. But now the evening curdles dank and grey, Changing her watchet hue for sombre weed; And moping owls, to close the lids of day, On drowsy wing proceed; While chickering crickets, tremulous and long, Light's farewell inly heed, And give it parting song. The pranking bat its flighty circlet makes; The glow-worm burnishes its lamp anew; O'er meadows dew-besprent, the beetle wakes Inquiries ever new, Teazing each passing ear with murmurs vain, As wanting to pursue His homeward path again. Hark! 'tis the melody of distant bells That on the wind with pleasing hum rebounds By fitful starts, then musically swells O'er the dim stilly grounds; While on the meadow-bridge the pausing boy Listens the mellow sounds, And hums in vacant joy. Now homeward-bound, the hedger bundles round His evening faggot, and with every stride His leathern doublet leaves a rustling sound, Till silly sheep beside His path start tremulous, and once again Look back dissatisfied, And scour the dewy plain. How sweet the soothing calmness that distills O'er the heart's every sense its opiate dews, In meek-eyed moods and ever balmy trills! That softens and subdues, With gentle Quiet's bland and sober train, Which dreamy eve renews In many a mellow strain! I love to walk the fields, they are to me A legacy no evil can destroy; They, like a spell, set every rapture free That cheer'd me when a boy. Play—pastime—all Time's blotting pen conceal'd, Comes like a new-born joy, To greet me in the field. For Nature's objects ever harmonize With emulous Taste, that vulgar deed annoys; Which loves in pensive moods to sympathize, And meet vibrating joys O'er Nature's pleasing things; nor slighting, deems Pastimes, the Muse employs, Vain and obtrusive themes.

themes from the Tzu Yeh and the Book of Songs I have carried my pillow to the windowsill And try to sleep, with my damp arms crossed upon it, But no breeze stirs the tepid morning. Only I stir ... Come, tease me a little! With such cold passion, so little teasing play, How long can we endure our life together? No use. I put on your long dressing-gown; The untied sash trails over the dusty floor. I kneel by the window, prop up your shaving mirror And pluck my eyebrows. I don’t care if the robe slides open Revealing a crescent of belly, a tan thigh. I can accuse that nonexistent breeze ... I am as monogamous as the North Star, But I don’t want you to know it. You’d only take advantage. While you are as fickle as spring sunlight. All right, sleep! The cat means more to you than I. I can rouse you, but then you swagger out. I glimpse you from the window, striding toward the river. When you return, reeking of fish and beer, There is salt dew in your hair. Where have you been? Your clothes weren’t that wrinkled hours ago, when you left. You couldn’t have loved someone else, after loving me! I sulk and sigh, dawdling by the window. Later, when you hold me in your arms It seems, for a moment, the river ceases flowing.

Can we learn wisdom watching insects now, or just the art of quiet observation? Creatures from the world of leaf and flower marking weather’s variation. The huge dry summer of the ladybirds (we thought we’d never feel such heat again) started with white cabbage butterflies sipping at thin trickles in the drain. Then one by one the ladybirds appeared obeying some far purpose or design. We marvelled at their numbers in the garden, grouped together, shuffling in a line. Each day a few strays turned up at the table, the children laughed to see them near the jam exploring round the edges of a spoon. One tried to drink the moisture on my arm. How random and how frail seemed their lives, and yet how they persisted, refugees, saving energy by keeping still and hiding in the grass and in the trees. And then one day they vanished overnight. Clouds gathered, storm exploded, weather cleared. And all the wishes that we might have had in such abundance simply disappeared.

I wanted to see where beauty comes from without you in the world, hauling my heart across sixty acres of northeast meadow, my pockets filling with flowers. Then I remembered, it’s you I miss in the brightness and body of every living name: rattlebox, yarrow, wild vetch. You are the green wonder of June, root and quasar, the thirst for salt. When I finally understand that people fail at love, what is left but cinquefoil, thistle, the paper wings of the dragonfly aeroplaning the soul with a sudden blue hilarity? If I get the story right, desire is continuous, equatorial. There is still so much I want to know: what you believe can never be removed from us, what you dreamed on Walnut Street in the unanswerable dark of your childhood, learning pleasure on your own. Tell me our story: are we impetuous, are we kind to each other, do we surrender to what the mind cannot think past? Where is the evidence I will learn to be good at loving? The black dog orbits the horseshoe pond for treefrogs in their plangent emergencies. There are violet hills, there is the covenant of duskbirds. The moon comes over the mountain like a big peach, and I want to tell you what I couldn’t say the night we rushed North, how I love the seriousness of your fingers and the way you go into yourself, calling my half-name like a secret. I stand between taproot and treespire. Here is the compass rose to help me live through this. Here are twelve ways of knowing what blooms even in the blindness of such longing. Yellow oxeye, viper’s bugloss with its set of pink arms pleading do not forget me. We hunger for eloquence. We measure the isopleths. I am visiting my life with reckless plenitude. The air is fragrant with tiny strawberries. Fireflies turn on their electric wills: an effulgence. Let me come back whole, let me remember how to touch you before it is too late.

It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk The dew that lay upon the morning grass; There is no rustling in the lofty elm That canopies my dwelling, and its shade Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint And interrupted murmur of the bee, Settling on the sick flowers, and then again Instantly on the wing. The plants around Feel the too potent fervors: the tall maize Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms. But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills, With all their growth of woods, silent and stern, As if the scorching heat and dazzling light Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds, Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven– Their bases on the mountains–their white tops Shining in the far ether–fire the air With a reflected radiance, and make turn The gazer’s eye away. For me, I lie Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf, Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun, Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind That still delays his coming. Why so slow, Gentle and voluble spirit of the air? Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth Coolness and life! Is it that in his caves He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge, The pine is bending his proud top, and now Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes; Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves! The deep distressful silence of the scene Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds And universal motion. He is come, Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs, And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs, And sound of swaying branches, and the voice Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers, By the road-side and the borders of the brook, Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew Were on them yet, and silver waters break Into small waves and sparkle as he comes.

O wind, thou hast thy kingdom in the trees, And all thy royalties Sweep through the land to-day. It is mid June, And thou, with all thy instruments in tune, Thine orchestra Of heaving fields and heavy swinging fir, Strikest a lay That doth rehearse Her ancient freedom to the universe. All other sound in awe Repeats its law: The bird is mute; the sea Sucks up its waves; from rain The burthened clouds refrain, To listen to thee in thy leafery, Thou unconfined, Lavish, large, soothing, refluent summer wind.

1 I tried to live that way for a while, among the trees, the green breeze, chewing Bubblicious and by the edge of the pool      spitting it out. The book open on my chest, a towel at my back      the diving board thwok ing, and leaving never arrived      Cut it out my mother said     my brother clowning around with a water gun Cut it out. The planes arrowed into silence, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, always coming home from summer     over the bridge to Brooklyn. The father stabbed on Orange Street, the Betamax in the trash, the Sasha doll the dog chewed up, hollow plastic arms gaping. Powdered pink lemonade, tonguing the sweet grains liquid-thick. I could stand in that self   for years wondering is it better to anticipate than to age     Imagining children with five different men, a great flood that would destroy your possessions     and free you to wander. Bathing suits and apples and suntan oil and a mother bending over you shadow of   her face on yours. It’s gone, that way, the breeze, the permanent pool. A father saying “ghost” and the sheets slipping off   the oak tree’s bough. When I wake, leaves in the water. You could say green forever and not be lying. 2 The pond near the house in Maine where we lived for one year to “get away” from the city     the pond where the skaters     on Saturdays came, red scarves     through white snow, voices drawing near and     pulling away, trees against the clouds. Trying to live off   the land for a while. Too hard in the end my father said.     What did he say? Forget it     you weren’t listening     He wore fishing overalls most days and stank of   guts. Our shouts slipping, the green garbage cans edging the white scar pond, so many days like secrets about to be divulged . . . White snow; to stink of   fish guts but     to be trying to live:               the pond near the house and the sound of   voices     drawing near. As you aged you got distracted, indebted. In the hospital around my mother the machines     beeped, the long leads of   the heart monitor, drooping parabolas. It’s not worth dying for     she said. What was it she meant? Swollen shells, the desiccated brown seedpods we used to pinch onto our noses and skate about     putting on airs. Then the books opened their pages and with our red woolen scarves flying and the Freezy Freakies’ once-invisible hearts reddening into the cold we disappeared. Evian bottles skitter against the chain-link fence. It’s gone     that way     the green planes arrowing into silence     gum wrappers slipping to the ground. O wild West Wind     be thou our friend and blow away the trash. Salvage us from     the heap of our making and Cut it out my mother said     Stop worrying about the future, it doesn’t belong to us and we don’t belong to it. 3 The surface more slippery, slick and white the ice. I stand at the pond’s edge gather the information     darkening there hello algae     hello fish pond my mind in the depths     going. On the beach I dig, tunnel to the hands of   the woman who stitched this red shirt     holes all the way to China. It got so easy to     get used to it, the orchestration of meaning against the night, life a tower you could climb on not a junk heap     pale picture books yellowing on the shelves. It got so     I close my eyes and walk along the hospital hall. The iris quivering in the March light, a nurse taking my mother’s pulse not paid enough to help us as we wished to be helped. And your hope left behind     turning the pages of   magazines, the models in Prada. As a girl it was a quest, to feel exploded every second, pudding pops     and Vietnam vets standing on the corner shaking their Styrofoam cups.     Holding her cup my mother stands, petting the dog, it’s 1982     the sun tunneling in     she drinks her coffee Cut it out or     Forget it or     Hello. Look, I’ve made a telephone for us. Put that cup to your ear, and I’ll put it to mine, and listen     I just need to find one of those Styrofoam cups and what about you     where did you go what kind of night is it there electric synthetic blackened or burnt. 4 At night they come to you distorted and bright, like an old print on a light box, present,     present,          not quite. Are we inventing them as we sleep, or are they still     happening in a time we can’t touch? The hockey game on the blue tv glowing and slowing     I come home to a man slumped on the couch not-quite-saying a greeting     all the gone ones there the slap of skates     all gone and the commentator it’s going on forever the blade moving along rink says What a slapshot what a shot. You make a life, it is made of days and days, ordinary and subvocal, not busy becoming what they could be,               dark furlings of tiny church feelings, mysterious, I mean, and intricate like that high-windowed light — intricate and mysterious          I come home. Near our house we hung out on the Promenade after school the boys smoking the security systems in the Center blinking     a disco party blue red / blue red the East River reflecting scraped sky     cornices and clouds we could hear the roar of cars across it and taste the chemical air of   the offices the fathers worked in we’d been there to pick them up for the long weekend in the Catskills the hum-gray computers, the ibm Selectrics massive on the desks, eleven, twelve, thirteen, riding the graffitied subways, flirting, the boys     grabbing us calling     hey     hey. Changeable one day to the next. Jon talking of atheism blond hair in strips          At night the bomb mushrooming over the Statue of   Liberty, white blinding everywhere.          Oh, she said, don’t worry just a dream          just a dream. Everyone is scared of   Russia. Imagine          she laughed     We used to have to hide under our desks! Forget it     you weren’t listening     I was trying Don’t worry it gets you nothing to tell you something     the air cold the maples bare your mother pregnant Come on the horses are     past the window with a son much younger than you of   the house she rode them past the river where all the Catholic kids sailed ice boats uncles taking cash to wire home to Ireland. The future isn’t here yet, it’s always going to be,     but I’m holding you, walking the Promenade, thirty-six, the ferry crossing the river again. 5 and for a while               rain on the dirt road and the pastured gray horse     holding Chex Mix up to its fuzzed mouth     pockets of   time all summer     eating  ghosts in the arcade Pac-Man alive quarter after quarter I keep trying     Cut it out she said and forget it     I was trying to tell you my father cooking fish in the kitchen licking his thumb     to turn the page. In the meantime you try not to go into a kind of exile — Oh, you read too many books, says my friend Dan     Here’s the tv . And the small voices of children     enter the room, they sound so narrow and light and possible. But don’t you think we’re always making the same standing at the car rental kind of mistake we began by making at the last minute, rushing to call our fathers before setting off for vacation.     It’s warmer this August than it has been for decades. Still the sun bathing us isn’t preposterous or cold.          Grace: imagine it and all the afterworld fathers sleeping with their hair perfectly          combed faces mortician-clean unlike the ones they wore. In the motel Reagan on tv his hair in that parted wave     the milk prices up, my mother says, inflation.     Key Food on Montague, the linoleum tiles dirty and cracked, the dairy case goose-pimpling my skin. Those tiles are still there. She is dead now     and so is he. I know it seems bare to say it bare to     bare linoleum tiles. You who come after me I will be underfoot but     Oh, come off it, start again. We all live amid surfaces and                    and I wish I had the     Start over     Come on thou Step into the street, amidst the lightly turning trash, your hair lifting in the wind     Remember I have thought of   you the lines of our skates converging in a future etc. etc., the past the repository of   what can be salvaged, grace watering the basil on the windowsill, until the day comes of   looking back at it all, like a projectionist at a movie slipping through the reel, the stripped sound of   time — I tried to live that way for a while Bubblicious and          spitting it out Only forget it you          were if   I could hear your voice     again     I could pretend Rise and shine she called in the morning     Rise and shine leaves in the water     intricate and the dying Dutch elms the cool blue pool pockets of    time          Sun-In bleaching our hair the faces they wore     arcade ghosts and lilacs by the door in Maine where she leaned     close to me     said smell the planes buzzed     a purple light     fingers sticky if   I could only hear it again     you could say forever     tonguing the sweet grains     you could say forever     and not be

XXXVIII Over the cliffs of the hillside: the sun then below in the valley the earth covered with flowers Zurita enamored friend takes in the sun of photosynthesis Zurita will now never again be friend since 7 P.M. it's been getting dark Night is the insane asylum of the plants XLII Enclosed with the four walls of a bathroom: I looked up at the ceiling and began to clean the walls and the floor the sink   all of it You see: Outside the sky was God and he was sucking at my soul —believe me! I wiped my weeping eyes LVII In the narrow broken bed restless all night like a spent candle lit again I thought I saw Buddha many times At my side I felt a woman's gasp for air but Buddha was only the pillows and the woman is sleeping the eternal dream LXIII Today I dreamed that I was King they were dressing me in black-and-white spotted pelts Today I moo with my head about to fall as the church bells' mournful clanging says that milk goes to market LXXXV They've shaved my head they've dressed me in these gray wool rags —Mom keeps on smoking I am Joan of Arc They catalog me on microfilm XCII The glass is transparent like water Dread of prisms and glass I circle the light so as not to lose myself in them

A last rock-skip hurlstorm (crazing river-glass) the closest they ever were. • In right lockstitch snared and split some fire-supper cooked on sticks. • By dawn the older brother took to chucking what bottle-frags he could find and crud-oysters across. The (high-pitched) younger blacked our waters with a yowl. • Lord the sound such as rose from him carried so— Carved into us. Clings. • Hadn’t they clung tooth and claw to branch and bark. — Came a man (and truck) to take them off. • Dieseled those boys off away some say somewheres upcountry, inland. • Where it was they landed (why) nobody not them knows. • No body not them knows just how they humped and grubbled home what road they’d graved what woods criss-crossed which creeks which trains they’d hopped who helped. • Came safe home sure        but blank as houses. Came safe home       —as him  —and him. —as (evermore) not them.