1630 Nature poems

Three jets are streaking west: Trails are beginning to fray already: The third, the last set out, Climbs parallel a March sky Paying out a ruled white line: Skywriting like an incision, Such surgical precision defines The mile between it and the others Who have disappeared leaving behind Only their now ghostly tracks That still hold to the height and map Their direction with a failing clarity: The sky is higher for their passing Where the third plane scans its breadth. The mere bare blue would never have shown That vaultlike curvature overhead, Already evading the mathematics of the spot, As it blooms back, a cool canopy, A celestial meadow, needing no measure But a reconnaissant eye, an ear Aware suddenly that as they passed No sound accompanied arrival or vanishing So high were their flight-paths on a sky That has gone on expunging them since, Leaving a clean page there for chance To spread wide its unravelling hieroglyphs.

On the ridge above Skelp Road bears binge on blackberries and apples, even grapes, knocking down the Petersens’ arbor to satisfy the sweet hunger that consumes them.  Just like us they know the day must come when the heart slows, when to take one more step would mean the end of things as they should be.  Sleep is a drug; dreams its succor.  How better to drift toward another world but with leaves falling, their warmth draping us, our stomachs full and fat with summer?

Sleeping sister of a farther sky, dropped from zenith like a tender tone, the lucid apex of a scale unknown whose whitest whisper is an opaque cry of measureless frequency, the spectral sigh you breath, bright hydrogen and brighter zone of fissured carbon, consummated moan and ceaseless rapture of a brilliant why. Will nothing wake you from your livid rest? Essence of ether and astral stone the stunned polarities your substance weaves in one bright making, like a dream of leaves in the tree’s mind, summered. Or as a brooding bone roots constellations in the body’s nest.

Who could have dreamed them up? At least snails have shells, but all these have is—nothing. Small black antennae like fat pins wave as if they could take in enough to get them through. Turn them over, they’re the soles of new shoes, pale and unmarked as babies. They flow, the soil itself learning how to move and, moving, almost staying still, their silver monorail the only evidence of where they’d been. And they die quiet, or at least (thankfully) out of the human ear’s range, between two stones, under heels, shriveling in salt or piss, at the tips of sharp sticks. Fight back, I hear myself say, do something. Don’t just take it. But they die as they had lived, exuding slime, like the smaller boys, who’d just stand there, miserable in short pants, school socks down to their ankles, school tie unknotted and askew, and flowing from noses slow cauls of snot that from time to time they’d lick or sniff back up part way, until it flowed again, coating the upper lip, falling into the mouth, mixing with tears before anything had been done, the fear itself enough, so even if we wanted we couldn’t let them off. Sometimes it was the knee “where you daren’t show your mother,” other times the kick in the shins, the stick over the head, the punch in the mouth, while they just stood there, or double up, gasping for breath, and we did it again.

Whitman thought he could live with animals, they were so placid and self-contained, not one of them dissatisfied. I have lived with animals. They kept me up all night. Not only tom cats on the prowl, and neurotic rats behind my baseboards, scratching out a slim existence. There were cattle next door in the butcher’s pen, great longhorns lowing in the dark. Their numbers had come up and they knew it. I let their rough tongues lick my sorry palm. Nothing else I could do for them, or they for me. Walt can live with the animals. I’ll take these vegetables on parade: string-beans and cabbage heads and pea brains, who negotiate a busy crosswalk and feel brilliant, the smallest act accomplished no mean feat, each one guiding them to other small acts that will add up, in time, to something like steady purpose. They cling to this fate, clutch it along with their brownbag lunches: none of us would choose it, but this is their portion, this moment, then this one, then the next. Little as it is, pitiful as it seems, this is what they were given, and they don’t want to lose it. The gawky and the slow, the motley and the misshapen… What bliss to be walking in their midst as if I were one of them, just ride this gentle wave of idiocy, forget those who profess an interest in my welfare, look passing strangers in the eye for something we might have in common, and be unconcerned if nothing’s there. And now we peek into a dark café, and now we mug at the waitress whose feet are sore, whose smile makes up for the tacky carnations and white uniform makes it easy to mistake her for a nurse, even makes it necessary, given the state of the world. And when the giant with three teeth harangues us to hurry up, what comfort to know he’s a friend, what pleasure to be agreeable, small wonders of acquiescence, like obedient pets. Except animals don’t have our comic hope, witless as it is. They don’t get to wave madly at the waitress, as though conducting a symphony of ecstatic expectations. If I turned and lived with animals I’d only be a creature of habit, I’d go to where the food is and the warmth. But I wouldn’t get to say to my troubled friend, “Your eyes are so beautiful. I could live in them.”

She's slicing ripe white peaches into the Tony the Tiger bowl and dropping slivers for the dog poised vibrating by her foot to stop their fall when she spots it, camouflaged, a glimmer and then full on— happiness, plashing blunt soft wings inside her as if it wants to escape again.

The fire was so fierce, So red, so gray, so yellow That, along with the land, It burned part of the sky Which stayed black in that corner For years, As if it were night there Even in the daytime, A piece of the sky burnt And which then Could not be counted on Even by the birds. It was a regular fire— Terrible—we forget this About fire—terrible And full of pride. It intended to be Big, no regular fire. Like so many of us, It intended to be more And this time was. It was not better or worse Than any other fire Growing up. But this time, it was a fire At just the right time And in just the right place— If you think like a fire— A place it could do something big. Its flames reached out With ten thousand pincers, As if the fire Were made of beetles and scorpions Clawing themselves to get up, Pinching the air itself And climbing, So many sharp animals On each other’s backs Then into the air itself, Ten thousand snaps and pinches At least, So that if the sky Was made of something, It could not get away this time. Finally the fire Caught the sky, Which acted like a slow rabbit Which had made a miscalculation. It didn’t believe this could happen And so it ran left, Right into the thin toothpicks of flames, Too fast to pull back, The sky with all its arms, Hands, fingers, fingernails, All of it Disappeared. Goodbye. The sky stayed black For several years after. I wanted to tell you This small story About the sky. It’s a good one And explains why the sky Comes so slowly in the morning, Still unsure of what’s here. But the story is not mine. It was written by fire, That same small fire That wanted to come home With something of its own To tell, And it did, A small piece of blue in its mouth.

Wise emblem of our politic world, Sage snail, within thine own self curl’d; Instruct me softly to make haste, Whilst these my feet go slowly fast. Compendious snail! thou seem’st to me, Large Euclid’s strict epitome; And in each diagram dost fling Thee from the point unto the ring; A figure now triangular, An oval now, and now a square; And then a serpentine dost crawl, Now a straight line, now crook’d, now all. Preventing rival of the day, Th’art up and openest thy ray, And ere the morn cradles the moon Th’art broke into a beauteous noon. Then when the sun sups in the deep, Thy silver horns ere Cynthia’s peep; And thou from thine own liquid bed New Phoebus heav’st thy pleasant head. Who shall a name for thee create, Deep riddle of mysterious state? Bold Nature that gives common birth To all products of seas and earth, Of thee, as earthquakes, is afraid, Nor will thy dire deliv’ry aid. Thou thine own daughter then, and sire, That son and mother art entire, That big still with thy self dost go, And liv’st an aged embryo; That like the cubs of India, Thou from thyself a while dost play; But frighted with a dog or gun, In thine own belly thou dost run, And as thy house was thine own womb, So thine own womb concludes thy tomb. But now I must (analyz’d king) Thy economic virtues sing; Thou great stay’d husband still within, Thou, thee, that’s thine dost discipline; And when thou art to progress bent, Thou mov’st thy self and tenement, As warlike Scythians travell’d, you Remove your men and city too; Then after a sad dearth and rain, Thou scatterest thy silver train; And when the trees grow nak’d and old, Thou clothest them with cloth of gold, Which from thy bowels thou dost spin, And draw from the rich mines within. Now hast thou chang’d thee saint; and made Thy self a fane that’s cupola’d; And in thy wreathed cloister thou Walkest thine own grey friar too; Strict, and lock’d up, th’art hood all o’er, And ne’er eliminat’st thy door. On salads thou dost feed severe, And ’stead of beads thou dropp’st a tear; And when to rest, each calls the bell, Thou sleep’st within thy marble cell, Where in dark contemplation plac’d, The sweets of nature thou dost taste; Who now with time thy days resolve, And in a jelly thee dissolve, Like a shot star, which doth repair Upward, and rarify the air.

Unlike the ashes that make their home with hot coals, snails prefer moist earth.Go on: they advance while gluing themselves to it with their entire bodies. They carry it, they eat it, they shit it. They go through it, it goes through them. It’s the best kind of interpenetration, as between tones, one passive and one active. The passive bathes and nourishes the active, which overturns the other while it eats. (There is more to be said about snails. First of all their immaculate clamminess. Their sangfroid. Their stretchiness.) One can scarcely conceive of a snail outside its shell and unmoving. The moment it rests it sinks down deep into itself. In fact, its modesty obliges it to move as soon as it has shown its nakedness and 
revealed its vulnerable shape. The moment it’s exposed, it moves on. During periods of dryness they withdraw into ditches where it seems their bodies are enough to maintain their dampness. No doubt their neighbors there are toads and frogs and other ectothermic animals. But when they come out again they don’t move as quickly. You have to admire their willingness to go into the ditch, given how hard it is for them to come out again. Note also that though snails like moist soil, they have no affection for places that are too wet such as marshes or ponds. Most assuredly they prefer firm earth, as long as it’s fertile and damp. They are fond as well of moisture-rich vegetables and green leafy plants. They know how to feed on them leaving only the veins, cutting free the most tender leaves. They are hell on salads. What are these beings from the depths of the ditches? Though snails love many of their trenches’ qualities they have every intention of leaving. They are in their element but they are also wanderers. And when they emerge into the daylight onto firm ground their shells will preserve their vagabond’s hauteur. It must be a pain to have to haul that trailer around with them everywhere, but they never complain and in the end they are happy about it. How valuable, after all, to be able to go home any time, no matter where you may find yourself, eluding all intruders. It must be worth it. They are a little vain about this convenient ability: “Look at me, a vulnerable and sensitive being, who is nevertheless protected from unwanted guests, and so always in possession of happiness and peace of mind!” It’s not surprising the snail holds his head so high. “At the same time I am glued to the earth, always touching it, always progressing, though slowly, and always capable of pulling loose from the soil into myself.Après moi le déluge, I don’t care, the slightest kick may roll me anywhere. I can always get up again onto my single foot and reglue myself to the dirt where fate has planted me, and that’s my pantry: the earth, the most common of foods.” Joy to the snail! But they leave their proud slime on everything they touch. A silvery trail follows them. And maybe this points the way for the beaks of birds that love to eat them. Ay, there’s the rub: “To be or not to be, that is the question!” Such vanity! But that’s the danger they face. Alone? Yes, the snail is quite alone. He has few friends. But he needs no friends to be happy. He sticks to Nature, he enjoys his perfect nearness, he is the friend of the soil which he kisses with his whole body. And he befriends the leaves, and the heavens toward which he proudly stretches his head, with eyes sensitive enough to signify nobility, slowness, wisdom, pride, vanity, fire. No, he is nothing like the pig. He lacks those pitiful little scurrying anxious feet. That needful flight from shame. The stoic snail is tougher than that. He is more methodical, more proud, and without 
a doubt less gluttonous than any pig — pigs after all are capricious, leaving behind one bit of food to chase after something else. That 
panicky, hurried gluttony, that fear of missing out on something — that’s not for the snail. Nothing could be more beautiful than that deliberate and discreet advance. What it must cost them to glide so perfectly along the earth they honor with their presence! Each is like a ship trailing its silver wake. They proceed with a majesty that is all the more complete when you consider again the vulnerability of those highly sensitive eyeballs. Is the anger of snails perceptible? What examples can be found? As it makes no other gestures, the snail’s passion can probably only be discovered by a more profuse and rapid effusion of slime. The slime of pride. So one can see the expression of their rage is identical with that of their egotism. So they rule the world in their rich and silvery fashion. The expression of their anger, like that of their pride, shines as it dries. But it also makes the trail that reveals them to predators. What’s more, this trail is ephemeral and lasts only until the next rain. That’s how it is with everyone who speaks in an entirely subjective way, in verses and lines only, without taking care to build their phrases 
into a solid dwelling with more than two dimensions. Something more durable than themselves. But undoubtedly they don’t feel this need. They are heroes, that is to say beings whose existence alone is a work of art — not artists who merely make masterpieces. Here I touch on one of the main points of their lesson, something they have in common with all shelled beings: that shell, part of their essence, is at the same time a work of art, a monument. It lasts longer than they do. That is the example that snails offer us: saints who make masterpieces 
of their lives, works of art of their own perfection. They secrete form. Nothing outside themselves, their necessity, or their needs is their work. Nothing is out of proportion with their physical being. Nothing that is unnecessary or obligatory. And so they delineate the duties of humanity: great thoughts come from the heart. Live a better life and make better verses. Morality and rhetoric combine in the ambition and desire of the wise. How are they saints? Precisely by obedience to their nature. So: know yourself. And accept yourself for what you are. In agreement with your vices. In proportion with your measure. What is most appropriate to the human being? Words. Decency. Our humanism. Translated from the French

The thunderstorm came like a pot boiling over and the color of water was made by that, all of a sudden, a pigment more tropical than dense with the reflection of light. Everywhere the scent of at least five different kinds of plants lifted up. The desert can’t talk back but I believe it breathes instead, breathes vivid when the water wants it the water can’t wait and it breathes back. I turned and went into the house. Under the dining room table, a snake. Green with a yellow stripe bisecting its back. Motion ate each centimeter of floor and air, scared, it makes sense to say, though there exists or existed no safer time ever in which that shape wouldn’t want to move, dead August being the exception to this when heat makes molasses of all of us. Why did I want to chase it out? I did, I got a rake and kept making it make that beautiful scared shape upon the floor, so clean. Like two ice cubes rubbing each other and too cold to melt. Nothing organized that fear. Seeing the edges it found its way out.