1630 Nature poems

Darkened not completely dark let us walk in the darkened field trees in the field outlined against that which is less dark under the trees are bushes with orange berries dark green leaves not poetry’s mixing of yellow light blue sky darker than that darkness of the leaves a modulation of the accumulated darkness orange of the berries another modulation spreading out toward us it is like the reverberation of a bell rung three times like the call of a voice the call of a voice that is not there. We will not look up how they got their name in a book of names we will not trace the name’s root conjecture its first murmuring the root of the berries their leaves is succoured by darkness darkness like a large block of stone hauled on a wooden sled like stone formed and reformed by a dark sea rolling in turmoil.

A horse is shivering flies off its ribs, grazing Through the stench of a sodden leachfield. On the broken stairs of a trailer A laughing fat girl in a T-shirt is pumping Milk from her swollen breasts, cats Lapping at the trails. There's a sheen of rhubarb On her dead fingernail. It's a humid morning. Tonight, with the moon washing some stars away, She'll go searching for an old bicycle in the shed; She'll find his father's treasures: Jars full of bent nails, a lacquered bass, And the scythe with spiders Nesting in the emptiness of the blade And in the bow of its pine shaft. Milling junk in the dark, She'll forget the bicycle, her getaway, And rescue A color photograph of an old matinee idol. Leaving the shed, she'll startle An owl out on the marsh. By November It will be nailed through the breast to the barn. In a year the owl will go on a shelf in the shed Where in thirty years there will be a music box Containing a lock of hair, her rosaries, Her birth certificate, And an impossibly sheer, salmon-pink scarf. What I want to know of my government is Doesn't poverty just fucking break your heart?

An apple tree bent double with fruit grew in the middle of the living room shaking gently as the average family pootled by with plates or devices in their hands The room was almost all tree everyone edged round it Curiously no one picked a single apple nor did the ripe fruit ever fall The full tree stood there a daemon to behold Who lives in that house now I can’t tell you My childhood lives on there and my parent shadows and all my days and nights that will never bear fruit The apple tree I speak of roots itself partly in truth and partly in lies Those roots are splinters of the true cross They alone know why miracles are best avoided

Stellar dust has settled. It is green underwater now in the leaves Of the yellow crowfoot. Its vacancies are gathered together Under pine litter as emerging flower of the pink arbutus. It has gained the power to make itself again In the bone-filled egg of osprey and teal. One could say this toothpick grasshopper Is a cloud of decayed nebula congealed and perching On his female mating. The tortoise beetle, Leaving the stripped veins of morning glory vines Like licked bones, is a straw-colored swirl Of clever gases. At this moment there are dead stars seeing Themselves as marsh and forest in the eyes Of muskrat and shrew, disintegrated suns Making songs all night long in the throats Of crawfish frogs, in the rubbings and gratings Of the red-legged locust. There are spirits of orbiting Rock in the shells of pointed winkles And apple snails, ghosts of extinct comets caught In the leap of darting hare and bobcat, revolutions Of rushing stone contained in the sound of these words. The paths of the Pleiades and Coma clusters Have been compelled to mathematics by the mind Contemplating the nature of itself In the motions of stars. The patterns Of any starry summer night might be identical To the summer heavens circling inside the skull. I can feel time speeding now in all directions Deeper and deeper into the black oblivion Of the electrons directly behind my eyes. Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind Has been obligated from the beginning To create an ordered universe As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.

Gone to seed, ailanthus, the poverty tree. Take a phrase, then fracture it, the pods’ gaudy nectarine shades ripening to parrots taking flight, all crest and tail feathers. A musical idea. Macaws scarlet and violet, tangerine as a song the hue of sunset where my street becomes water and down shore this phantom city skyline’s mere hazy silhouette. The alto’s liquid geometry weaves a way of thinking, a way of breaking synchronistic through time so the girl on the comer has the bones of my face, the old photos, beneath the Kansas City hat, black fedora lifting hair off my neck cooling the sweat of a night-long tidal pull from bar to bar the night we went to find Bird’s grave. Eric’s chartreuse perfume. That poured-on dress I lived days and nights inside, made love and slept in, a mesh and slur of zipper down the back. Women smoked the boulevards with gardenias after-hours, asphalt shower- slick, ozone charging air with sixteenth notes, that endless convertible ride to find the grave whose sleep and melody wept neglect enough to torch us for a while through snare-sweep of broom on pavement, the rumpled musk of lover’s sheets, charred cornices topping crosstown gutted buildings. Torches us still—cat screech, matte blue steel of pistol stroked across the victim’s cheek where fleet shoes jazz this dark and peeling block, that one. Vine Street, Olive. We had the music, but not the pyrotechnics— rhinestone straps lashing my shoes, heels sinking through earth and Eric in casual drag, mocha cheekbones rouged, that flawless plummy mouth. A style for moving, heel tap and lighter flick, lion moan of buses pulling away through the static brilliant fizz of taffeta on nyloned thighs. Light mist, etherous, rinsed our faces and what happens when you touch a finger to the cold stone that jazz and death played down to? Phrases. Take it all and break forever— a man with gleaming sax, an open sill in summertime, and the fire-escape’s iron zigzag tumbles crazy notes to a girl cooling her knees, wearing one of those dresses no one wears anymore, darts and spaghetti straps, glitzy fabrics foaming an iron bedstead. The horn’s alarm, then fluid brass chromatics. Extravagant ailanthus, the courtyard’s poverty tree is spike and wing, slate-blue mourning dove, sudden cardinal flame. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.

To insects – sensual lust. . . was how I began my talk . . . On Paradise . . . at the local library . . . It would be a nuns-only audience . . . I knew . . . ! So I’d donned my habit . . . wore a ton of More Spirit Than Flesh make-up . . . And . . . brought props . . . props in my large portable closet . . . l’Armoire Secrète . . . Got to the library assembly room . . . Fuck . . . the one . . . only . . . person in the audience . . . my husband . . . Who . . . I knew . . . ! always preferred I get right to the . . . Thus . . .Paradise is sex sans bodies . . . Paradise: Travesty . . . Mechanical birds . . . Exegetes. . . Was I losing . . . ? Quickly to witticisms . . .I don’t like sexing but I love having sexed . . . The audience member . . . the audience member was . . . demanding to see the inside . . . of l’Armoire Secrète . . . Fuck . . . I . . . I began fumbling . . . with the golden lock . . . Took a minute for nunly explication . . .Sex lubricates . . . the locks on the gates . . . Paradise-wise . . . When the Armoire doors were . . . I stepped aside . . . let the audience member . . . He got very close . . . peered in . . . put his whole head . . . I regret he said . . . he was nervous trying to joke . . . I regret I’ve forgotten my spelunking costume . . . Shush I said . . . Keep looking . . . Though really there was nothing to see . . .  l’Armoire Secrète was empty . . . Finally . . . he stood . . . squinting in the library light . . . he peered . . . right at me . . . Hey he said . . . he came very close . . . This was how a naked marble statue felt . . . Hey he said . . . gentle-wise . . . Love . . . he said . . . Love it’s me don’t you recognize . . . Of course I did . . . had . . . But had to pretend I did . . . not . . . Will the audience member please take his seat. . . I said it resolutely . . . though not . . . firmly . . . I began again . . .On Paradise . . . My voice as clean as the Dewey Decimal System . . . I brought up my On Paradise PowerPoint . . . visuals of forests . . . trees . . . He was seated . . . Once my car broke down in front of a nunnery . . . over the door of which was inscribed . . . from Dante . . . Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura and I thought . . . at the time . . . I had been thinking una selva oscura. . . had to mean dark self . . . never bothering to . . . the Italian . . . I just . . . plunged . . . I’d donned a habit . . . black robes . . .  . . . Was I saying all this out loud . . . or in my head . . . ? It’s hard to tell the difference . . . if . . . you talk enough . . .I donned these black robes and lived in shadows and. . . It was time for a rhetorical gesture . . . Of course of course I said with a nod . . . a nod magnanimous . . . a nod sagacious . . . a nod to a slide of particularly dark . . . trees . . .Of course the wilderness spreads woe unto him . . . who carries the wilderness with him. . . and the audience member . . . I had him . . . I knew . . . Thus . . . I parted my robes . . . to show . . . marching in and out of my cunt . . . the ants . . . Then . . . the robes . . . I shut . . . He . . . the audience . . . was no longer standing . . . very close . . . Goodness . . . ! I chided . . . Such distance . . .

The forest ended. Glad I was To feel the light, and hear the hum Of bees, and smell the drying grass And the sweet mint, because I had come To an end of forest, and because Here was both road and inn, the sum Of what’s not forest. But ’twas here They asked me if I did not pass Yesterday this way? “Not you? Queer.” “Who then? and slept here?” I felt fear. I learnt his road and, ere they were Sure I was I, left the dark wood Behind, kestrel and woodpecker, The inn in the sun, the happy mood When first I tasted sunlight there. I travelled fast, in hopes I should Outrun that other. What to do When caught, I planned not. I pursued To prove the likeness, and, if true, To watch until myself I knew. I tried the inns that evening Of a long gabled high-street grey, Of courts and outskirts, travelling An eager but a weary way, In vain. He was not there. Nothing Told me that ever till that day Had one like me entered those doors, Save once. That time I dared: “You may Recall”—but never-foamless shores Make better friends than those dull boors. Many and many a day like this Aimed at the unseen moving goal And nothing found but remedies For all desire. These made not whole; They sowed a new desire, to kiss Desire’s self beyond control, Desire of desire. And yet Life stayed on within my soul. One night in sheltering from the wet I quite forgot I could forget. A customer, then the landlady Stared at me. With a kind of smile They hesitated awkwardly: Their silence gave me time for guile. Had anyone called there like me, I asked. It was quite plain the wile Succeeded. For they poured out all. And that was naught. Less than a mile Beyond the inn, I could recall He was like me in general. He had pleased them, but I less. I was more eager than before To find him out and to confess, To bore him and to let him bore. I could not wait: children might guess I had a purpose, something more That made an answer indiscreet. One girl’s caution made me sore, Too indignant even to greet That other had we chanced to meet. I sought then in solitude. The wind had fallen with the night; as still The roads lay as the ploughland rude, Dark and naked, on the hill. Had there been ever any feud ’Twixt earth and sky, a mighty will Closed it: the crocketed dark trees, A dark house, dark impossible Cloud-towers, one star, one lamp, one peace Held on an everlasting lease: And all was earth’s, or all was sky’s; No difference endured between The two. A dog barked on a hidden rise; A marshbird whistled high unseen; The latest waking blackbird’s cries Perished upon the silence keen. The last light filled a narrow firth Among the clouds. I stood serene, And with a solemn quiet mirth, An old inhabitant of earth. Once the name I gave to hours Like this was melancholy, when It was not happiness and powers Coming like exiles home again, And weaknesses quitting their bowers, Smiled and enjoyed, far off from men, Moments of everlastingness. And fortunate my search was then While what I sought, nevertheless, That I was seeking, I did not guess. That time was brief: once more at inn And upon road I sought my man Till once amid a tap-room’s din Loudly he asked for me, began To speak, as if it had been a sin, Of how I thought and dreamed and ran After him thus, day after day: He lived as one under a ban For this: what had I got to say? I said nothing, I slipped away. And now I dare not follow after Too close. I try to keep in sight, Dreading his frown and worse his laughter. I steal out of the wood to light; I see the swift shoot from the rafter By the inn door: ere I alight I wait and hear the starlings wheeze And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight. He goes: I follow: no release Until he ceases. Then I also shall cease.

This sun was mine and yours; we shared it. Who’s suffering behind the golden silk, who’s dying? A woman beating her dry breasts cried out: ‘Cowards, they’ve taken my children and torn them to shreds, you’ve killed them gazing at the fire-flies at dusk with a strange look, lost in blind thought.’ The blood was drying on a hand that a tree made green, a warrior was asleep clutching the lance that cast light against his side. It was ours, this sun, we saw nothing behind the gold embroidery then the messengers came, dirty and breathless, stuttering unintelligible words twenty days and nights on the barren earth with thorns only twenty days and nights feeling the bellies of the horses bleeding and not a moment’s break to drink the rain-water. You told them to rest first and then to speak, the light had dazzled you. They died saying ‘We don’t have time’, touching some rays of the sun. You’d forgotten that no one rests. A woman howled ‘Cowards’, like a dog in the night. Once she would have been beautiful like you with wet mouth, veins alive beneath the skin, with love. This sun was ours; you kept all of it, you wouldn’t follow me. And it was then I found out about those things behind the gold and the silk: we don’t have time. The messengers were right.

We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass, something massive, irrational, and so powerful even the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it. You probably think I'm nuts saying the mountains have no word for ocean, but if you live here you begin to believe they know everything. They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine, a silence that grows in autumn when snow falls slowly between the pines and the wind dies to less than a whisper and you can barely catch your breath because you're thrilled and terrified. You have to remember this isn't your land. It belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside and thought was yours. Remember the small boats that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men who carved a living from it only to find themselves carved down to nothing. Now you say this is home, so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust, wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot, Down from the shower’d halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist, From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous’d words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such as now they start the scene revisiting, As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly, A man, yet by these tears a little boy again, Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them, A reminiscence sing. Once Paumanok, When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing, Up this seashore in some briers, Two feather’d guests from Alabama, two together, And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown, And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand, And every day the she-bird crouch’d on her nest, silent, with bright eyes, And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing them, Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. Shine! shine! shine! Pour down your warmth, great sun! While we bask, we two together. Two together! Winds blow south, or winds blow north, Day come white, or night come black, Home, or rivers and mountains from home, Singing all time, minding no time, While we two keep together.