153 Sorrow and grieving poems

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun Restored my earth to joy Have you departed, every one, And left a desert sky? All through the night, your glorious eyes Were gazing down in mine, And with a full heart's thankful sighs I blessed that watch divine! I was at peace, and drank your beams As they were life to me And revelled in my changeful dreams Like petrel on the sea. Thought followed thought—star followed star Through boundless regions on, While one sweet influence, near and far, Thrilled through and proved us one. Why did the morning rise to break So great, so pure a spell, And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek Where your cool radiance fell? Blood-red he rose, and arrow-straight, His fierce beams struck my brow; The soul of Nature sprang elate, But mine sank sad and low! My lids closed down—yet through their veil I saw him blazing still; And bathe in gold the misty dale, And flash upon the hill. I turned me to the pillow then To call back Night, and see Your worlds of solemn light, again Throb with my heart and me! It would not do—the pillow glowed And glowed both roof and floor, And birds sang loudly in the wood, And fresh winds shook the door. The curtains waved, the wakened flies Were murmuring round my room, Imprisoned there, till I should rise And give them leave to roam. O Stars and Dreams and Gentle Night; O Night and Stars return! And hide me from the hostile light That does not warm, but burn— That drains the blood of suffering men; Drinks tears, instead of dew: Let me sleep through his blinding reign, And only wake with you!

Then I was sealed, and like the wintering tree I stood me locked upon a summer core; Living, had died a death, and asked no more. And I lived then, but as enduringly, And my heart beat, but only as to be. Ill weathers well, hail, gust and cold I bore, I held my life as hid, at root, in store: Thus I lived then, till this air breathed on me. Till this kind air breathed kindness everywhere, There where my times had left me I would stay. Then I was staunch, I knew nor yes nor no; But now the wishful leaves have thronged the air. My every leaf leans forth upon the day; Alas, kind element! which comes to go.

All night I hear the noise of water sobbing. All night I make night in me, I make the day that begins on my account, that sobs because day falls like water through night. All night I hear the voice of someone seeking me out. All night you abandon me slowly like the water that sobs slowly falling. All night I write luminous messages, messages of rain, all night someone checks for me and I check for someone. The noise of steps in the circle near this choleric light birthed from my insomnia. Steps of someone who no longer writhes, who no longer writes. All night someone holds back, then crosses the circle of bitter light. All night I drown in your eyes become my eyes. All night I prod myself on toward that squatter in the circle of my silence. All night I see something lurch toward my looking, something humid, contrived of silence launching the sound of someone sobbing. Absence blows grayly and night goes dense. Night, the shade of the eyelids of the dead, viscous night, exhaling some black oil that blows me forward and prompts me to search out an empty space without warmth, without cold. All night I flee from someone. I lead the chase, I lead the fugue. I sing a song of mourning. Black birds over black shrouds. My brain cries. Demented wind. I leave the tense and strained hand, I don’t want to know anything but this perpetual wailing, this clatter in the night, this delay, this infamy, this pursuit, this inexistence. All night I see that abandonment is me, that the sole sobbing voice is me. We can search with lanterns, cross the shadow’s lie. We can feel the heart thud in the thigh and water subside in the archaic site of the heart. All night I ask you why. All night you tell me no.

All the difficult hours and minutes are like salted plums in a jar. Wrinkled, turn steeply into themselves, they mutter something the color of  sharkfins to the glass. Just so, calamity turns toward calmness. First the jar holds the umeboshi, then the rice does.

There doesn’t seem to be a crack. A higher pin cannot be set. Nor can you go back. You hadn’t even known the face was vertical. All you did was walk into a room. The tipping up from flat was gradual, you must assume.

1 In the Forest of    Wearisome Sadness, Where one day I found myself wandering alone, I met my heart, who called to me, asking me where I was going. The path was long and straight, row after row of conifers receding To a horizon that because of   the geometry Seemed farther than it really was, Like the door at the top of a staircase in Versailles. But as if   the forest’s maker had been offended by elegance, A pile of rocks disrupted the rows: the forest once Had been a field. I remember that field. I was carried there by my father, beside him My grandfather, who planted the trees. Until they were tall enough to survive, He mowed the field, piling up rocks, taking down brush with a scythe. How, since I’ve known the forest almost since birth, could I have been lost? Why, since the forest is beautiful, is it not a place of delight? Repeatedly I asked these questions of my heart, But like a good physician, he elected To keep silent, leaving me to answer for myself. 2 Late at night, when I’m lying in bed and cannot sleep, My heart reads to me from the Romance of   Pleasant Thought. Always I’ve heard the story before, and typically, Since the stories are true, I am their hero. I’m riding my tricycle on the sidewalk near the house where I was born. Because I am unsupervised, I indulge in what seems at the moment A daring wish: I ride the tricycle beneath a sprinkler. Immediately I am overcome with remorse. The evidence of my trespass is everywhere to be seen, And for the first time in my life I contemplate a lie. Would my shirt dry faster if I stood in the sun, where it’s hot, Or in the shade, where cool breezes rustle the leaves? In the version of this story that appears now In the Romance of Pleasant Thought, I admire not so much my ingenuity As the evidence of my early devotion to empiricism, The way I manage terror by examining how things work. 3 It’s done, there’s nothing more to say. My heart is gone from me. Because he has fallen in love He has abandoned me. It’s pointless making myself uncomfortable over this By being mournful or sad. It’s done, there’s nothing more to say. My heart is gone from me. He does nothing but mock me. When I tell him pitifully That I cannot live on my own, He does not listen. It’s done, there’s nothing more to say. After Charles d’Orleans

Because she'd heard him laugh through new moon darkness and she knew he'd fallen and she knew, before she turned, he'd be crawling, like a crawdad, rock to loam— because she tried to love the straight back and neck he'd erected to recollect the man he'd been before—because she found herself adding up his usefulness like some kind of auctioneer—she showed him the dark coils areoling both her breasts and all the ways she bent and lifted, bent and lifted, steady, strong. She let him believe he was past due for a harvest and her hands were the right ones, now, to hold onto the scythe. • She made quick work of pleasure. The boysmile bunked down in his eyes, she claimed. Her tongue found the place in his mouth where the teeth were gone—where he'd hold his corncakes until they grew soft enough to chew. History had bedded him in all of this—his own history and failures not his own. Before he'd tramped in she'd watched another man—a man she'd thought she'd hated—watched his body opened, opened, opened until blood had married brine. She'd watch that man be whipped into something good for nothing more than fertilizing clay and she'd thought buckshot would have been a brand of kindness if sprayed into him just then. But even after his hard going, she did not miss him very much. • Anyone she chose could be shucked like surplus property tomorrow, but that hadn't been enough to warn her off of picking him that night. Because she knew if she set her sight on nothing she'd get nothing in return, she'd walked with him. But because the night progressed so —because there were some clouds—no stars—no moon—he'd tripped over the branch of a dead and down tree. In all that darkness, there, without a moon, even then, she had not fallen. She thought to say so, but she did not say so. She did nothing but say she was sorry for him. She did not use her mouth to say this. Could he not listen to her hands? They spoke softly, articulating her condolences, to his torn and bleeding skin.

I never thought Michiko would come back after she died. But if she did, I knew it would be as a lady in a long white dress. It is strange that she has returned as somebody's dalmation. I meet the man walking her on a leash almost every week. He says good morning and I stoop down to calm her. He said once that she was never like that with other people. Sometimes she is tethered on their lawn when I go by. If nobody is around, I sit on the grass. When she finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap and we watch each other's eyes as I whisper in her soft ears. She cares nothing about the mystery. She likes it best when I touch her head and tell her small things about my days and our friends. That makes her happy the way it always did.

Why cry over dried flowers? They’re meant to be straw. Why cry over miniature roses? They’re meant to be small. Why cry over Buddha’s hand citron? Why cry over the hidden flower? Why cry over Mother’s burnt forehead? Her votive deathglow, her finest hour.

In memory of  Vic Chesnutt when I walk to the mailbox holding the letter that fails to say how sorry I am you feel your call or any words at all on that day would have stopped the great singer who long ago decided more quickly through to move I notice probably because you wrote that strange word funeral the constant black fabric I think is taffeta always draped over the scaffolds the figures scraping paint are wearing dusty protective suits and to each other saying nothing I move invisibly like a breeze around three men wearing advanced practically weightless jackets impervious to all possible weather even a hurricane I hear them say something German then photograph the pale blue turrets that floating up in fog seem noble heads full of important thoughts like what revolution could make us happy from some window wandering horns he was three when I was born for a long time I had no ideas my father worked in a private office full of quiet people working I came to visit it seemed correct I went to college studied things dyed my hair felt a rage disguised as love kept escaping suffering only a few broken bones everything healed now I live in California where in some red and golden theater I saw him howl such unfathomable force from only one lung it was one of  his last shows in Athens once many years ago we shared a cigarette a little smoke from our faces I can’t remember so many things but see him in his wheelchair his folded body it’s all gone but for electrons I can still push into my ears I choose the song the perfect one hear his words and see the mirror in the ancient lighthouse blinking brave ships somehow you crossed the water carrying what we need you can rest light as nothing in the harbor we will take it and go on