48 Time poems

Because of time being an arrow, I had to imagine everything. I had to fold the song with my mind because of the time being. Wash the rice here, in the present. Because of the arrow I pent up the fourth wall as though I were diapering my own newborn. I put time to the breast, though I feared it was not an arrow but an asp. Being time I kept that fear under my tongue like a thermometer. I felt its mercury rolling under my teeth, boiling like language. A deaf man, an old man, I am his hand, rough and gentle, an arrow here and then. Time, I can see what I feel. In the future even your future becomes my past. Arrow, I have died. There is peace. I pull it from me like a blanket. As in a dream, because of time being an arrow, I put on the dress of a young, lovely mother. Because of her, because of the time, here I am, always watching over you.

Already one day has detached itself from all the rest up ahead. It has my photograph in its soft pocket. It wants to carry my breath into the past in its bag of wind. I write poems to untie myself, to do penance and disappear Through the upper right-hand corner of things, to say grace.

from Sonnets, Second Series XVII Roll on, sad world! not Mercury or Mars Could swifter speed, or slower, round the sun, Than in this year of variance thou hast done For me. Yet pain, fear, heart-break, woes, and wars Have natural limit; from his dread eclipse The swift sun hastens, and the night debars The day, but to bring in the day more bright; The flowers renew their odorous fellowships; The moon runs round and round; the slow earth dips, True to her poise, and lifts; the planet-stars Roll and return from circle to ellipse; The day is dull and soft, the eave-trough drips; And yet I know the splendor of the light Will break anon: look! where the gray is white!

It was a vertical time. It was the expression, a spirit giving way onto an electric barren. We circled and were encircled and had no cause. It was a time of the self come on in a field of apparatuses. It was vignetted by sleep, and the sleep was in its center breached. Cold moving through the smell of gas. The big-leafed enclosure. It was a time that clattered at the horizons, whose recounting was already foreclosed, as in a numeral smudged in powder, as in a thin water making of the atmosphere a disc. It was a time of guzzling. A time amid what has been kept, a time of calendered trust, repeated appeal, erasures of flight. We begin with a weedy stem drawn against the winter sky. Dear hierophant, our decision initialed. The muffled sound of the closet and the machine.

October 2004 1 Not much. Less. Slip of a finger, diminished interval, maybe third of three or two. Water mirrors house with high green door opening out (no steps) into pure air. 2 Air pockets three hawks. Cat got the bird got the cat. Overflown. A habit of flight. Worn cloud on the edge of edge. Wisps. Little tongues. 3 Tongues at work.Talk Today She could did for an hour or more. My first her, who gave me words. Then at the end, before, merely Oh! A moment of... of more, perhaps. Oh sweet and blessed could be. Oh my soul 4 Soul slept, called in sick. Late sun clouds the lake with clouds. Katydid down to -did -did. Nothing to be done. Little sun, quarter moon. 5 Moon covered, un- covered, covered again, cold. Cold and hot, very and both. Disturbed the Sea of Tranquility. Distributed by the Moon Shop. Distributed self in pieces. Oh my broken. 6 Broken down, or out, as in war, or into, soon: my own him. How much we carry around under our skins, many we were, girls and boys Now now And then then. 7 Then gone and then to come: all the time, except the split second, except— All the time in the world. And out of this world? Oh little heart on my wrist, where are we going? 8 Going home: packed her bags to go back ninety years burning skirt broken fork slow train the old house current counter under cross The one who gave me time is out of time. 9 Time to shut the rattling windows slamming doors And if at first you don’t and if you try again and don’t you slip a little slide Rope burns hands over the book the pages over 10 Over time she— Overtime. Timer she was Click I mean I. Would work the week long song bird in the— Burning bush ahead, red sumac jeweled by sun. 11 Sun, here come the clouds again. Between us. You could care: you’ll swallow us up on your way out. You’re almost halfway there, and here am I, way past half. 12 Half-life, half-light, half- moon, half-mast: low flag, and every evening down. Discovered a world of green in him, on the shore of newfound skin His different hand 13 Hand over hand over: change for an empty Enter the bare page Oh keep him safe in his thin shift on his metal bed 14 Bed for one, my very one, own, oh let him let him Someone’s deep inside him now, something inside him’s taken is it is he let him breathe 15 Breathe light hold in the light: him at bandaged rest, her last year in her last bed: the apple pink just under the skin: I am floating again a little less less the chord resolving. 16 Resolved, that leaves should turn and turn: color to motion to rest. Flutter of yellow, flash of red, bronze- leafed trunk fallen across the path. Ducks twitch white tails over the water, geese stretch necks ... All fall down. All rise. All different. 17 Different from us. Dry, quiet. Still. Still Freeman    Sarah    Rebekah   John locust    maple    hornbeam     oak Timothy. Bent grass under our feet, over their bones. Katheryn. Out of. Under and over. 18 Over my— my tiny planet, growing colder, little train that could but where’s the track?   On,off again, over my, un- done, nerve flinched at No. But maybe If— 19 If. Only. Then again. But out of time just now as the lace of yellow locust leaves molecules particles waves catches its breath begins to hum. 20 Hum of words under words: brief for breath, him for hum, him still in his bed for one— And clouds so thick and fast the whole sky’s turning. 21 Turning now to the newsy world the Red Sox take last four claim pennant countries taken in or out people counted no count bombing voting mission killing vision blurred our leader says God says had hatred in his heart he said rage testosterone he said our leader vote for God 22 God is not a Republican Democrat Yankee Red Sox fan of him or her— But him is whom our bed is holding, him my one is home again, oh bless him keep him safe this little time that is our life. 23 Lifetime, timeline, line- up, down time, no time to lose time, all time gone. More of them, body count a full count, bases loaded, all bets off, one by one, or war time lots, all at once. 24 Once there was a girl, a boy, end of story in one first word, once she was and nothing’s left of her except me oh my and her him too: her last days he also came all back to me but now my own him is here is not once upon but times many. 25 Many, as in instances, or all, one, as in passing, as in course of: two words for time, in Vietnamese, but one for all the times to do, for go went gone, as in, this colder day, the geese: only ducks and gulls on the little pond, its tiny island. 26 Island’s I, for all the thinking not (no man no self). Island’s home, at least for some. But here’s a little boat for back and forth with one beside, rowing through the eventide, the late evening. 27 Evening out. On the town, out of town: city wearing your black dress sequined with lights, I am coming down for an even- ing out, in bed beside. The rest: held by, holding. 28 Holding on the Red Sox won eclipsing even the full eclipsed moon a moment outside the trouble we’ve seen though the TV had to bring in the war the war that people believe is good because they want to believe it’s a winning team 29 Teeming with leaves, trees and ground all gold around gray stones: I am greeting my last neighbors, we shall all be changed, pieces of gold slipping into air. 30 Airborne, air-born, hand- sized cradle to hold a soul, no broken- bough fall. Good news today, but best in the air, this old new leaf, turning it over. 31 Over and over again and again, time after time, stone upon hallowed stone. More than bones, ghost- thin skin, I’m here, much less less. Not yet not.

The debt is paid, The verdict said, The Furies laid, The plague is stayed, All fortunes made; Turn the key and bolt the door, Sweet is death forevermore. Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin, Nor murdering hate, can enter in. All is now secure and fast; Not the gods can shake the Past; Flies-to the adamantine door Bolted down forevermore. None can re-enter there,— No thief so politic, No Satan with a royal trick Steal in by window, chink, or hole, To bind or unbind, add what lacked, Insert a leaf, or forge a name, New-face or finish what is packed, Alter or mend eternal Fact.

To-day’s most trivial act may hold the seed Of future fruitfulness, or future dearth; Oh, cherish always every word and deed! The simplest record of thyself hath worth. If thou hast ever slighted one old thought, Beware lest Grief enforce the truth at last; The time must come wherein thou shalt be taught The value and the beauty of the Past. Not merely as a warner and a guide, “A voice behind thee,” sounding to the strife; But something never to be put aside, A part and parcel of thy present life. Not as a distant and a darkened sky, Through which the stars peep, and the moonbeams glow; But a surrounding atmosphere, whereby We live and breathe, sustained in pain and woe. A shadowy land, where joy and sorrow kiss, Each still to each corrective and relief, Where dim delights are brightened into bliss, And nothing wholly perishes but Grief. Ah, me!—not dies—no more than spirit dies; But in a change like death is clothed with wings; A serious angel, with entranced eyes, Looking to far-off and celestial things.

In love it may be dangerous to reckon on time to count on it time’s here and then it’s gone   I’m not thinking of death or disaster but of the slippage the unpredictable disappearance of days on which we were depending for happiness.

An agitation of the air, A perturbation of the light Admonished me the unloved year Would turn on its hinge that night. I stood in the disenchanted field Amid the stubble and the stones, Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me The song of my marrow-bones. Blue poured into summer blue, A hawk broke from his cloudless tower, The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew That part of my life was over. Already the iron door of the north Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows Order their populations forth, And a cruel wind blows.

They sing their dearest songs— He, she, all of them—yea, Treble and tenor and bass, And one to play; With the candles mooning each face. . . . Ah, no; the years O! How the sick leaves reel down in throngs! They clear the creeping moss— Elders and juniors—aye, Making the pathways neat And the garden gay; And they build a shady seat. . . . Ah, no; the years, the years, See, the white storm-birds wing across. They are blithely breakfasting all— Men and maidens—yea, Under the summer tree, With a glimpse of the bay, While pet fowl come to the knee. . . . Ah, no; the years O! And the rotten rose is ript from the wall. They change to a high new house, He, she, all of them—aye, Clocks and carpets and chairs On the lawn all day, And brightest things that are theirs. . . . Ah, no; the years, the years; Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.