180 Travel poems

A new volcano has erupted, the papers say, and last week I was reading where some ship saw an island being born: at first a breath of steam, ten miles away; and then a black fleck—basalt, probably— rose in the mate’s binoculars and caught on the horizon like a fly. They named it. But my poor old island’s still un-rediscovered, un-renamable. None of the books has ever got it right. Well, I had fifty-two miserable, small volcanoes I could climb with a few slithery strides— volcanoes dead as ash heaps. I used to sit on the edge of the highest one and count the others standing up, naked and leaden, with their heads blown off. I’d think that if they were the size I thought volcanoes should be, then I had become a giant; and if I had become a giant, I couldn’t bear to think what size the goats and turtles were, or the gulls, or the overlapping rollers —a glittering hexagon of rollers closing and closing in, but never quite, glittering and glittering, though the sky was mostly overcast. My island seemed to be a sort of cloud-dump. All the hemisphere’s left-over clouds arrived and hung above the craters—their parched throats were hot to touch. Was that why it rained so much? And why sometimes the whole place hissed? The turtles lumbered by, high-domed, hissing like teakettles. (And I’d have given years, or taken a few, for any sort of kettle, of course.) The folds of lava, running out to sea, would hiss. I’d turn. And then they’d prove to be more turtles. The beaches were all lava, variegated, black, red, and white, and gray; the marbled colors made a fine display. And I had waterspouts. Oh, half a dozen at a time, far out, they’d come and go, advancing and retreating, their heads in cloud, their feet in moving patches of scuffed-up white. Glass chimneys, flexible, attenuated, sacerdotal beings of glass ... I watched the water spiral up in them like smoke. Beautiful, yes, but not much company. I often gave way to self-pity. “Do I deserve this? I suppose I must. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Was there a moment when I actually chose this? I don’t remember, but there could have been.” What’s wrong about self-pity, anyway? With my legs dangling down familiarly over a crater’s edge, I told myself “Pity should begin at home.” So the more pity I felt, the more I felt at home. The sun set in the sea; the same odd sun rose from the sea, and there was one of it and one of me. The island had one kind of everything: one tree snail, a bright violet-blue with a thin shell, crept over everything, over the one variety of tree, a sooty, scrub affair. Snail shells lay under these in drifts and, at a distance, you’d swear that they were beds of irises. There was one kind of berry, a dark red. I tried it, one by one, and hours apart. Sub-acid, and not bad, no ill effects; and so I made home-brew. I’d drink the awful, fizzy, stinging stuff that went straight to my head and play my home-made flute (I think it had the weirdest scale on earth) and, dizzy, whoop and dance among the goats. Home-made, home-made! But aren’t we all? I felt a deep affection for the smallest of my island industries. No, not exactly, since the smallest was a miserable philosophy. Because I didn’t know enough. Why didn’t I know enough of something? Greek drama or astronomy? The books I’d read were full of blanks; the poems—well, I tried reciting to my iris-beds, “They flash upon that inward eye, which is the bliss ...” The bliss of what? One of the first things that I did when I got back was look it up. The island smelled of goat and guano. The goats were white, so were the gulls, and both too tame, or else they thought I was a goat, too, or a gull. Baa, baa, baa and shriek, shriek, shriek, baa ... shriek ...

Master Hirano came from Japan together with a priest from the Kegon sect and the two of them drank beer all night at the Avia Hotel next to Ben Gurion airport. The following day, when we came to take them to the Galilee, they had trouble getting up and barely checked out of their rooms on time. It was a wintry January morning, and near the village of Shefaram the priest from the Kegon sect asked us to stop and stood by the side of the road and urinated. On Friday the two of them (Master Hirano and the priest from the Kegon sect) went to the Bratslav Hasids’ synagogue in Safed. The worshippers swayed like trees in the wind. Master Hirano and the priest from the Kegon sect stood there, bald and wrapped in robes, behind the congregation, and the beadle whispered into our ears:Are they Jews? Are they Jews? When we left the synagogue Master Hirano said to the priest from the Kegon sect: There is no doubt that they understand what devotion (he said shujaku) is. The priest from the Kegon sect said: There is no doubt. They know what devotion is. On Jerusalem Street, by the monument of the mortar, commemorating the ’48 war, Master Hirano said: Prayer is a good thing. The priest from the Kegon sect said: There is no doubt. Prayer is a good thing. Master Hirano stood on one side of the mortar and the priest from the Kegon sect stood on the other and the moon rose, big and full, yellow like the fields painted by Van Gogh. * * * It’s possible to write only by means of non-writing. When things come from the opposite direction. My aunt Edith rises out of the ground and returns to her bed in the nursing home. Ursula, my stepmother, is walking backward. All sorts of wilted flowers bring their petals toward themselves. All we need is yogurt and a spoon. We’ll know what to do with the spoon. We’ll lead it toward the right place (which is to say, the yogurt) and from there toward the mouth. But the mouth can’t be fathomed. Likewise the word that stands for it (mouth) is strange in the extreme. Or take, for example, the hand that’s holding the spoon with its five tragic fingers. There’s no logic whatsoever in there being five. Like five widows who’ve gathered because their husbands have died, and they allow themselves this movement through the air in order to keep from losing their minds. There is no limit to the beauty of things that are sad. Like old clay vases or a wagon’s shaft in a junkyard. Every year the plum trees flower anew, and people whose names are Shtiasni or Dahaan open doors and close them. All these things fill the heart with great joy. The beauty of death and the violet colors accompanying it. Announcements that make nothing dawn on one, and the dawn itself rising from nowhere like a birthday present 365 days a year.

I met a man in South Street, tall— a nervous shark tooth swung on his chain. His eyes pressed through green glass —green glasses, or bar lights made them so— shine— GREEN— eyes— stepped out—forgot to look at you or left you several blocks away— in the nickel-in-the-slot piano jogged “Stamboul Nights”—weaving somebody’s nickel—sang— O Stamboul Rose—dreams weave the rose! Murmurs of Leviathan he spoke, and rum was Plato in our heads . . . “It’s S.S. Ala—Antwerp—now remember kid to put me out at three she sails on time. I’m not much good at time any more keep weakeyed watches sometimes snooze—” his bony hands got to beating time . . . “A whaler once— I ought to keep time and get over it—I’m a Democrat—I know what time it is—No I don’t want to know what time it is—that damned white Arctic killed my time . . . ” O Stamboul Rose—drums weave— “I ran a donkey engine down there on the Canal in Panama—got tired of that— then Yucatan selling kitchenware—beads— have you seen Popocatepetl—birdless mouth with ashes sifting down—? and then the coast again . . . ” Rose of Stamboul O coral Queen— teased remnants of the skeletons of cities— and galleries, galleries of watergutted lava snarling stone—green—drums—drown—

Wrongheaded and obsequious on vacation, unnerved by new surroundings, I miss the bright feeling of belonging and the familiar patterns of my country, its virginity and schizophrenia, my several stolen bicycles.

Once in late summer, the road already deep in twilight, mixing colors with some straggly wildflowers, I came to a village I did not know was there until I stepped into its narrow street. Admiring the prim, white houses nestled among their veteran, lofty trees, I found myself in a tiny square with a little dawdl- ing fountain and a rickety tower, its owlish clock absentmindedly counting minutes now and then. And in the fountain the face of morning seemed to linger as though searching. The air was fresh, breathing out the fragrances of a recent shower. I luxuriated in my senses, like meeting unexpectedly a pack of friends years and years unthought of, laden with all kinds of gifts. Then as I stopped to knock at the door of a house that had seemed occupied with happy noises, a silence fell on it, the light went out— and was it instant eyes like flakes, ten thousand, thousand flakes, and all unknowing, flurried round me? Wherever I turned I was met by the unmistakable accusation, “Stranger!” I, who had, I thought, begun here and who now required lodgings for the night, was denied and from the start.

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone, Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone: Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower, Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the star-bright air Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair. Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark? Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark. Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky, Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten and die. Heaven's own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in music and semblance in fire: Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night's desire. And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free: And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea. All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught: And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things distraught. And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind: And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart of Ind. Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East, Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar with death for priest. The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man born free Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and the wrath of a tropic sea. As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall, The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer cliff's wall. Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a breath, And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the throat of death. Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy, Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's heart in a boy. For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and flamed, sublime As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the pulse of time. The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light overheard, The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the fire of a word, In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of the sea, And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but when heaven breathed free. Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out into light From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that were flowerlike and white. The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in the light they made. Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune, Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon. The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may behold, and deep As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the soul through sleep. All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it yearns to know Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above and below. The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong sea's labour and rage, Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage. No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the night made bare, Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of air— Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its reign and the sea's, Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that bows men's knees. No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in dreams Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love for a breath's length seems— One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with love that subsides As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and released the tides. In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering, assailed and withheld As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is thwarted and quelled. As the glories of myriads of glowworms in lustrous grass on a boundless lawn Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a light like dawn. A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning sea, And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a tune could be; As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of life or of sleep, Audible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep: Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember awake: Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs in the live storm's wake, In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud heart of the labouring hour, A harvest of stars by the storm's hand reaped, each fair as a star-shaped flower. And sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing of tempest seemed When the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory was gone as a dream half dreamed. The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a miracle, died, Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power and of pride; With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of power upon earth, As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a new God's birth, The might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness fell: And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of heaven and of hell. The waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, and were wellnigh fain, For the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and revelled in labour, to cease from her pain. And an end was made of it: only remembrance endures of the glad loud strife; And the sense that a rapture so royal may come not again in the passage of life.

Between the train's long slide and the sun ricocheting off the sea, anyone would have fallen silent in those words, the language of age in her face, the birds cawing over the broken earth, gathering near its stones and chapel doors. In the marina, the sea and its bones have grown smaller. Though the tide is out, it is not the tide nor the feathers nor the cat that jumps into the street, the dust lifting with each wing and disappearing. The rust- colored sheets that wrap the sails of ships, I don't know their name nor the way to say lips of water in Italian and mean this:  an old woman stood by the tracks until his hand stopped waving.

From Baden, or what’s left of it, pursue a long, smooth curve of road that skirts the northern flood wall to parallel a palisade of channel markers sunk in earth, the folly of a cement works. Its blank silos overlook a pit of argillaceous shale, the fine and fossilized remains of bivalves, sponges, spines of shark, quarried and burnt with limestone charge to alchemize a binder of brick and the city’s shallow, brittle crust. Around a bend, the riverbed swings wide to open a fetch of field. Shadows skim its mucky thaw as juncos, whisked about by the wind on courses neither fixed nor free, give but a quick metallic chink. Behind you, rain has wrapped the bluffs and scumbled limbs of sycamores. Ahead, each bend assumes the name of a gaudy packet run aground, or snagged and sunk, or blown to bits: for one, the side-wheel Amazon, pluperfect wheelhouse painted green, that struck a honey-locust pike still rooted deep in river mud and tore its hull from stem to stern. Down in minutes! Within the month an island silted up behind. A flock of luggage floated south, remarked by those on Water Street loafing before the trading post and the barbershop of Madame Krull. She can eternally be found at work in her elaborate room toujours prêt to clip and coif or wield her razor with great skill for those who favor her with their chins. The scent of ginger tonic blends with that of borscht, its acrid tang, consumed behind a wooden screen as Illinois grows dark. In this, her second year since coming west.

Left a hole on fire agony or was it the sun on the banks and near duets? Eagles with the white wine of the sun clink and spill, tall grass over head and heels . . . Space of hell: shy, inscribed already but alone— I think I can be that again, a new hole in the ongoing flute. In a leap, the country glows— to hone the fate that wonder exacts, to go netted through that much, so heavy as paperweights angels land square on chaparral nerves. And since names must give in spades, out of sorts like these, your reactions may swell great fountain lips— a promise that a wish will purge or pennies caravan the safe return hearts cross.

Imagine cities you’ve Inhabited, streets Paved in lava stone. You never intended to pray In the temples, had Nothing to sell. Now imagine yourself Returning to those same cities. Hunt for people you knew, Knock on their doors. Ask yourself Where are the vases, animals Etched in gold? Where are the wines From distant places, Banquets ferreted From the bowels of the earth? While you were missing Other people wore Your garments, Slept in your bed. How frightening The man who said In his affliction Wood has hope. Cut down It will flourish. If the root grows old And the trunk withers In dust, at the scent of water It will germinate.