Notes from the Castle

The sunlight was not our concern or even

The pane it shone through, and no one was going

Down for the mail, and the four lettuces

The gardener brought as a gift seemed to be

A calculated bounty, so that early on

We knew we were going to be stuck with ourselves

The rest of the day, the vicissitudes

Marching in rows from the forest, the balms

Not arriving till nightfall. On the prowl

Since morning, the wind had a touch too much

Of motivation, an annoying way

Of exactly ruffling the same oak leaf

As if it were practicing a piano trill;

All day, repetitive birds, far off,

Were either boring themselves to death

Or, drunk on instinct, doing their thing:

Ritual dances, territorial rites—

The whole imperial egg. What nests

Ambition is weaving in us is hard

To say: after the flat occasion,

The unshared sphere, each childish wish

Grows hopeless finding this is what the world is.

For this, the recommended cures are useless:

A cheery hello to the disaffected

At breakfast? A soupful of tears at dinner?

You could spill the whole silly story out

To one more demanding, ill-tempered beauty

You happened to meet at the A. & P.,

And still every greedy shopping cart,

First overstuffed and then abandoned

In the parking lot, would leave in its wake

Some human need, ignored, half-starved …

Torn between having nothing to say

And saying it, whole diaries got down:

How terrible to have dressed beautifully for the rain! …

I was launched on New York’s bisexual muddle …

And so on. And always the hoped-for redeemer

Turns up and turns with a country stare:

The girl in the lime linen shorts, the boy

With blond corn-silk tow hair, the heart

Speeding up until they speak: the dross

Of cars, the sportsman’s life, and money;

And so, believing that you had come

To rest among the innocent soldiers

Of sleep, you had merely stumbled on

Another temporary battlefield

As never-lasting as the shine of water.