Two Poems

Nathaniel Tarn

RECOLLECTIONS OF BEING

Cloud around tree outside window, in

which, at sudden motion of the mind,

all is contained again. Not to be here—

but there, in cloud, and to be there

as being here of which, in other wise,

there’s no conception. Birds, joyed at

feeder, raven within my satiation,

each one his one and only mask, and yet

also all others’ being and my own. Tree’s

self at home in cloud, cloud in high sky,

to furthest worlds, all single dwelling

of this unity. Forgotten now forgetting, no

more the absent-minded in full preoccupation

with the ten thousand things, each separate,

each needing its own space and unique memory.

Years seem to have gone by in this forgetting.

Do thousand lives have to be wasted now

to sharpen this one life? But all the lives

return again into the picture as sun wills me

to wither down to a last flare of love. Day

darkens. The oldsome window overglows my birds.

SHELL

Da svidanya, drug moyi, da svidanya …

— Yesenin

Winter star in the skylight

where once a satellite

crossed the small space

on a wide journey,

not again to cross,

never, the selfsame space.

A shell, lying within the shell

of this dead room, this blackout.

The shell should have contained

a universe, a flourishing

and fertile score of generation:

not tree stump, not new branch,

to start a fire or feed one.

Not seedling anywhere in sight,

idea of fruit unborn, of flower

still undelineated.

Shell should have burned

half century ago:

glass cage with wings, narrow,

tighter than custom suit

with visibility

impaired in all directions,

the fire, when started, out

near soon as started, so violent it flared …

Else in a wider cage, concrete, with others

clawing their way up out of breath,

the mist falling as fire and raining

down at the breath of men to drown it.

But—back of that, a border, crossed

sooner rather than later. It opened

a paradigm of borders from which no dream

or even thought might ever issue whole

without some line across it. Would mean

no breath of peace, ever, not even once

in a whole lifetime—because the line

had to be reached, was not reached yet.

(Star sitting with whole record

burning on the inside: books,

writings, pictures, photographs

and souvenirs: no single stitch

of cloth to wear might catch

a decoration pinned to it. Smiles:

breath has triumphed after all,

and recognition. Closure not yet).

Rapport of empty shell

to the great void so much described,

so touted, little proven? Were best

perhaps that ignorance be blessed,

declared most sacred of all voids—

sink finally to silence, recognized

fine ash, prime quality, best devolution

of every fire, even the devastator.

Winter star in the skylight, no

slouch, informing shell he slides

toward obliteration. Terminal

daylight status. Age begins.