Every Swiss-village
calendar instructs
as to how stone
gathers the landscape
around it, how
glacier-scattered
thousand-ton
monuments to
randomness become
fixed points in
finding home.
Order is always
starting over.
And why not
also in the self,
the odd blocks,
all lost and left,
become first facts
toward which later
a little town
looks back?
It is at the edges
that time thins.
Time which had been
dense and viscous
as amber suspending
intentions like bees
unseizes them. A
humming begins,
apparently coming
from stacks of
put-off things or
just in back. A
racket of claims now,
as time flattens. A
glittering fan of things
competing to happen,
brilliant and urgent
as fish when seas
retreat.
There is a
distance where
magnets pull,
we feel, having
held them
back. Likewise
there is a
distance where
words attract.
Set one out
like a bait goat
and wait and
seven others
will approach.
But watch out:
roving packs can
pull your word
away. You
find your stake
yanked and some
rough bunch
to thank.
Imagine a
train-track figure
made of sliver
over sliver of
between-car
vision, each
slice too brief
to add detail
or deepen: that
could be a hat
if it’s a person
if it’s a person
if it’s a person.
Just the same
scant information
timed to supplant
the same scant
information.
The first fear
being drowning, the
ship’s first shape
was a raft, which
was hard to unflatten
after that didn’t
happen. It’s awkward
to have to do one’s
planning in extremis
in the early years—
so hard to hide later:
sleekening the hull,
making things
more gracious.
There are bands
in the sky where
what happens
matches prayers.
Clouds blacken
and inky rain
hatches the air
like angled writing,
the very transcription
of a pure command,
steady from a steady
hand. Drought
put to rout, visible
a mile above
for miles about.
Birds’ legs
do of course
all dogleg
giving them
that bounce.
But these are
not normal odds
around the house.
Only two of
the dog’s legs
dogleg and
two of the cat’s.
Fifty-fifty: that’s
as bad as it
gets usually,
despite the
fear you feel
when life has
angled brutally.
A blue stain
creeps across
the deep pile
of the evergreens.
From inside the
forest it seems
like an interior
matter, something
wholly to do
with trees, a color
passed from one
to another, a
requirement
to which they
submit unflinchingly
like soldiers or
brave people
getting older.
Then the sun
comes back and
it’s totally over.
Birds that love
high trees
and winds
and riding
flailing branches
hate ledges
as gripless
and narrow,
so that a tail
is not just
no advantage
but ridiculous,
mashed vertical
against the wall.
You will have
seen the way
a bird who falls
on skimpy places
lifts into the air
again in seconds—
a gift denied
the rest of us
when our portion
isn’t generous.
As the
veldt dries,
the great cats
range farther
to drink,
their paths
looping past
this or that
ex-oasis.
However long
the water’s
been gone,
no places
are missed;
despite thirst,
every once-
deep pool
is rehearsed.
It’s strange
the way our
route can’t be
straightened;
cruel faith
keeps the
stations.
Trying to walk
the same way
to the same
store takes
high-wire balance:
each step not
exactly as
before risks
chasms of
flatness. One
tumble alone
and nothing
happens. Few
are the willing
and fewer
the champions.
The pharaohs killed those who had built the secret chambers of the pyramids to ensure that any knowledge of their existence would be lost.
—Henning Mankell, The White Lioness
The moral is
simple: don’t
help other people
with their secrets.
But within the
self, what defense
is there against
the pharaohs who
demand chambers
we must build
on pain of death
after which
we’re killed?
A person is
as a kingdom
and can afford
some losses toward
the construction of
underground systems,
say the pharaohs,
shutting their
cunning doors
that never were
and won’t be
evermore.
“Pentimenti of an earlier position of the arm may be seen.”
—Frick Museum
It’s not simply
that the top image
wears off or
goes translucent;
things underneath
come back up,
having enjoyed the
advantages of rest.
That’s the hardest
part to bear, how
the decided-against
fattens one layer down,
free of the tests
applied to final choices.
In this painting,
for instance, see how
a third arm—
long ago repented
by the artist—
is revealed,
into the surface
through which
who knows what
exiled cat or
extra child
might steal.
A bitter pill
doesn’t need
to be swallowed
to work. Just
reading your name
on the bottle
does the trick.
As though there
were some anti-
placebo effect.
As though the
self were eager
to be wrecked.
Dust develops
from inside
as well as
on top when
objects stop
being used.
No unguent
can soothe
the chap of
abandonment.
Who knew
the polish
and balm in
a person’s
simple passage
among her things.
We knew she
loved them
but not what
love means.
If reward or
amends could
set the clock
back, as happens
in fall when
an hour is stalled
for the sake of light,
then our golgothas
could be put right.
The kiss or reform
or return of the
family farm would
soak into the
injury, ease the
knot of memory,
unname the site
of harm. If there
could be one day
—one hour—of jubilee
how many lame
would walk their property.
As one reiterates
oneself day after day,
it’s not uncommon
to see nondominant
traits diminish
and the self stray
toward the cartoonish.
As though the self were
a straightening Galápago
where not everything was
going to stay affordable.
Say a stylized struggle
were currently under way
among the finches
whereby the few brighten
while the species vanishes.
The grape and plum
might be said to
tarnish when ripe,
developing some
sort of light dust
on their finish
which the least
touch disrupts.
It is this that
the great Dutch
still lifes catch,
the brush as much
in love with talc
as polish. Also
with the strange
seeing-in you notice
when a bruise mars
a fruit’s surface.
Words have loyalties
to so much
we don’t control.
Each word we write
rights itself
according to poles
we can’t see; think of
magnetic compulsion
or an equal stringency.
It’s hard for us
to imagine how small
a part we play in
holding up the tall
spires we believe
our minds erect.
Then North shifts,
buildings shear,
and we suspect.
The people of the island built those amazing stone statues, and in the process cut down every last tree. No trees, no wood for houses and fires; no protection from erosion; no useful species, and so on.
—Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle
It worked without
a hitch: the last
big head rolled
down the last logs
to its niche.
As planned,
a long chorus
of monoliths
had replaced
the forest, staring
seaward, nicely
spaced, each with
a generous collar
of greensward,
and prepared to
stand so long
that it would be
a good trade: life,
for the thing made.
Cut out
as a horse
is cut
from the
pack. Peeled
off, but
a long time
back. Now
such a feeling
for the way
they touch
and shift
as one, the
beauty when
they run.
From other
angles the
fibers look
fragile, but
not from the
spider’s, always
hauling coarse
ropes, hitching
lines to the
best posts
possible. It’s
heavy work
everyplace,
fighting sag,
winching up
give. It
isn’t ever
delicate
to live.
(1663) Francisco de Zurbarán
Like two
giant’s hands,
shade and
gravity collude
to squeeze away
the light and leave
the clay, rued
Zurbarán. Which
means he has to
find a counter way
to paint, unless he
wants his oranges
too to stick, glued
into a lump
like candy. And
now his wife
For my father
When he was
I was.
But I still am
and he is still.
Where is is
when is is was?
I have an is
but where is his?
Now here—
no where:
such a little
fatal pause.
There’s no sense
in past tense.