Tell Me

 

Tell Me

 

It’s an awkward truth that I cannot help observing

and noticing things even in the most terrible moments.

                        Yiyun Li

                        Things in Nature Merely Grow

 

At what moment does the river give over

to the cold, and at what moment does it lift

its rhythm to the wind waving over it

& surrender, & in surrendering offer drops

 

of itself as sacrifice, & what drops volunteer

or what drops are drafted to the task of becoming

made invisible by light & by

that same light & after a certain encampment

 

fall again but different entirely, irrevocably

changed, or not at all, because how can it be, the same

water after all it’s literally been through and told to do.

At what moment, because rivers are memory,

 

does the body of it, remembering, say not now,

not this time, & pause to get hold of itself, to get

solid the way all bodies get solid from the very

start, a splitting but not a splitting, of its cell-f,

 

a selvedge edge now, at that moment, becoming ice

that rimes the banks with the seasons in its surface,

the banks and bottom a hollow consolation for August,

when the mud was caked & shattered & the rain,

 

when it finally fell, rose straight up again, the way

any inflated thing would do, bouncing on the hard

unyielding shell of the groundit sped to, on the pottery

shard, on the shell of the just hatched snapping turtle 

 

camouflaged…

How Illuminate, Uncovering You

 

How Illuminate, Uncovering You  

 

 All love abhors habit.

                    Christian Wiman

                    My Bright Abyss: 

                                    Meditation of a Modern Believer

 

How today’s sun rises on yesterday’s labor,

how the now dug out stump slumps on the lip

of the incision I made into the crab

grass sod.  & then there’s the one that wouldn’t

budge, rebellious-wedged.  How more & more it is

being made naked again

 

plunge shovel plnge shovel grunt shovel

 

how once there must have been a structure:

a house or barn, something.  How what I’m hauling

up is just the broke stone.  Oh but yesterday, how

a splinter, a sliver of window glass, somewhere near

that cemented dead elm.  Once

an elm

                        plunge shovel plunge shovel grunt shovel

 

always?  How Gerry dug into the buried bark, or tried

to.  How it was hard hard hard.  How it was hard as Egypitan

brickwork.  How the spade blade made a great thwang

and how later I’d remember I saw sparks speak. . .  

how the teeth were meeting iron. How one nail, stoppered

all these years

 

                        plunge hammer plunge shove grunt shovel

 

and met, well, tooth and nail.  How it was the fleetingist

of lights.  Tinder’s friction, tipped. How it resembled the lightning

bugs up near the gone-by mountain

laurel, those now spent flowers a still branch-gripped bouquet

in the slight alcove of the oak it was

cultivated in. 

 

                        plunge shovel plunge shovel grunt shovel

 

 

 

 

 

 

How I saw them in their linen-like winding sheet,

their rag & bone man hold, their fisted grip that will get them

through to near a year from now, the shoulders

of those oaks holding the snow,

their growth, seed & leaf, wind pillaged,

crow stole, and all those suns long ago shone,

 

                        plunge come up! plunge shovel grunt shovel

 

& that open hole, half an acre or so over

there, how it is exhumed again to its cellared parapets,

the light of day once more being squeezed

between pieces of granite that for the last hundred

fifty years, tally the elm rings, how they have hunkered

 

demolished long before I was born and worn,

dumped into its own cellar hole,  

 

shovel shovel shovel  of soil,

 

how with squirrel buried acorns championing

the purposely planted elm.  Mute. Rising blind into light.

Thirst

 

Thirst

 

I love the idea

don’t you

of cupping the water from the cauldron

after the night of rain

and the day of rain

and when the dark comes again

and as if the earth had opened its door

to view

the secrets briefly

that sort of dark that is a fragrance as well

and a perception, something like

the trust of a favor from one

to another and the other

not mucking it up 

sensing see the great cost

of it glowing against the broad

now clear now black sky

with its one close eye

that is open almost all the way

and this is where I like the idea

you’re still

with me I like the idea

of cupping my hands into the rain

barrel and letting the water rest

there long enough

& if I’m careful & calibrated

& you are at hand

to see it

the moon is

in the palms of me

& you lean in & whisk & wick the water into you

the way orchids do

& it becomes you

you who have the water and the moon

taken into you almost

forgive me my thirst, 

filling you

 

 

Arriving

 

 Arriving      

 

Such comfort in the bee

who, between the blooming

 

blooms, is seeking her sweet

gauzy drop of nearly

 

honey.  She is

homed here.  Didn’t the face

 

of the sun-

flower open for just this

 

moment with the bee,

this particular bee,

 

rich with her purses of pollen,

the dusts of thousands

 

of teachings stippling her

buzz and humming rise?

 

Tell me, isn’t the richness all the more

important because of her

 

needing to leave

the flower and take

 

on the risk of wind and being

heaved off course,

  

and doesn’t she survive because

of the pollen?  Watch this rising & falling

 

 / \

rising        

falling  

                     

                                   \ /

rising

falling

  

and see in it something very simple.

Feel it buzz.  Feel the buzz beginning

 

to rain on you, which when falling,

hear it? feel it?

 

sounds very much

like applause.

Thoughts, Stalks

 

Thoughts, Stalks

 

I see, maybe, the brief seep

of sunshine.  The world above

this roof opened and out

poured rain & her fast breathing

wind.  It blew

drops beyond the window

sill and onto my almost waking

face.  I’m sure I heard it

all falling but I was in

a place I rarely am and

dreaming – how cliché

to say I thought it was all

happening

there and not in the actual

outdoors above and below me where just

yesterday I was gleaning the garden

of its duff of winter

of the sawn down silver

grass reeds, their ten-foot

thin stick selves so like those great

blue heron legs I watch stalk

the water below the falls

so confident, yes? and the patient way

they make of standing…

anyway these reeds, this cane

is a jumble of some

abandoned game

of pick-up-sticks, or the semblance

of last year’s life sliding

down onto the bodies of last

year’s life, their deadness

clean & hollow & almost weightless,

a hundred or more in this bundle

and tens more bundles

to be hauled to the edge

of the property line to be

broken still more, to be lit (when

all this water stops falling)

and to be fed into the fire – this is

impermanence at her lengthiest

suspension: the debris gathered

after the sky quiets again

and the like the gleaners who come

through to sift the seeds, & the feet

of the wheat stalks yet are stepped

on and left alone to decompose

as the season marches, probes 

& sifts & spears & grows tall.

the anointing

 

all saints church
peterborugh, nh

the anointing 

 

            this is the vale of soul-making

                                    John Keats

 

what is crushed to make this moment

a chrism?

 

the balsam, the olive, and the sun in them

squeezed between Gethsemane & her groves

 

of wooden presses or granite millstones.  The flesh

of them, their pits & sprigs, the twigs, each revolution

 

                                    an unction, the oil felt

first by the repeating plod of the ox or donkey

 

or for the smaller presses

the farmer’s own, his children’s own feet

 

& hands.  slick glistening.  greenish ooze-

drip.  acidic.  waves and wakes of monotonous

 

labor.  daily.  daily.  daily the making, the taking,

the taken. 

Spring Ice

 

Spring Ice

 

has dislodged the caught

branch pinched in the middle of the dam

 

wall.  All winter it stuck up through

the cold-thick water, both paused

 

opportunists: the lodged drop-off

from who knows how far, what tree, is

 

in its decline and the bitter

months have stalled its decay.  The river,

 

her back up to the wind, takes her chances

& rises up the hump with all the motion

 

she can muster, the drop by drop she turns

by which she turns

 

solid.  It is probably the only time

she will ever be able

 

to rest, & to feel the clutch of the wood

 

& all the daughters & sons, all the animal

of them, summoned & coming & ultimately being

 

undone.  I didn’t see the ice-

out or the log let go.  The edge

 

of the dam is a thick rush of rain and snow-

melt.  The river has risen, will rise.  & just

 

nearly out of sight: that branch, the tip

of it treading, & the white foam

 

a brief beard, where only a week ago ice & snow

colder then & committed, to the last,

 

to the least, to holding, holding.

On a Sunday, Mid-March

 

 

On a Sunday, Mid-March 

 

Spring ice has dislodged the caught

branch pinched in the middle of the dam

 

since last spring.  & it was all winter stuck up through

the viscous-thick water, both paused

 

opportunists: the lodged drop-off from god-

knows-how far off, or what tree misses it,

 

is in its decline and the bitter

months have halted its decay.  The river,

 

her back to the wind, takes her chances

& rises up the hump with all the motion

 

she can muster, and drop by drop she turns

solid.  It is probably the only time

 

she will ever be able

to roost, & to touch the clutch of the wood

 

like a lover.  & then all the daughters will come

to understand, being summoned

 

to this spot, to pause, to be a globule of caught

breath, & the duration of it will be her

 

glory.  & true, her ultimate undoing. 

I didn’t see the ice-

 

out, or even the log let go.  The crest

of the dam is thick with today’s rush of rain

 

& sudden melt.  The river has risen, will

continue to rise.  & just nearly

 

out of sight, that branch, the tip of it

treading, the speed of the grime-white

 

foam giving it a brief aged beard, where only

a day or two ago it was all thick in

 

ice & snow,

colder then

 

& so committed to the holding, the OH!

(inhale.) holding.

After Dusting a Bookshelf

 

In Daniel Chester French's Studio

After Dusting a Bookshelf

 

Tell me how long this small chocolate

egg has been perched on Robert

Lowell’s Collected Poems ready for the find,

sitting on his spine, edging his ladies’

man eye-

 

brow?  Missed. When? Last Easter?  Easter

before?  There was a time, when he was

manic, and maybe even between

manias, that he believed

in Easter, or in its least,

its implications, in the hours & days   

following the final slump, God's lungs giving up,

the criminal forgiven, the criminal

not, & the squeeze of each between.  Jesus seeking

what I can and will say every kid seeks

from their own

father: presence.  To not have to 

say why have you

abandoned me?  It reminds me, and this is

a stretch of time and a context out of transition,

but bear with me,

to say I remember seeing,

& needing to believe in it

as a possibility, the first film I saw reeled

backwards.  Its end its beginning.

I believed I could live 

backwards.  And then,

I wanted to believe I could live

backwards.  Become

new.  But...you know, 

time.

And so.  I see this little egg, how it is

sunk to gunk under its foil.  Lowell is

impatiently unread, spine unspread, 

his skunk unborn or slunk

off, or his Nantucket dead yet

living maybe.  And speaking

of living backwards, I make myself see 

the fingers pinching this candy to place back-

ward and then for-

ward: the three to five second delight

a tongue might need to light its ennui

to strike the foil of gold, God

has it been

years sitting there? Tell me it has been

waiting unseen for at least

the length of time it takes to stumble

and be lifted, 

then sit in the confessional or the tomb

(they’re both the same, in some way,

right?)

ageless and out of date and say, almost

breathless:

Father please bless me, please, 

bless me

Bouquet

 

 

Bouquet 

 

Earlier, before day, before day was made

day, I raised the shade to arrange

the bouquet of the birds’ of prey

feathers.  Alert in an barren bonsai

 

pot they reach easily east & to east’s

opposite.  & the smaller feathers barely scale

the rim.  I’ll confess I don’t know all

their names, but some, of course: crow;

 

broad tail hawk; turkey.  Eagle.  & the one

lone white, from my daughter’s costume

when she was an attending pre-K

angel at Jesus’ manger.  I thought: alive,

 

all these birds are solitary.  I thought: loosing

to lose one feather of the thousands they fly

with, this one isn’t going to be

missed, though if it still

 

had a consciousness it might miss: the wind,

the beak preening, the fanning out, fanning

in, the light, the coming on of dark

when the shade is after being

 

raised all day slowly drawn down

to the tips of the shaft and vane waiting maybe

for a February draught to resurrect the barbs

where some are split, where some were dried

 

wet & caked yet, & some, the angel one flanked

by all the rest, hide behind the falcon

                                                   & the count them:

one,  two, three

 

                                                   crow

Then She Said

 

Then She Said

“I have found favor in your sight, my lord,

for you have comforted me and indeed

have spoken kindly to your maidservant,

though I am not like one of your maidservants.”

                       

                        Ruth 2:13

such a meticulous glean

            the bee to her need

            her proboscis and the pollen powder

                                   

rising

            while inside the hollow

            halls of her body

            the soft offering she is

            withdrawing from the face

            of the echinacea begins

            its steady friendship

            quiet

            reliable

Relationships

 Relationships

            for Ishrat on her birthday –

 

Such comfort in the bee

who between the florets & petals

is seeking her sweet

gauzy drop of almost

honey.  Like she was

homed here.  Like the face of the sun

flower opened for just this

moment and the bee,

this bee,

heavy from her last

home – oh those pouches

of pollen – twin purses –

& isn’t the richness all the more

enjoyable because of the leaving

(the risk of wind and being

blown off course finally survived)

the pollen rising / \ falling

                       

                          \ /

                        rising

                        falling

in something like applause

Pain-Gleaned

 Pain-gleaned

 

Pain-gleaned but there’s always a nerve

hiding behind the silence where quiet is

 

a hunted laboring mother giving in at last

then slipping to the same world her still-

 

born baby has slipt to.  Moving forward

she sleeps & the piece

 

                                    of her who made

the baby & brought it to term only

 

to have to paw through the gaul of the after

birth searching for the stone

 

that was thrown at her glass castle

finds nothing but immensity nothing

 

but layers & layers of drapes of immensity

which being the seamstress she now is

 

she stitches together to hang

pleated & neat in the house she lives in

 

now at glow in the dark but a glow nobody

being outside that dark could ever imagine being

 

illuminated 

Imagine: In the Yellow House, Arles

 

Imagine: In the Yellow House, Arles

 

Yesterday’s replica was of Van Gogh’s

Arles bedroom.  The cups.  The rumpled

red bed-

            covering the almost

                        floating above angle the viewer

                        needs to appreciate

                        standing to see

                                    it all falling some-

                                    how down

            hill.  (it seems the bedroom

                        wasn’t plumb, he’d said

                        in a letter to Theo)

 

                                    but to see it

                                    the way Vincent saw

 

to paint it perspectively

            waiting for people

            to sit to sleep against the edge

            of the wall, the straw sun

            hat hung behind the head

            board next to the frumpy paint clustered

            frocks but oh the room is so…

 

                                    See?!

                        RED! & BLUE & LIVINGLY

                                    neat!

 

unrumpled cover.  In the painting

there’s room for two:

 

            two chairs

            two pillows

            two then two paintings & one

                        where two might

                                    walk, grasping each other, through to the trees.