A voice saying : She went in a queen,
she died and came out,
goddess.
All our faces in their colors
staring at the
arch of this world.
The breast smiles : Do not
think you are invulnerable!
The breast smiles : Do not
think you are immortal!
AFTERWARDS
We are the antlers of that white animal
That great white animal
Asleep under the sea
He forgets and dreams so deep he does not
Know his whiteness in the sea-black
Among the plants of night.
His antlers have legs and arms. Our heads
together being joined
Journey tonight, dreamed in his ocean.
Where we lie afterwards, smoke of our dreams
Goes coiling up, a plant in the dark room.
You were a young boy, you sang in the Polish woods
Limping away away. I in this city, held
In a dream of children. Some mythic animal
Rises now, flies up, white from the sea-floor.
In all our death, the glow behind his eyes
Speaks under all knowing : our lives burn.
FLYING TO HANOI
I thought I was going to the poets, but I am
going to the children.
I thought I was going to the children, but I am
going to the women.
I thought I was going to the women, but I am going
to the fighters.
I thought I was going to the fighters, but I am going
to the men and women who are inventing peace.
I thought I was going to the inventors of peace,
but I am going to the poets.
My life is flying to your life.
IT IS THERE
Yes, it is there, the city full of music,
Flute music, sounds of children, voices of poets,
The unknown bird in his long call. The bells of peace.
Essential peace, it sounds across the water
In the long parks where the lovers are walking,
Along the lake with its island and pagoda,
And a boy learning to fish. His father threads the line.
Essential peace, it sounds and it stills. Cockcrow.
It is there, the human place.
On what does it depend, this music, the children's games?
A long tradition of rest? Meditation? What peace is so profound
That it can reach all habitants, all children,
The eyes at worship, the shattered in hospitals?
All voyagers?
Meditation, yes; but within a tension
Of long resistance to all invasion, all seduction of hate.
Generations of holding to resistance; and within this resistance
Fluid change that can respond, that can show the children
A long future of finding, of responsibility; change within
Change and tension of sharing consciousness
Village to city, city to village, person to person entire
With unchanging cockcrow and unchanging endurance
Under the
skies of war.
THE RUNNING OF THE GRUNION
for Denise Levertov and Mitchell Goodman
1
Launching themselves
beating silver
on that precise
moment of tide & moon.
Exact in act
outer limit
stranded on high sand.
With an arched back he
digs their bed
she under him
releases he
fertilizes and
with back arched
covers (sand)
the gleam spawn.
On the lit beach
the hunt begins:
silver buckets.
People run down
for the huge catch.
Pulsing on sand
countless silver.
Highest wave
stretches
among the hunt.
A few of the fish
are washed to sea.
The spawn enclosed
in high sand
rhythms of hot & cool;
a full moon later
the wave foams over;
young grunion
wash to ocean.
Eleven later,
mature, silver,
they return.
People with pails.
2
Sand nailed down
by beating silver
nailed
by live nails
Sand is not crucified
only people
only animals
3
These creatures
cruciform.
To make life.
In the act of life
murder
people with pails
4
Silver
on silver
birth
and
murder
Not birth
conception
5
Seawave
moon
seasand
at the moment of life
They throw themselves
million silver
upon making
Whether or not
people with pails
SACRED LAKE
some flushed-earth-color pueblo
holding the long-light sunset
shadows go into this ground
the mountain lifting the lake
in an orante gesture
like the men
in their white shirt-sleeves
in the basement of the Planetarium
the mailman the policeman the highschool-teacher
these winter evenings making their own telescopes
they hold them up to test them the only way
against a ray of light in a gesture of offering.
This long wide gorge and mesa make the gesture
holding each man up against sunset light
and holding Blue Lake up.
3 Northern Poems
SONGS OF THE BARREN GROUNDS
Eskimo Songs translated by Paul Radin and Muriel Rukeyser
1 THE OLD DAYS
Song-calling,
Breathing deep, my heart laboring,
Calling the song.
Hearing the news:
Faraway villages in their
Terrible fishing seasons,
Breathing deep and
Calling the song;
Come down, song.
Now I forget
The laboring breast,
I remember the old days:
My strength, butchering
Caribou bulls,
Calling the song—
I call the song.
Three bulls butchered
While the sun climbed morning—
I call the song
Breathing deep
—Aya ayee—
Calling the song.
2 INLAND, AWAY
Inland, away
Grieving I know I
Shall not leave again
This bench, this place.
Wanderwishing troubles me:
Going inland, going away.
My thoughts keep playing with a thing that seems
Animal flesh
And yet I know I
Shall not leave again
This bench, this place.
Feeling the old wish to go
Inland, away.
Here I am, I—
Never again to go out with the rest.
I was the one who shot them down, both:
The widespread antlers, old caribou,
And the young one too.
Once
When heaven-twilight
Lay over the land—
—Aya
, yee, ya.—
All this, unforgotten,
All my fantasy,
That hunting, and my fortunes,
That caribou and calf,
While all the earth
Whitened with snow.
Inlandaway.
Inlandaway.
3 I'M HERE AGAIN
I'm here again—
What's the matter? Want to say something?
Something I heard told around:
I'm here to tell,
I'm here to tell,
I'm here to tell
How you and your
Uncle's
Younger sister
Went to bed.
Just at the coming of the great springtime.
I'm here to tell,
I'm here to tell,
I'm here to tell,
You sure have been fucking, you two.
What do you say now? How about it?
“Open your legs now, nice and wide!”
When you got there, hard,
How was she?
I'm here again.
Here I am.
4 NOT MUCH GOOD
I'm not much good at any of this.
Is the song too long, is the song too long?
He wanted his sister, he did he did—
That's what they said that people said.
Well you rascal, you rascal you.
Think I'd sing a pack of lies,
Lies about a fellow who never
Made a pass at his little sister?
Well you rascal, you rascal you—
Know what they said, they said you did?
Came sneaking in to your little sister,
Sneaked in to screw your little sister.
Know what she asked you?
“Well, what you doing?”
Pretty silly, you looked—
Sneaking in, to screw his sister!
….To show him up
I'm singing this song.
5 MY BREATH
A song I sing, strong I sing.
Helpless as my own child, ever since last fall.
My house and my wife, I wish they were gone.
With me, she's with a worthless man;
Her man should be strong as winter ice.
I am bedridden and
I wish she were gone.
Do we know ourselves?
Beasts of the hunt! Can I remember one?
Faintly remembering the polar bear,
White back high, head lowered, charging,
Sure he was the one male there,
Full speed at me.
Had me down again and again—
He didn't lie over me, he went away.
Hadn't expected another male there
At the edge of the ice-floe
He knew who he was, he rested.
I can never forget the fjord-seal
On the sea ice; I killed it early
When my comrades, my land-sharers
Were just waking.
Reaching the breathing-hole,
I discovered it,
And then I was standing over the hole—
I hadn't scratched the ice, the firm ice,
And the bear hooked under—
It heard me, that good seal, that cunning seal.
And just tasting my disappointment if I lost it
I caught it with my harpoon head!
My house and wife are here.
I have no oil for her lamp and spring has come,
Dawn gives way to dawn; when will I be well?
My house; my wife, by neighbors
Clothed, by charity
Eating meat.
Not my providing; when will I be well?
Do we know ourselves?
Little you know of yourself,
Dawn giving way to dawn.
Orpingalik
I RECOGNIZE THIS SONG
I recognize this little song—
It's a fellow being.
Sure, I should be ashamed
Of the child I carried,
I've heard
The neighbors talking—
Sure, I should be ashamed
Because his mother
Wasn't as pure
As the pure blue sky;
I got what was coming;
Gossip will teach him
And finish his schooling.
Sure, I should be ashamed
The child I love won't ever take care of me.
When others go hunting
Out on the flat ice
And far behind, people
Stand looking at them
A person feels envy!
I've just remembered
Once in wintertime
At Cross-Eye Island, breaking camp,
The weather was—Down there
Footsteps creaked faintly in the snow,
Sinking. I followed close, like a tame animal.
Oh, that's the way to be.
But when the message came
Of murder done by my son
I staggered. I could not keep my foothold.
THE BLACK ONES, THE GREAT ONES
After the black ones!
Racing the great ones!
Over the plain-flowers
With all my strength.
Running breakneck
Forever after
Horizon-animals.
Obsessed! They're growing
Out of the ground!
The giants! I shot them,
The great ones, the black ones,
Faraway
In the summer-hunting.
TROUT FISHING
Well, I'm back again
To this song—
Back again, standing over
My old fishing-place.
And I'm not one who's good at going back,
A hook waiting for trout.
Upstream and up the stream.
There aren't any trout around here
Unless you wait.
I keep saying There aren't many trout this year.
There are those I eat and those I don't wait for
Because I give up so soon.
Upstream and up the stream;
Well, and it's glorious
On snowy ice-surfaces
Walking and walking.
I can't even go errands—
I, a falling-down old man.
Everything else is fine….
I cannot even make my difficult song,
For easy birdsong is not given to me,
Even though I turn to it again,
And I'm not one who's good at going back.
O difficult things! And I want everything.
Ikinilik
HOW LOVELY IT IS
How lovely it is to
Put a little song together.
Many of mine fail, yes they do.
How lovely it all is,
But me, I seldom burn with luck,
Hunting across the ice, alas.
How lovely it all is
To wish and bring it through.
But again and again
My wishes slip away!
How very hard, how very hard it all is, yes, alas.
Ikinilik
THE WORD-FISHER
I know what I want in my words
But it will not turn into song
And it's not worth the listening!
To make my song
Really good listening,
That's pretty hard—
But listen : Some clumsy song…
Is in the making…
And is made!
STROKING SONGS
A GIRL FOR A BOY—STROKING SONG
It's still my little big “big brother,” isn't it?
The one I wanted to make new, isn't it?
The one I didn't do such a good job on, isn't it?
I'm going to have to prime my tool again,
There'll have to be work done in the bag.
I didn't do a good job, th
at's what the man says now.
THE BABY ON THE MOUNTAIN—STROKING SONG
Up against the mountain-side
The little early-born—
No stopping-place, no hiding-place
Pushing it out, pushing it out.—
White skin, furless skin,
Great skin of harbor seal,
Great skin, hanging soft,
Great skin hanging free.
Roughened by the east wind
Pushing pushing,
I'm sorry, it's only
The southern winds.
This is the way we
This is the way we open it,
This is the way we
Make it hard.
This is the way we
Stroke the baby,
Stroking the baby's
Parts.
This is the way of the baby's groin,
This is the way the baby'll marry,
A real man with a fine one,
A real man with a darling one.
Stroking, stroking, stroke the baby.
THE WIPING MOSS FROM THE RUINS
Running to me—
My wiping moss—
Breakneck from the ruined house.
Well, a nipple full of milk
And a fine pot-stone, yes,
Welcome as the light of spring,
Welcome as a seal in spring!
Well, the milk of the nipple, listen,
Listen : hear them shout
Where is that milk?
All the way up from Ipsetaleq.
Then what, what, what's the matter?
Pinch you, pinch you, pinch your crotch.
Falling all over yourself, darling.
STROKING SONGS, CHILDHOOD SONGS
BEING BORN
She was unloaded and delivered to us, glory be!
Unloaded from her mother, the little one, delivered,
And we all say Glory Be!
SHOOTING STAR
You star up there,
Starer up there,
Your fingers up there
Not holding very tight,
Not catching—not tight—
And falling downwards,
Downwards and falling falling
Downward down the night.
4
BREAKING OPEN
I come into the room The room stands waiting
river books flowers you are far away
black river a language just forgotten
traveling blaze of light dreams of endurance
racing into this moment outstretched faces
and you are far away
The stars cross over
fire-flood extremes of singing
filth and corrupted promises my river
A white triangle of need
my reflected face
laced with a black triangle of need
Naked among the silent of my own time
Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser Page 50