As We Know

by John Ashbery

  Betray my own fatigue, and loss

  Of time, that ever, with nervous, accurate fingers

  Cross-hatches the shade in the corner

  Of the piazza where I stand, and leave

  The lighted areas scarcely perforated, almost

  Pristine. Lovers in parked cars

  Undulated like the sensibility that refrigerates

  Me at those times: and who

  Could pick up the pieces, over and over?

  Yes, it was a fine gift that you sent

  Me, your book, wherein I could read

  The very syllables of your soul, as dark-arched

  And true as any word

  You ever grunted, and whose truant

  Punctuation resumed again the thread

  Of what is outside, outdoors, and brought

  It all ingeniously around to the beginning again

  As a fountain swipes and never misses

  The basin’s fluted edge. But how in

  Heck can I get it operating again? Only

  Yesterday it was in perfect working order

  And now the thing has broken down again.

  Autumn rains rust it. And their motion

  Attacks my credulity also, and all seems lost.

  Yet fences were not ever built to last:

  A year or two and all is blown away

  And no trace can be found.

  As a last blessing

  Bestow this piece of shrewd, regular knowledge

  On me who hungers so much for something

  To calm his appetite, not food necessarily—

  The pattern behind the iris that lights up

  Your almost benevolent eyelash: turn

  All this anxious scrutiny into some positive

  Chunk to counteract the freedom

  Of too much speculation. Tell me

  What is on your mind, and do not explain it away.

  “The egrets are beginning their annual migration.

  From the banks of the Hag River a desolate

  Convoy issues, like a directional pointing hand.

  There is a limit to what the wilderness

  Can accomplish on its own, and meanwhile,

  Back in civilization, you don’t seem to be

  Doing too well either: those flying

  Bits of newspaper and plastic bags scarce

  Bode better for him who sits and picks at

  The secret, when suddenly

  The meaning knocks him down, a light bulb

  Appears in a balloon above his head: it had nothing

  To do with what the others were thinking, what

  Energies they poured into the mould of their

  Collective statement. It was only

  As a refugee from all this that living

  Were possible if at all, but it cast no shadow,

  No reflection in the mirror, and was nervous

  And waifed, so strong was the shuttle

  Of accurate presentiment plying directly

  Between it and the discarded past. Playing

  A game is the only way to see it through, and have it

  Finally integral, but the matter is that

  This is somewhere else: its rails

  Run deep into the leafy wilderness, sink

  And disappear under moss and slime

  Long before the end is reached. It’s a crime,

  And meanwhile your velvet portrait presides,

  Benevolent as Queen Anne, over the scene

  Below, and at no point

  Do reality and your joyous truth coincide.”

  So sang one who was in prison, and the erosion

  Process duly left its mark

  On the wall:

  Only a wan, tainted shadow leaned

  Down from the place where it had been.

  The eroding goes on constantly in the brain

  Where its music is softest, a lullaby

  On the edge of a precipice where the whole movement

  Of the night can be seen:

  How it begins, undresses, and disappears

  In hollows before the level is seen to rise.

  And then we are in a full, static music,

  Violent and spongy as bronze, but

  There is no need, no chance to examine

  The accidents of the surface that stretches away

  Forever, toward the ultramarine gates

  Of the horizon of this tidal basin, and beyond,

  Pouring silently into the vast concern

  Of heaven, in which the greatest explanation

  Is but a drop in the bucket of eternity;

  Mon rêve.

  But why, in that case,

  Whispered the petitioner, pushing her

  Magenta lips close to the thick wire mesh

  That separated them, rubbing

  Her gloved hand athwart it as though

  Devoured now by curiosity, can God

  Let the eroding happen at all, since it is all,

  As you say, horizontal, without

  Beginning or end, and seamless

  At the horizon where it bends

  Into a past which has already begun? In

  Truth, then, if we are particles of anything

  They must belong to our conception

  Of our destiny, and be as complete as that.

  It’s like we were children again: the bicycle

  Sighs and the stars pecking at the sky

  Are unconstrained in spite of the distance:

  The blanket buries us in a joyous tumult

  Of indifference when night is

  Blackest

  So that we grow up again as we were taught to do

  Before that. With the increase of joy

  The sorrow is precipitated out, and life takes on

  An uncanny resemblance to the photograph of me

  That everybody said was terrible, only now it is real

  And cannot be photographed.

  It was nice of you to love me

  But I must be thinking about getting back

  Over the mountain

  That divides day from night:

  Visions more and more restless

  All now sunk in black of Egypt.

  The enduring obloquy of a gaze struck

  The new year, cracking it open

  At the point where people and animals, each busy

  With his own thoughts, wandered away

  In unnamed directions. If there is a fire,

  I thought, why single out the glares

  Impaling those least near it

  In such a way as to reflect them back

  On its solid edifice? But here

  In a tissue of starlight, each is alone and valid.

  You can stand up to breathe

  And the garment falling around you is history,

  Someone’s, anyway, some perfectly accessible,

  Reasonable assessment of the recent past, which

  With its pattern dips into the shadow of the folds

  To re-emerge and be striking on the crest

  Of them somewhere, and thus serves

  Twice over, as plan and decoration,

  A garden plunged in sun seen through a fixed lattice

  Of regrets and doubts, pinned there

  For a variety of good reasons, alive, stupid

  As a sail stunned in a vast haze,

  Perfect for you. And you rise

  Imperfect and beautiful as a second, a continent

  Whose near coast alone can be seen, but

  Which makes up for that in the strength of the confusion

  Building behind it, and is at rest.

  And I’ll tell you why:

  The elaborate indifference of some people, of some person

  Far out on the curve

  Is always rescued by another person

  And this will be some forgotten day three years ago

  At today’s prices. The tensions, overlaid,

  Superimposed, produ
ce an effect of “character”

  And quizzical harmony, like the outdoors.

  But on death’s dark river,

  On the demon’s charcoal-colored heaths

  Where the luscious light never falls, but fluffy

  Cinders are falling everywhere, the persons

  Gesture hurriedly at each other from a distance.

  Surely this is no time to play dumb, or dead, but

  A directive has not been issued.

  At the plant they know no more about it than you do

  Here, and in the dump behind

  They are singing of something else, trilling surely

  But no one any longer can make any sense of it.

  It is as though you had paid the bills

  But the sun keeps writhing: “For this

  I gave apples unto the tawny couch-grass, kept ledgers

  In my time, as you do in yours?

  That a badger with a trumpet on a far tussock

  May rake in the calls, and none of it

  Ever gets distributed to the poor, which I had stipulated

  As being part of the deal? And who are we poor workers?

  Not much surely, but we were

  Just getting over the shock of dispossession

  When this happened, and now this on top of it.

  Who is any the wiser? What are we to make of

  What now appears to be our lot, though we did nothing

  To deserve it? Our efforts were in some way

  Directed at a greater good, though we never forgot

  Our own interests, as long as they harmed no one.

  And now we are cast out like a stone. Surely

  The sun knows something I do not know

  Although I am the sun.”

  And slowly

  The results are brought in, and are found disappointing

  As broken blue birds’-eggs in a nest among rushes

  And we fall away like fish from the Grand Banks

  Into the inky, tepid depths beyond. It is said

  That this is our development, but no one believes

  It is, but no one has any authority to proceed further.

  And we keep chewing on darkness like a rind

  For what comfort it can give in the crevices

  Between us, like those between your eyes

  When you speak sideways to me, and I cannot

  Hear you, though farther out there are those

  Who hear you and are encouraged, and their effort

  Brightens on the side of the mountain.

  “I haven’t seen him since I’ve been here”—and I,

  All liking and no indifference, transfixed

  By the macaronic, like a florist, weary and slippy-eyed,

  Athwart blooms, compose, out of what the day provides,

  Mindful of teasing and subtle pressures put,

  Yet careful to seize the pen first. “What

  Have you been up to?” Well, this time has been very good

  For my working, the work is progressing, and so

  I assume it’s been good for you too, whose work

  Is also doubtless coming along, indeed, I know so

  From the sudden aging visible in both of us, tired

  And cozy around the eyes, as the work prepares to take off.

  Anyway, I am the author. I want to

  Talk to you for a while, teach you

  About some things of mine, some things

  I’ve put away, more still that I remember

  With a tinge of sadness, even

  Regret around the sunset hour, that puts these

  Things away, jettisons ’em, pulls the plug

  On ’em, the carpet out from under their feet:

  Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes

  Wanly soliciting passersby, but without much

  Hope of interest. Nevertheless, the

  Things I want to visit with you about

  Are important to me. I’ve kept them so long!

  Zephyrs are one. How

  Idly they played around me, around

  My wrists, even in the bygone time!

  And pictures—

  Pictures of capes and peninsulas

  With big clouds moving down on them,

  Pressing with a frightening weight—

  And shipwrecks barely seen (sometimes

  Not seen at all) through the snow

  In the foreground, and howling, ravenous gales

  In the background. Almost all landscapes

  Are generous, well proportioned, hence

  Welcome. We feel we have more in common with a

  Landscape, however shifty and ill-conceived,

  Than with a still-life: those oranges

  And apples, and dishes, what have they to do

  With us? Plenty, but it’s a relief

  To turn away from them. Portraits, on the other

  Hand, are a different matter—they have no

  Bearing on the human shape, their humanitarian

  Concerns are foreign to us, who dream

  And know not we are humane, though, as seen

  By others, we are. But this is about people.

  Right. That’s why landscapes are more

  Familiar, more what it’s all about—we can see

  Into them and come out on the other side. With

  People we just see another boring side of ourselves,

  One we may not know too well, but on the other

  Hand why should we be interested in it? Better

  The coffee pot and sewing basket of a still-life—

  It’s more human, if you want, I mean something

  A human is more likely to be interested in

  Than pictures of human beings, no matter how well drawn

  And sympathetic-looking. However, as the author

  Of this, I want to buy a certain picture,

  A still-life in fact, from a man who has one

  And need the permission of the man

  In order to do so. Unless I can acquire it

  I can never feel the point of any of this. Oh,

  I can see it intellectually, all right, but to really

  Feel it, experience it, I have to have the picture.

  That’s all. I’d hate to give it up.

  To be consigned to this world

  Of life, a sea-world

  Which forms, shapes,

  Faces probably decorate—

  It is all as you had suspected

  All along, my dear.

  They proliferate slowly, build,

  Then clog, and in weathering

  Become a foundation of sorts

  For what is afterwards to be erected

  On this plot of unfinal ecstasies—

  Benign, in sum. They don’t just go away, either.

  But like a hollow tower

  Let in some sun, and keep the wind

  Far hence; whatever can destroy

  Us loses, but it’s pretty hard to say

  How far we have come, how much accomplished

  And whether there’s a lot more to be said:

  But for stretches at a time of life the outlined

  Masks and scabbards which are our vague

  Impression of what is probably going on

  All around us, keep us distracted,

  From playing and working too hard.

  And yet life is not really for the squeamish either.

  The hyacinths are dying

  At the end of a broad blue day

  Whose words somehow have not touched you.

  Mad to sacrifice next to them

  In late life, you were “just looking”

  Instead when the uneasy feeling that a jewel

  Might someday be around crossed you

  But I can’t figure out

  What ever happened. You treasured it,

  I contain you, and there are a few clouds

  Down near the baseboard of the room that prevent


  Us from ever continuing our conversation

  About the terrible lake that exists behind us.

  Piss and destruction

  Are the order of the day, the office blues,

  The Monday morning smiling through tears

  That never come.

  Partly because you always expect the impossible,

  But also because here, on the level of personal

  Life, it becomes easier to say, nay, think

  The transversals that haven’t stopped

  Defining our locus, have indeed only begun

  To, you are invited, and cannot refuse,

  To share this wall

  Of painted wooden tulips, the wooden clouds

  In the sky behind it, to feel the intensity

  As it is there. Good news travels fast

  But what about the news you forgot

  To tell until now, so we can’t tell

  All that much about it? Well, it joins us.

  The ground is soaked with tears.

  The tears of centuries are being wiped away.

  The tower is beaded with sweat that

  Has smiled down on our effort

  For so long.

  The lovers saunter away.

  It is a mild day in May.

  With music and birdsong alway

  And the hope of love in the way

  The sleeve detaches itself from the body

  As the two bodies do from the throng of gay

  Lovers on the prowl that do move and sway

  In the game of sunrise they play

  For stakes no higher than the gray

  Ridge of loam that protects the way

  Around the graveyard that sexton worm may

  Take to the mound Death likes to stay

  Near so as to be able to slay

  The lovers who humbly come to pray

  Him to pardon them yet his stay

  Of execution includes none and they lay

  Hope aside and soon disappear.

  Yet none is in disrepair

  And soon, no longer in fear

  Of the flowers their arrears

  Vanish and each talks gaily of his fear

  That is in the past whose ear

  Has been pierced by the flowers and the air

  Is now contagious to him

  He walks by the sea wall

  With a mate or lover and all

  The waves stand on tiptoe around the ball

  Of land where they all are.

  Thus, by giving up much,

  The lovers have lost less than

  The average man.

  No bird of paradise flies up

  With an explosive cry at his touch,

  The lover’s, yet all

  Are made whole in the circle that rounds

  Him, filled the whole time with sweet sounds.

  It is not the disrepair of these lives

  Where we may find the key to all that gives

  Eloquence and truth to our passing thoughts,

  And shapes them as a shipwright shapes