Poems New and Collected
Page 10
propped up by a sturdy, chubby nanny:
Let’s take a little walk, shall we, professor?
Severe brain damage following the accident
and yet—will wonders never cease—he’s come so far:
left right, light dark, tree grass, hurt eat.
Two plus two, professor?
Two, says the professor.
At least he’s getting warm.
Hurt, grass, sit, bench.
But at the garden’s edge, that old bird,
neither pink nor cheery,
chased away three times now,
his real nanny. Or so she says—who knows.
He wants to go to her. Another tantrum.
What a shame. This time he came so close.
Snapshot of a Crowd
In the snapshot of a crowd,
my head’s seventh from the edge,
or maybe fourth from the left,
or twenty-eighth from the bottom;
my head is I don’t know which,
no longer on its own shoulders,
just like the rest (and vice versa),
neither clearly male nor female;
whatever it signifies
is of no significance,
and the Spirit of the Age
may just glance its way, at best;
my head is statistical,
it consumes its steel per capita
globally and with composure;
shamelessly predictable,
complacendy replaceable;
as if I didn’t even own it
in my own and separate way;
as if it were one skull of many
found unnamed in strip-mined graveyards
and preserved so well that one
forgets that its owner’s gone;
as if it were already there,
my head, any-, everyone’s—
where its memories, if any,
must reach deep into the future.
Going Home
He came home. Said nothing.
It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong.
He lay down fully dressed.
Pulled the blanket over his head.
Tucked up his knees.
He’s nearly forty, but not at the moment.
He exists just as he did inside his mother’s womb,
clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness.
Tomorrow he’ll give a lecture
on homeostasis in megagalactic cosmonautics.
For now, though, he has curled up and gone to sleep.
Discovery
I believe in the great discovery.
I believe in the man who will make the discovery.
I believe in the fear of the man who will make the discovery.
I believe in his face going white,
his queasiness, his upper lip drenched in cold sweat.
I believe in the burning of his notes,
burning them into ashes,
burning them to the last scrap.
I believe in the scattering of numbers,
scattering them without regret.
I believe in the man’s haste,
in the precision of his movements,
in his free will.
I believe in the shattering of tablets,
the pouring out of liquids,
the extinguishing of rays.
I am convinced this will end well,
that it will not be too late,
that it will take place without witnesses.
I’m sure no one will find out what happened,
not the wife, not the wall,
not even the bird that might squeal in its song.
I believe in the refusal to take part.
I believe in the ruined career.
I believe in the wasted years of work.
I believe in the secret taken to the grave.
These words soar for me beyond all rules
without seeking support from actual examples.
My faith is strong, blind, and without foundation.
Dinosaur Skeleton
Beloved Brethren,
we have before us an example of incorrect proportions.
Behold! the dinosaur’s skeleton looms above—
Dear Friends,
on the left we see the tail trailing into one infinity,
on the right, the neck juts into another—
Esteemed Comrades,
in between, four legs that finally mired in the slime
beneath this hillock of a trunk—
Gentle Citizens,
nature does not err, but it loves its little joke:
please note the laughably small head—
Ladies, Gentlemen,
a head this size does not have room for foresight,
and that is why its owner is extinct—
Honored Dignitaries,
a mind too small, an appetite too large,
more senseless sleep than prudent apprehension—
Distinguished Guests,
we’re in far better shape in this regard,
life is beautiful and the world is ours—
Venerated Delegation,
the starry sky above the thinking reed
and moral law within it—
Most Reverend Deputation,
such success does not come twice
and perhaps beneath this single sun alone—
Inestimable Council,
how deft the hands,
how eloquent the lips,
what a head on these shoulders—
Supremest of Courts,
so much responsibility in place of a vanished tail—
A Speech at the Lost-and-Found
I lost a few goddesses while moving south to north,
and also some gods while moving east to west.
I let several stars go out for good, they can’t be traced.
An island or two sank on me, they’re lost at sea.
I’m not even sure exactly where I left my claws,
who’s got my fur coat, who’s living in my shell.
My siblings died the day I left for dry land
and only one small bone recalls that anniversary in me.
I’ve shed my skin, squandered vertebrae and legs,
taken leave of my senses time and again.
I’ve long since closed my third eye to all that,
washed my fins of it and shrugged my branches.
Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me
how little now remains, one first person sing., temporarily
declined in human form, just now making such a fuss
about a blue umbrella left yesterday on a bus.
Astonishment
Why after all this one and not the rest?
Why this specific self, not in a nest,
but a house? Sewn up not in scales, but skin?
Not topped off by a leaf, but by a face?
Why on earth now, on Tuesday of all days,
and why on earth, pinned down by this star’s pin?
In spite of years of my not being here?
In spite of seas of all these dates and fates,
these cells, celestials, and coelenterates?
What is it really that made me appear
neither an inch nor half a globe too far,
neither a minute nor aeons too early?
What made me fill myself with me so squarely?
Why am I staring now into the dark
and muttering this unending monologue
just like the growling thing we call a dog?
Birthday
So much world all at once—how it rustles and bustles!
Moraines and morays and morasses and mussels,
the flame, the flamingo, the flounder, the feather—
how to line them all up, how to put them together?
All the thickets and crickets and creepers and creeks!
The bee
ches and leeches alone could take weeks.
Chinchillas, gorillas, and sarsaparillas—
thanks so much, but all this excess of kindness could kill us.
Where’s the jar for this burgeoning burdock, brooks’ babble,
rooks’ squabble, snakes’ squiggle, abundance, and trouble?
How to plug up the gold mines and pin down the fox,
how to cope with the lynx, bobolinks, streptococs!
Take dioxide: a lightweight, but mighty in deeds;
what about octopodes, what about centipedes?
I could look into prices, but don’t have the nerve:
these are products I just can’t afford, don’t deserve.
Isn’t sunset a little too much for two eyes
that, who knows, may not open to see the sun rise?
I am just passing through, it’s a five-minute stop.
I won’t catch what is distant; what’s too close, I’ll mix up.
While trying to plumb what the void’s inner sense is,
I’m bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies.
What a loss when you think how much effort was spent
perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent
for the one-time appearance, which is all they’re allowed,
so aloofly precise and so fragilely proud.
Interview with a Child
The Master hasn’t been among us long.
That’s why he lies in wait in every corner.
Covers his eyes and peeks through the cracks.
Faces the wall, then suddenly turns around.
The Master rejects outright the ridiculous thought
that a table out of sight goes on being a table nonstop,
that a chair behind our backs stays stuck in chairlike bounds
and doesn’t even try to fly the coop.
True, it’s hard to catch the world being different.
The apple tree slips back under the window before you can blink.
Incandescent sparrows always grow dim just in time.
Little pitchers have big ears and pick up every sound.
The nighttime closet acts as dull as its daytime twin.
The drawer does its best to assure the Master
it holds only what it’s been given.
And no matter how fast you open the Brothers Grimm,
the princess always manages to take her seat again.
“They sense I’m a stranger here,” the Master sighs,
“they won’t let a new kid play their private games.”
Since how can it be that whatever exists
can only exist in one way,
an awful situation, for there’s no escaping yourself,
no pause, no transformation? In a humble from-here-to-here?
A fly caught in a fly? A mouse trapped in a mouse?
A dog never let off its latent chain?
A fire that can’t come up with anything better
than burning the Master’s trustful finger one more time?
Is this the definitive, actual world:
scattered wealth that can’t be gathered,
useless luxury, forbidden options?
“No,” the Master cries, and stomps all the feet
he can muster—for such great despair
that beetle’s six legs wouldn’t be enough.
Allegro ma Non Troppo
Life, you’re beautiful (I say)
you just couldn’t get more fecund,
more befrogged or nightingaley,
more anthillful or sproutspouting.
I’m trying to court life’s favor,
to get into its good graces,
to anticipate its whims.
I’m always the first to bow,
always there where it can see me
with my humble, reverent face,
soaring on the wings of rapture,
falling under waves of wonder.
Oh how grassy is this hopper,
how this berry ripely rasps.
I would never have conceived it
if I weren’t conceived myself!
Life (I say) I’ve no idea
what I could compare you to.
No one else can make a pine cone
and then make the pine cone’s clone.
I praise your inventiveness,
bounty, sweep, exactitude,
sense of order—gifts that border
on witchcraft and wizardry.
I just don’t want to upset you,
tease or anger, vex or rile.
For millennia, I’ve been trying
to appease you with my smile.
I tug at life by its leaf hem:
will it stop for me, just once
momentarily forgetting
to what end it runs and runs?
Autotomy
In danger, the holothurian cuts itself in two.
It abandons one self to a hungry world
and with the other self it flees.
It violently divides into doom and salvation,
retribution and reward, what has been and what will be.
An abyss appears in the middle of its body
between what instantly become two foreign shores.
Life on one shore, death on the other.
Here hope and there despair.
If there are scales, the pans don’t move.
If there is justice, this is it.
To die just as required, without excess.
To grow back just what’s needed from what’s left.
We, too, can divide ourselves, it’s true.
But only into flesh and a broken whisper.
Into flesh and poetry.
The throat on one side, laughter on the other,
quiet, quickly dying out.
Here the heavy heart, there non omnis moriar—
just three little words, like a flight’s three feathers.
The abyss doesn’t divide us.
The abyss surrounds us.
In memoriam Halina Poświatowska