over my head. Sent 500 insects to Berlin.
When the money comes from Leyden we'll buy coats
and shoes. Chopped five lengths of ash. Both hens laid.
Cleaned grain in the wind. Baby's coffin—I owe
two basswood boards…when the money comes from Leyden.
He saw Wilson's Phalarope, the beauty
among the waders. Grandchildren played
with his mounted birds. Imagine playing horse
with a pink flamingo, sighs one of them who now
has grandchildren of her own. And how they shone
gathered around the first kerosene lamp.
In the ditch by the old turnpike that still crosses
the marsh he found a new aster and gave it his name.
…
The trouble with war for a botanist—
he daren't drop out of the line of march
to examine a flower. Or when half the world
is shell-burst, observes a sky-exotic attract
a bomber-bird.
…
Dear little curlew
how are you on Willow St.
your ear on us sandpipers
as we bleat.
Soon after writing this draft, she would begin the substantial revisions that lead to “Shut up in woods,” poem XVIII of “FOR PAUL: GROUP TWO,” New Mexico Quarterly 21.1 (Spring 1951): 210. There it is revised to the present text with lines 1, 4-5, 6-9 enclosed in quotation marks. LN's “Changes in FOR PAUL” (Jan. 29, 1955) notes that she has removed the quotation marks.
Your father to me in your eighth summer: Unpublished in book form [FPOP].
Poem IV of “FOR PAUL: GROUP III” MS, dated Sept. 27, 1951.
“FOR PAUL: CHILD VIOLINIST,” Quarterly Review of Literature 8.2 (1955): 117.
On FPOP, LZ suggests that LN omit the poem. However, she saves lines 10-14 as the fifth stanza of the condensed version of another poem, “Dear Paul” (see p. 153).
To Paul now old enough to read: T&G, MLBW [FPOP, EA].
The present text has its origins in a much longer poem, an undated, possibly 1945, MS:
Crèvecoeur
Letters from an
American Farmer (1782)
What a shame, said my mind, or something that inspired my mind,
that here, with no masters to bleed us
thee shouldst have employed so many years tilling the earth
and destroying so many flowers and plants
without knowing their structures and uses…
In a little time I became acquainted with every
vegetable that grew in my neighborhood;
in proportion as I thought myself more learned,
proceeded further…
perched within a few feet of a humming bird,
its little eyes like diamonds reflecting light on every side,
elegantly finished in all parts,
quicker than thought.
Thought: man, an animal of prey, seems
to have bloodshed implanted in his heart.
We never speak of a hero of mathematics
or a hero of the knowledge of humanity.
Men are like plants, the goodness, flavour of the fruit
comes out of the soil in which they grow;
we are nothing but what we derive from the air,
climate, government, religion, and employment.
Men of law are plants that grow in soil cultivated by the hands of others,
once rooted extinguish every other vegetable around.
In some provinces only they have knowledge,
as the clergy in past centuries in Europe.
In Nantucket, but one lawyer finds the means to live,
grazing land held in common.
I once saw sixteen barrels of oil boiled out of the tongue of the whale.
No military here, no governors, no masters but the laws
and their civil code so light.
Happy, harmless, industrious people,
after death buried without pomp, prayers and ceremonies—
not a stone or monument erected—
their memory preserved by tradition.
I saw, indeed, several copies of Hudibras.
Astonishing how quick men learn who serve themselves.
At night the fireflies can be caught and used as a reading light.
A Russian came to me, interested in plants.
Why trouble to come to this country?
Who knows, he said, what revolutions Russia and America may one day
bring about.
(coda)
Men who work for themselves learn
fast. The firefly
two pairs of wings and a third to read
by
disappearing.
The next surviving draft is much revised. Poem V of “FOR PAUL: GROUP III” MS, dated Sept. 27, 1951, departs from the present text in stanza one:
To Paul reading books: Once
there lived a farmer, Crèvecoeur,
who tried to save his heart
from too much hurt.
and in line 17: Learn Crèvecoeur and learn fast
FPOP omits the above first stanza and retains the line 17 above.
Revised to the present text for Combustion 15/lsland 6 (n.d.): 32.
What horror to awake at night T&G, MLBW [FPOP].
Poem II of “FOR PAUL: Group III” MS, dated Sept. 27, 1951. Variant line 5 in MS and FPOP: I've spent my life doing nothing.
An undated letter from LZ to LN praises the poem, particularly its use of sound. LZ notes with approval echoes of T. S. Eliot's “Fragment of an Agon,” of Lord Rochester's “Ode to Nothing,” and Robert Burns's “This ae night.”
Sorrow moves in wide waves, T&G, MLBW [FPOP].
As poem I of the “FOR PAUL: GROUP FOUR” MS (undated, probably 1951), the poem merges with “Old Mother turns blue and from us,” creating a four-stanza poem.
By the time of FPOP, the four stanzas have divided into two discrete poems. At the end of “Sorrow moves in wide waves,” LN acknowledges her source: “(after Henry James).” LN ignores LZ's suggested omission of “illimitable” on FPOP.
In T&G the poem is subheaded “H.J.”
MLBW mistakenly capitalizes the first letter of line 2.
Jesse James and his brother Frank T&G, MLBW and May you have lumps in your mashed potatoes T&G, MLBW [FPOP, EA].
As poems VI and VII of “FOR PAUL: GROUP III,” these were independent poems until their linked appearance in T&G and MLBW.
Although “Jesse James and his brother Frank” is omitted from FPOP at the time of “Changes in FOR PAUL” (Jan. 29, 1955), I include it here for copytext reasons.
“May you have lumps in your mashed potatoes” appeared alone in Origin ser. 2, 2 (July 1961): 28.
Old Mother turns blue and from us, T&G, MLBW [FPOP].
In its “FOR PAUL: GROUP FOUR” MS appearance (undated, probably 1951) the poem forms the third and fourth stanzas of “Sorrow moves in wide waves.” Thereafter, it is an independent poem.
Origin ser. 2, 2 (July 1961): 28.
I hear the weather Unpublished [FPOP].
Very likely a descendant of the “weather poem” with a “fugue of r's” referred to by LZ in a letter to LN dated March 9, 1938.
Poem II of “FOR PAUL: GROUP FOUR” MS (undated, probably 1951), lines 3-4:
or is it my mother
breathing
“Changes in FOR PAUL” (Jan. 29, 1955) offers variant lines 3-4:
or is it my breathing
mother
Revised to present text for FPOP.
Dead T&G, MLBW [FPOP],
Poem III of “FOR PAUL: GROUP FOUR” MS (undated, probably 1951) is substantially different:
The shining brown steel casket—
What is its value really,
we already have a concrete vault.
“I don't know, they seem to want it.
Look at your automob
iles—”
She who wheeled dirt for flowers
lay there deaf to death
parked
in her burnished brown motorless automobile.
She could have grown a good rutabaga
in the burial ground
edged by woods.
What is life
in those woods one of her pallbearers
after a deer
“I like a damfool followed a deer
wanted to see her jump a fence
never'd seen a deer jump a fence—
pretty thing
the way she runs.”
FPOP and Black Mountain Review 6 (Spring 1956): 191, omit the opening line of the present text. In BMR it is part of a numbered group of “FOUR POEMS.”
Can knowledge be conveyed that isn't felt? Unpublished [FPOP].
Poem VII of “FOR PAUL: GROUP FOUR” MS (undated, probably 1951).
On FPOP, LZ suggests she omit “Generator boy, Paul,” in line 7.
Ten o'clock Unpublished [FPOP].
Poem I of the “FOR PAUL: GROUP SIX” MS, dated Oct. 22, 1952, is followed by three bullets and two additional stanzas:
Gun-night, said the kid next door,
hit the feathers, flatten,
tomorrow oil up your squeak box
and saw it off in Manhattan.
Who is this Shakespeer? Gimme a gander—
beard like a sea cook's. Rounded the Horn?
What kind of man is he? Why, of mankind.
Okay, like us, he was born.
“Changes in FOR PAUL” (Jan. 29, 1955) notes her omission of these stanzas.
On Aug. 30, 1955, MS sent to Dahlberg, the final line replaces “me” with “us.”
On FPOP, LZ suggests that she omit the entire poem.
Adirondack Summer Unpublished [FPOP].
Poem II of “FOR PAUL: GROUP SIX” MS, dated Oct. 22, 1952, where the poem is untitled.
On FPOP, LZ suggests that she condense the title “Adirondack Summer” to “Summer.”
A trace of this unpublished poem appears in “PAEAN TO PLACE,” stanza 20:
Maples to swing from
Pewee-glissando
Spelling of “peewee” in MS and FPOP changes to “pewee” in T&G and MLBW.
The slip of a girl-announcer: Unpublished [FPOP].
Poem III of “FOR PAUL: GROUP SIX” MS, dated Oct. 22, 1952.
LN to LZ, Aug. 12, 1952: “Your letter is TERRIFIC.…It prompts me to descend practically to doggerel.…Dare I use it FOR PAUL?” (NCZ 197).
Now go to the party, Unpublished in book form [FPOP].
Poem IV of “FOR PAUL: GROUP SIX” MS, dated Oct. 22, 1952.
Origin ser. 2, 2 (July 1961): 30.
Dear Paul: T&G, MLBW [FPOP, EA].
This is a condensation of the original five-page poem, titled in MS, “FOR PAUL: PART V” and dated Dec. 12, 1951:
Dear Paul:
the sheets of your father's book of poetry
are to be bound for England?
At last, after the hardships
He can say: take back to your ship
a gift from me,
something precious, a real good thing…
such as a friend gives to a friend.
You ask what kind of boats in my country
on my little river. 10
Black as those beside Troy
but sailless tar-preserve-black fish barges
and orange and Chinese red rowboats
in which the three virtues
knowledge, humanity, energy
infrequently ride.
Ask me rather what kind of people
—here they kick the book of poetry open—
because you can't keep people from water
they'll cut thru to it 20
rut thru in the soft
dig under and come up in the middle,
by water they go for Helen
in water seek their own image
fish Sunday's quiet
by water uncork their beer
on days off
to see light behave
double moon on the wave
water where bobbed likely the first life on earth. 30
Right of way—
you can't keep em from it.
Ask me what kind of children.
Who are the kids of the calm-moving wet,
of Saturday-Sunday parents.
One with listening eyes like yours
little Sat Sun shall we say
sits in the thinning wild rice
watching wide sky wash
away from the laundry. 40
One.
What we have is the Sunday school crowd
laying waste the countryside
with their long sticks.
Beat the grass
whip Queen Anne's lace
bow low, my family of young poplars
oh holy day
The sons and the daughters
on their way to water, 50
your floaters, your doters,
your wigglers, your little pond scum
turtle torturers, danglers of frogs
in any mud puddle
your wuttle-gutt goop longs
—they can't talk—
the pings and the ack acks
dealing death to the little green thing
cute kids
kee-yute tribe 60
who at six steer the motor boat
straight to the dock
No they can't talk
they combust
or they mush it
Dennie's the spitwit kid
chewer of seaweed inland
juices, breaks up into acids
related to what was his name
who could speak no English 70
his tongue runneth all on buttered fish
yet asleep in his army blankets
as sweet a child as any
And there's always the army
to make a man of him.
Take his brother, 19,
no better butter-mutter
no clear song, fished out
left town
empty in the head 80
swish swash
but good with three bullets on a knife
After me
backward
the cockpit
fell out
Give me silk
or nylon
and down
with your art 90
You saw Guppy the fleet type submarine, Paul
I give you Gulpy
To hear him
he could hold up his arm
and keep the bomb from falling
or he could drop it.
Frog jabber
grab her
she's mine to pierce
ready for love 100
Gloater, soaker, roaring river boater
emptied, poured out, done,
stick out your tongue
mammoth oar-muscle baby
The day of the giant armored fishes
was a clear thing
Five-year-old Chief Noise
guns strewn over his lawn
his Uncle a Justice
held us up one night by the garden gate 110
throws the cat by the tail at noon
cries to get her in out of the rain
after dark
He'll take no backwash from anybody
What does the father do?
He steals. I mean
he works for a steel company.
Well, why not?—
steals from himself
as they from him 120
his time, his life.
His pleasure in his work
flows by.
He's left loved
for the spending of his wages
on things he won't want.
All children begin with the life of the mind—
if there were no marsh or stream
imagine it
99 children go into business 130
selling angleworms,
the hundredth develops free fingers in John Sebastian brook
Boys who play the fiddle never amount to anything
the storekeeper screamed
with the radio in his face
so he raised his son to shop work
turn screws, grind scissors
and in the end own stores
force his rivals to the wall then buy em out
selling and buying 140
how are you dying
worn out at fifty
nevermind the mind
while poets and players
of serious song
stand the stress
All along the water
50,000 crusading children
beat their way to the pretty sea shells.
Find yourself a starfish and you'll see the sea open 150
And still there's no miracle.
Sold into slavery
sold
Brother
sold to the factory assembly line
for “a worthwhile goal—an automobile”
costing more than my house.
The boy overshot his goal at dusk
hit a cow on the road
that carried no lantern 160
jumped over the moon
slid into a grave ready-blossoming
—wild mustard and quack—
the car repaired
sold
Road boat upset
hooked as by love
the greatest thrill
since his tongue froze to the pump handle
this is the boy who'd defend you in war 170
and so doing crush you
haul over and love you
When other friendships are forgot
yours will still be hot
Put that in your Opus
5 f's for forte
One boy there was with a camera:
“I need nests 6 or 7 feet from the ground
and on which the sun shines
most of the day. Prothonotary, please. 180
I'm told if anybody knows where these nests are
it will be you.”
He was a minister's son
I never saw him—
driven off his course by the wind
Comes a measure marked autumn
the passing of the little summer people,
schools of leaves float downstream
past lonely piers
soft still-water twilight 190
morning ice on the minnow bucket
Riddle me this:
book
brook
Bach
unlock
ships'
gifts
and I'll tell you
how freedom grows 200
Two other MS versions of the five-page poem survive: one went to Dahlberg on Aug. 30, 1955, for inclusion in a proposed but never published anthology. It is titled “Part V of FOR PAUL, 9 year old violinist” and it includes the following variants:
Collecte Works Page 22