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Collected Poems, 1953-1993

Page 11

by John Updike


  All riots, sensual or for a cause;

  Vast village where the wise enjoy the young;

  Refuge of the misshapen and unformed;

  Stylistic medley (Richardson’s stout brown,

  Colonial scumble, Puseyite cement,

  And robber-baron Gothic pile their slates

  In floating soot, beneath house-tower domes

  The playtime polychrome of M & Ms);

  Fostering mother: time, that doth dissolve

  Granite like soap and dries to bone all tears,

  Devoured my quartet of student years

  And, stranger still, the twenty minus one

  Since I was hatched and certified your son.

  A generation steeped in speed and song,

  In Doctor Spock, TV, and denim chic

  Has come and gone since, Harvard, we swapped vows

  And kept them—mine, to grease the bursar’s palm,

  To double-space submitted work, to fill

  All bluebooks set before me (spilling ink

  As avidly as puppies lap a bowl

  Till empty of the blankness of the milk),

  To wear a tie and jacket to my meals,

  To drop no water bags from windows, nor

  Myself (though Werther, Kierkegaard, and Lear

  All sang the blues, the deans did not, and warned

  That suicide would constitute a blot

  Upon one’s record), to obey the rules

  Yclept “parietal” (as if the walls, not I,

  Were guilty if a girl were pinched between

  Them after ten); in short, to strive, to bear,

  To memorize my notes, to graduate:

  These were my vows. Yours were, in gourmet terms,

  To take me in, raw as I was, and chew

  And chew and chew for one quadrennium,

  And spit me out, by God, a gentleman.

  We did our bits. All square, and no regrets.

  On my side, little gratitude; but why?

  So many other men—the founding race

  Of farmer-divines, the budding Brahmins

  Of Longfellow’s time, the fragile sprats

  Of fortunes spun on sweatshop spindles

  Along the Merrimack, the golden crew

  Of raccoon-coated hip-flask-swiggers and

  Ritz-tea-dance goers, the continual tribe

  Of the studious, the smart, and the shy—

  Had left their love like mortar ’twixt your bricks,

  Like sunlight synthesized within your leaves,

  Had made your morning high noon of their days

  And clung, there seemed no need for me to stay.

  I came and paid, a trick, and stole away.

  The Fifties—Cold-War years par excellence—

  Loom in memory’s mists as an iceberg, slow

  In motion and sullenly radiant.

  I think, those years, it often snowed because

  My freshman melancholy took the print

  Of a tread-marked boot in slush, crossing to Latin

  With Cerberean Dr. Havelock

  In Sever 2, or to Lamont’s Math 1

  With some tall nameless blameless section man

  To whom the elegant was obvious,

  Who hung Greek letters on his blackboard curves

  Like trinkets on a Christmas tree and who

  I hope is happy in Schenectady,

  Tending toward zero, with children my age then

  To squint confused into his lucent mind.

  There was a taste of coffee and of cold.

  My parents’ house had been a hothouse world

  Of complicating, inward-feeding jokes.

  Here, wit belonged to the dead; the wintry smiles

  Of snowmen named Descartes and Marx and Milton

  Hung moonlit in the blizzards of our brains.

  Homesick, I walked to class with eyes downcast

  On heelprints numberless as days to go.

  And when bliss came, as it must to sophomores,

  Snow toppled still, but evening-tinted mauve,

  Exploding on the windows of the Fogg

  Like implorations of a god locked out

  While we were sealed secure inside, in love,

  Or warmly close—but close enough, we felt,

  To make a life or not, as chances willed.

  Meanwhile there were cathedral fronts to know

  And cigarettes to share—our breaths straight smoke—

  And your bicycle, snickering, to wheel

  Along the wet diagonal of the walk

  That led Radcliffewards through the snowy Yard.

  Kiss, kiss, the flakes surprised our faces; oh,

  The arching branches overhead exclaimed,

  Gray lost in gray like limestone ribs at Rheims;

  Wow-ow!—as in a comic-strip balloon

  A siren overstated its alarm,

  Bent red around a corner hurtling toward

  Extragalactic woe, and left behind

  Our blue deserted world of silent storm.

  Tick, tick-a, tick-a, tick, your bike spokes spake

  Well-manneredly, not wishing to impose

  Their half-demented repetitious thoughts

  Upon your voice, or mine: what did we say?

  Your voice was like your skin, an immanence,

  A latent tangency that swelled my cells,

  Young giant deafened by my whirling size.

  And in your room—brave girl, you had a room,

  You were a woman, with inner space to fill,

  Leased above Sparks Street, higher than a cloud—

  Water whistled itself to tea, cups clicked,

  Your flaxen flat-mate’s quick Chicago voice

  Incited us to word games, someone typed,

  The telephone and radio checked in

  With bulletins, and, nicest noise of all,

  All noises died, the snow kept silent watch,

  The slanting back room private as a tent

  Resounded with the rustle of our blood,

  The susurration of surrendered clothes.

  We took the world as given. Cigarettes

  Were twenty-several cents a pack, and gas

  As much per gallon. Sex came wrapped in rubber

  And veiled in supernatural scruples—call

  Them chivalry. A certain breathlessness

  Was felt; perhaps the Bomb, which after all

  Went muSHROOM! as we entered puberty,

  Waking us from the newspaper-nightmare

  Our childhoods had napped through, was realer then;

  Our lives, at least, were not assumed to be

  Our right; we lived, by shifts, on sufferance.

  The world contained policemen, true, and these

  Should be avoided. Governments were bunk,

  But well-intentioned. Blacks were beautiful

  But seldom met. The poor were with ye always.

  We thought one war as moral as the next,

  Believed that life was tragic and absurd,

  And were absurdly cheerful, just like Sartre.

  We loved John Donne and Hopkins, Yeats and Pound,

  Plus all things convolute and dry and pure.

  Medieval history was rather swank;

  Psychology was in the mind; abstract

  Things grabbed us where we lived; the only life

  Worth living was the private life; and—last,

  Worst scandal in this characterization—

  We did not know we were a generation.

  Forgive us, Harvard; Royce and William James

  Could not construe a Heaven we could reach.

  We went forth, married young, and bred like mink.

  We seized what jobs the System offered, raked

  Our front yards, stayed together for the kids,

  And chalked up meekly as a rail-stock-holder

  Each year’s depreciation of our teeth,

  Our skin-tone, hair, and confidence. The white
>
  Of Truman’s smile and Eisenhower’s brow

  Like mildew furs our hearts. The possible

  Is but a suburb, Harvard, of your city.

  Seniors, come forth; we crave your wrath and pity.

  Commencement, Pingree School

  Among these North Shore tennis tans I sit,

  In seersucker dressed, in small things fit;

  Within a lovely tent of white I wait

  To see my lovely daughter graduate.

  Slim boughs of blossom tap the tent and stamp

      Their shadows like a bower on the cloth.

  The brides in twos glide down the grassy ramp

      To graduation’s candle, moth and moth.

  The Master makes his harrumphs. Music. Prayer.

      Demure and close in rows, the seniors sway.

  Class loyalty solidifies the air.

      At every name, a body wends her way

  Through greenhouse shade and rustle to receive

  A paper of divorce and endless leave.

  As each accepts her scroll of rhetoric,

  Up pops a Daddy with a Nikon. Click.

  Conversation

  My little girl keeps talking to me.

  “Why do you look so sad?” she asks,

  and, “Isn’t Mommy beautiful?”

  As if she knows next summer she

  will be too near a woman’s state

  to be so bold, she propositions,

  “Let’s run along the beach!”

  So, hand in hand, we feel to fly

  until as if with grains of sand

  our skin turns gritty where we touch.

  We flirt and giggle, driving back.

  With nervous overkill of love

  she comes to see me hammer

  at the barn, and renders praise:

  “You must be the carefullest shingler

  in all the world.” Indeed, I snap

  the blue-chalked line

  like a ringmaster’s whip, and stare

  in aligning the cedar butts

  as if into a microscope whose slides

  have sectioned the worms of my mind.

  At night, guarding her treasure,

  watching me frown and read, she falls

  asleep, her morning-brushed hair

  gone stiff like straw, her braces

  a slender cage upon her humid face.

  Too heavy to lift, slumped helpless

  beneath the power of my paternal gaze,

  her half-formed body begs,

  “Don’t leave. Don’t leave me yet.”

  Melting

  Airily ice congeals on high

  from Earth’s calm breath and slantwise falls

  and six-armed holds its crystal faith until

  Sun, remembering his lordly duty, burns.

  Commences then this vast collection:

  gutters, sewers, rivulets

  relieve the finned drift’s weight

  and the pace-packed pavement unsheathe.

  It glistens, drips, purls—the World:

  brightness steaming, elixir sifting

  by gravity’s simplicity from all that will silt.

  The round-mouthed drains, the square-mouthed grates

  take, and they take; down tunnels runs

  the dead storm’s soul to the unmoved sea.

  Query

  Pear tree, why blossom?

  Why push this hard glitter

  of life from your corpse?

  Headless and hollow,

  each major limb broken

  by old storm or snowfall,

  you startle the spring.

  Doesn’t it hurt?

  Your petals say not,

  froth from your shell

  like laughter, like breath.

  But (your branchlets spew up

  in an agony’s

  spoutings) it must.

  Heading for Nandi

  Out of Honolulu

  heading for Nandi

  I ask them, “Where’s Nandi?”

  The man tells me, “Fiji.”

  The airport is open

  the night sky black panels

  between cement pillars.

  I wish I had a woman.

  Around me Australians

  are holding hands matily

  as back in Waikiki

  the honeymooners strolled.

  By daylight bikinis

  strolled bare on the pavement

  the honeymoon brides

  with waists white as milk

  and the Japanese couples

  posed each for the other

  the women as dainty

  as self-painted dolls

  and the watching Polynesians

  laughed quick as Fayaway

  dark as cooking chocolate

  that always tasted bitter

  and the haunted Americans

  with flatland accents

  in plastic leis wandered

  the blue streets of love.

  From the taxi I witnessed

  two men embracing

  embracing and crying.

  I assumed they were sailors.

  Nandi? I’ll see it

  or die in these hours

  that face me like panels

  in a chapel by Rothko.

  I wish I had a woman

  to touch me or tell me

  she is frightened to go there

  or would be, but for me.

  Sleepless in Scarsdale

  Prosperity has stolen stupor from me.

  The terraced lawn beneath my window

  has drained off fatigue; the alertness

  of the happy seizes me like rage.

  Downstairs, the furniture matches.

  The husband and wife are in love.

  One son at Yale, another in law,

  a third bowls them over in high school.

  I rejoice. The bed is narrow.

  I long for squalor’s relaxation,

  fantasizing a dirty scene

  and mopping the sheet with a hanky.

  There is a tension here. The books

  look arranged. The bathroom

  has towels of too many sizes.

  I weigh myself on the scales.

  Somewhere, a step. Muffled.

  The stairs are carpeted.

  A burglar has found us. A son

  is drunk. The wife desires me.

  But nothing happens, not even

  oblivion. Life can be too clean.

  Success like a screeching of brakes

  pollutes the tunnel of silence.

  Mock-Tudor, the houses are dark.

  Even these decent trees sleep.

  I await the hours guiltily,

  hoping for one with whom I can make a deal.

  Note to the Previous Tenants

  Thank you for leaving the bar of soap,

  the roll of paper towels,

  the sponge mop, the bucket.

  · · ·

  I tried to scrub the white floor clean,

  discovered it impossible,

  and realized you had tried, too.

  Often, no doubt. The long hair in the sink

  was a clue to what? Were you

  boys or girls or what?

  How often did you dance on the floor?

  The place was broom clean. Your lives

  were a great wind that had swept by.

  Thank you; even the dirt

  seemed a gift, a continuity

  underlying the breaking of leases.

  And the soap, green in veins

  like meltable marble, and curved

  like a bit of an ideal woman.

  Lone, I took a bath with your soap

  and had no towel not paper ones

  and dried in the air like the floor.

  Pale Bliss

  Splitting a bottle of white wine

  with a naked woman

  in the middle of the day.


  Mime

  on the black stage he

  was in an imaginary box

  mime mime mime mime mi

  its inner surface stopped his

  hand. the audience gasped

  amazing amazing amazing ama

  he climbed stairs that were

  not there, walked and went

  nowhere nowhere nowhere no

  the real world was what his

  head told his hands to delimit

  in air in air in air in a

  chill certain as glass. the

  other world was fuzzy and

  treacherous treacherous trea

  he took a plane, it began

  to fall, the passengers shrieked

  help o God o help help he

  the mime imagined a box.

  his feet hit glass, the plane’s

  fall halted. up, up. praise be

  mimesis mimesis mimesis mime

  Golfers

  One-gloved beasts in cleats, they come clattering

  down to the locker room in bogus triumph, bulls

  with the pics of their pars still noisy in them,

  breathing false fire of stride, strike, stride, and putt.

  We dread them, their brown arms and rasp of money,

  their slacks the colors of ice cream, their shoes,

  whiter than bones, that stipple the downtrodden green

  and take an open stance on the backs of the poor.

  Breathing of bourbon, crowing, they strip:

  the hair of their chests is grizzled, their genitals

  hang dead as practice balls, their blue legs twist;

  where, now, are their pars and their furor?

  Emerging from the shower shrunken, they are men,

  mere men, old boys, lost, the last hole a horror.

  Poisoned in Nassau

  By the fourth (or is it the fifth?)

  day, one feels poisoned—by

  last night’s rum, this morning’s sun,

  the tireless pressure of leisure.

 

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