3rd picture
seeing the ox
not the flesh
not the image
of the flesh
not the bone
nor the clicking
of the bone
not the brain
wearing its mask
not the mind
nor its disguises
not this me
not that me
now here where
no thing is defined
we are coming to the ox
4th picture
catching the ox
i whisper come
and something comes
i am cautioned by the hands
5th picture
herding the ox
the hands refuse to gather
they sit in their pockets as i
command ox and enhance my name
i am lucille who masters ox
ox is the one lucille masters
hands caution me again
what can be herded
is not ox
6th picture
coming home on the ox’s back
i mount the ox
and we shamble
on toward the city together
our name is inflated
as we move lucille
who has captured ox
ox who supports lucille
we meet a man who wears
authority he defines ox
describes him
the man claims ox
i claim the man
7th picture
the ox forgotten leaving the man alone
i have been arriving
fifty years parents
children lovers
have walked with me
eating me like cake
and i am a good baker
somewhere i was going
fifty years
hands shiver in their pockets
dearly beloved
where is ox
8th picture
the ox and the man both gone out of sight
man is not ox
i am not ox
no thing is ox
all things are ox
9th picture
returning to the origin back to the source
what comes
when you whisper ox
is not
the ox
ox
begins in silence
and ends
in the folding
of hands
10th picture
entering the city with bliss-bestowing hands
we have come to the gates
of the city
the hands begin to move
i ask of them
only forgiveness
they tremble as they rise
end of meditation
what is ox
ox is
what
note
Ten Oxherding Pictures is an allegorical series composed as a training guide for Chinese Buddhist monks. The pictures are attributed to kaku-an shi-en, twelfth-century Chinese Zen master. I was unaware of them until after these poems were written. I had only read the titles of the pictures.
Uncollected Poems
(2006–2010)
Book of Days (2006)
birth-day
today we are possible.
the morning, green and laundry-sweet,
opens itself and we enter
blind and mewling.
everything waits for us:
the snow kingdom
sparkling and silent
in its glacial cap,
the cane fields
shining and sweet
in the sun-drenched south.
as the day arrives
with all its clumsy blessings
what we will become
waits in us like an ache.
godspeak: out of paradise
what more could you ask than this
good earth, good sky?
you are like mad children
set in a good safe bed
who by morning
will have torn the crib apart
and be howling on a cold floor
among the ruins.
lucifer morning-star to man-kind after the fall: in like kind
bright things
winged and unwinged
fall still
through the dark closets of night.
the hand that made them
made you, made me:
the same perfect reckless hand.
will you still insist
you cannot understand
how it is possible to stumble,
one eye filling with darkness,
the other bright with heaven-light,
with its unreachable unbearable glory?
man-kind: in image of
we learn what it is to live
inside the enemy’s skin:
ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
the spirit lodged in us
like a stone
riding out the difficult light.
angelspeak
god keeps himself in a place now
so far above the mortal and immortal worlds
that in order for us to abandon him again
we’d have to hurl ourselves
from such a height that
to survive another fall would be impossible.
mother-tongue: the land of nod
true, this isn’t paradise
but we come at last to love it
for the sweet hay and the flowers rising,
for the corn lining up row on row,
for the mourning doves who
open the darkness with song,
for warm rains
and forgiving fields,
and for how, each day,
something that loves us
tries to save us.
mother-tongue: to the child just born
if i were eloquent in your language
i would try to tell you
how it is
when something difficult loves you,
how it is
when you begin to love it back,
how this can
cost you everything.
mother-tongue: after the child’s death
tell me this one thing, god:
in which room of the heart
is the fortress,
is the inside wall that saves you?
mother-tongue: after the flood
the rain repeats its story
until we have it by heart,
always the same.
lord, in between
the solitudes of birth and death
the solitudes of life
will almost do us in.
the rainbow bears witness
you will see him one day just as you see me:
hung between earth and heaven,
unwilling to relinquish one for the other,
held fast in the swift glory,
in the bittersweet martyrdom of love.
nineveh: waiting
everything here will grow ocean-wise,
even the man, sea-wall strong,
here where Leviathan
will spit him out one day:
a half-dead, luke-warm thing.
though he will turn inland
away from the terrible journey,
away from this unloved city,
he will find that even its memory
will cling, like salt,
to every thing.
mother-tongue: babylon
our children will not remember a place
where the wind does not sleep at night like this,
at ease in the arms of trees.
they will know no waters
more lovely than these
where we, in our exile, weep.
though we are lovely,
we suffer from such loneliness,
the way even thes
e moonlit waters would suffer
if only the blind stars looked on
night after night after night.
who could bear for long
the weight of such beauty as this?
mother-tongue: to man-kind
all that i am asking is
that you see me as something
more than a common occurrence,
more than a woman in her ordinary skin.
godspeak
little ones,
small and treacherous,
why would you believe that I punish you
who punish each other relentlessly
and with such enthusiasm?
mother-tongue: we are dying
no failure in us
that we can be hurt like this,
that we can be torn.
death is a small stone
from the mountain we were born to.
we put it in a pocket
and carry it with us
to help us find our way home.
mother-tongue: in a dream before she died
jesus was in the living room
wearing her blue housecoat.
he raised the blinds
to let the morning in.
then he went to the door
and freed the parakeet.
the last thing he did
before he left was to turn
all her fresh-baked bread
back to stones.
sodom and gomorrah
1. what was
mirror-images:
twin cities like two bodies
blasted in a single furnace
2. what is
drawn here by the after-burn of light,
they are too frail in sin
to be any good at it:
the men drowning
in the darkness of their own hearts,
in the weight of commandments
that broke at the ends of their fingers
and the women
like wronged angels and
fallen things: no children
will hold in the cyanide nests of their bodies.
3. what waits
house of the rope
house of the razor
temple of bullets and pills:
the bright doors line up
and the knowing stars
ride out the whole incendiary night.
prodigal
illusion is
your prettiest trick.
free will, you said.
but all the roads
that seemed to lead away
have circled back again to you,
old father, old necessity.
man-kind: over the jordan, into the promised land
all those years in a cold river,
treading water,
only to set foot on dry land again
and find nothing waiting here for me,
only to find milk and honey
screaming at me
from the other side.
lucifer morning-star
the wings are myth:
had i wings
i would have flown by now.
what i have are feet
that never carry me where i need to be
and a road that does not go
all the way in any direction.
time is what is left to me,
the one immortal angel always falling
far from the glory gallows
and the resurrection.
armageddon
i am all that will be
left to them in that day.
men will come here, full armed,
to make their last war.
their bodies will
litter this valley floor.
they will lie here together then,
intimate and quiet as lovers,
their ruby hearts still bleeding through in places.
man-kind: digging a trench to hell
did i go deep enough?
i’ve exhausted the earth,
the plentiful garden,
the woman,
myself.
i’ve exhausted even the darkness now.
are you not done with me yet?
godspeak: kingdom come
you, with your point-blank fury,
what if i told you
this is all there ever was:
this earth, this garden, this woman,
this one precious, perishable kingdom.
Last Poems & Drafts
(2006–2010)
6/27/06
seventy
my bones are ice
there is a blizzard here
my memories are frozen
sharp with loneliness
every hair of my body
has turned to snow
my mother never spoke of this
she died at forty-four
leaving me to wonder
who loses who wins
some points along some of the meridians
heart
spirit path
spirit gate
blue green spirit
little rushing in
utmost source
little storehouse
lung
very great opening
crooked marsh
cloud gate
middle palace
stomach
receive tears
great welcome
people welcome
heavenly pivot
earth motivator
abundant splendor
inner courtyard
liver
walk between
great esteem
happy calm
gate of hope
kidney
bubbling spring
water spring
great mountain stream
deep valley
spirit storehouse
spirit seal
spirit burial ground
chi cottage
large intestine
joining of the valleys
1st interval
2nd interval
heavenly shoulder bone
welcome of a glance
spleen
supreme light
great enveloping
encircling glory
sea of blood
3 yin crossing
gates
stone gate
gate of life
inner frontier gate
outer frontier gate
untitled
and if i could name this
in a frenzy of understanding
it would be called hunger
that sits in a womans spaces
and it would be called need
that bleeds into the bones
and it would be called bowl
that cannot be filled and
heart melting into never and
no and yes and and
she leans out from the mirror,
big-breasted woman
with skinny legs. “Put this
into your poems,” she grimaces,
raising her gown above her head.
and there is nothing there, not
the shadow of paradise even,
only the empty glass and the echo
of bitch bitch bitch.
Titled
and stamped and approved
so that we fit into the file
the world understands but in
the spaces between the lines
there is printed, “poet,
no blame, no name, no why.”
new orleans
when the body floated by me
on the river it was a baby
body thin and brown
it was not my alexandra
my noah
not even my river
The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 Page 22