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and goodness needs no sacrifice.
The pity we give to nonlovers
is even more than they deserve.
We’re so astonished at ourselves,
what’s left to astonish us?
Not a rainbow in the night.
Not a butterfly in snow.
And when we sleep
we dream of parting.
But it’s a good dream,
it’s a good dream,
since we wake up from it.
Key
The key was here and now it’s gone.
How on earth do we get in?
Someone else may spot the key,
think, what’s it got to do with me,
then pick it up and walk along
tossing the little scrap of tin.
If the same thing ever happened
to the love I have for you,
who’d be the poorer by this one love?
The whole world, not just we two.
Nothing but a simple form
picked up by another hand,
it won’t open any door,
so let the rust do what it can.
No cards or stars or peacock’s cries:
this horoscope can’t end otherwise.
CALLING OUT TO YETI
1957
Night
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
So what did Isaac do?
I ask the priest at catechism.
Break the neighbor’s window with his ball?
Tear his new pants
on the fence post?
Did he steal pencils?
Scare the chickens?
Cheat on tests?
Leave the grownups
to their stupid sleep,
I’ve got to keep
watch until dawn.
The night is mute
but mute out of malice
and black
as the zeal of Abraham.
Where will I hide,
when God’s biblical eye
lands on me
as it landed on Isaac?
Ancient history.
God can resurrect you if he wants.
I pull the blanket over my head
in a chill of fear.
Something white
will flit along the window,
then rustle through the room,
like a bird or the wind.
But no bird has
such enormous wings,
no wind wears
such a long gown.
The Lord God will pretend
he flew in by accident,
there must be some mistake,
then he’ll take my father
to the kitchen and hatch plots,
blow a giant trumpet in his ear.
And at the crack of dawn
my father will drag me along,
I’ll go, I’ll go,
dark with hatred.
More defenseless
than November leaves,
I won’t believe in goodness
or love.
No trust,
nothing can be trusted.
No caring,
no more live heart in my chest.
When it happens, as it has to happen,
when it happens,
a dried mushroom will be beating,
not a heart.
The Lord God waits,
from a balcony of clouds he checks,
does the stake light,
is it nice and even,
and he sees
how to die out of spite,
since I’ll die,
refusing to be saved!
From that night
much worse than any bad dream,
from that night
much worse than loneliness,
the Lord God began
inch by inch
day by day
to move
from literalness
to metaphor.
Hania
Now see, here’s Hania, the good servant.
And those aren’t frying pans, you know, they’re halos.
And that’s a holy image, knight and serpent.
The serpent means vanity in this vale of woes.
And that’s no necklace, that’s her rosary.
Her shoes have toes turned up from daily kneeling.
Scarf dark as all the nights she sits up, weary,
and waits to hear the morning church bells pealing.
Scrubbing the mirror once, she saw a devil:
Bless me, Father, he shot a nasty look.
Blue with yellow stripes, eyes black as kettles—
you don’t think he’ll write me in his book?
And so she gives at Mass, she prays the mysteries,
and buys a small heart with a silver flame.
Since work began on the new rectory,
the devils have all run away in shame.
The cost is high, preserving souls from sin,
but only old folks come here, scraping by.
With so much of nothing, razor-thin,
Hania would vanish in the Needle’s Eye.
May, renounce your hues for wintery gray.
Leafy bough, throw off your greenery.
Clouds, repent; sun, cast your beams away.
Spring, save your blooms for heaven’s scenery.
I never heard her laughter or her tears.
Raised humble, she owns nothing but her skin.
A shadow walks beside her—her mortal fears,
her tattered kerchief yammers in the wind.
Nothing Twice
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with exactly the same kisses.
One day, perhaps, some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you’re here with me,
I can’t help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It’s in its nature not to stay:
today is always gone tomorrow.
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we’re different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
Flagrance
So here we are, the naked lovers,
lovely, as we both agree,
with eyelids as our only covers
we lie in the dark, invisibly.
But they already know, they know,
all four corners, the night air,
the upright table and the stove,
suspicious shadows fill the chairs.
The tea grows cold; the cups know why,
although the reason’s left unsaid.
Swift must lay his hopes aside,
his book lies open, but unread.
As for the birds? I saw them flying
yesterday as, without shame,
they scrawled across the open sky
the letters spelling out your name.
As for the trees? Well, can’t you hear
what they keep whispering about?
You say
it’s in the atmosphere,
but how’d the atmosphere find out?
A moth flies in the open window
on furry wings, it hovers first,
then soars above and swoops below,
and stubbornly hums over us.
Perhaps it catches what we miss
with its uncanny insect sight?
I didn’t see, you didn’t guess,
our hearts were glowing in the night.
Buffo
First, our love will die, alas,
then two hundred years will pass,
then we’ll meet again at last—
this time in the theater, played
by a couple of comedians,
him and her, the public’s darlings.
Just a little farce, with songs,
patter, jokes, and final bows,
a vaudeville comedy of manners,
certain to bring down the house.
You’ll amuse them endlessly
on the stage with your cravat
and your petty jealousy.
So will I, love’s silly pawn,
with my heart, my joy, my crown,
my heart broken, my joy gone,
my crown tumbling to the ground.
To the laughter’s loud refrain,
we will meet and part again,
seven mountains, seven rivers
multiplying our pain.
If we haven’t had enough
of despair, grief, all that stuff,
lofty words will kill us off.
Then we’ll stand up, take our bows:
hope that you’ve enjoyed our show.
Every patron with his spouse
will applaud, get up, and go.
They’ll reenter their lives’ cages,
where love’s tiger sometimes rages,
but the beast’s too tame to bite.
We’ll remain the odd ones out,
silly heathens in their fools’ caps,
listening to the small bells ringing
day and night.
Commemoration
They made love in a hazel grove,
beneath the little suns of dew;
dry leaves and twigs got in their hair
and dry dirt too.
Swallow’s heart, have
mercy on them.
They both knelt down on the lakeshore,
they combed the dry leaves from their hair;
small fish, a star’s converging rays,
swam up to stare.
Swallow’s heart, have
mercy on them.
Reflected in the rippling lake,
trees trembled, nebulous and gray;
O swallow, let them never, never
forget this day.
O swallow, cloud-borne thorn,
anchor of the air,
Icarus improved,
coattails in Assumption,
O swallow, calligraphy,
clockhand minus minutes,
early ornithogothic,
heaven’s cross-eyed glance,
O swallow, knife-edged silence,
mournful exuberance,
the aureole of lovers,
have mercy on them.
Classifieds
WHOEVER’S found out what location
compassion (heart’s imagination)
can be contacted at these days
is herewith urged to name the place,
and sing about it in full voice,
and dance like crazy and rejoice
beneath the frail birch that appears
to be upon the verge of tears.
I TEACH silence
in all languages
through intensive examination of:
the starry sky,
the Sinanthropus’s jaws,
a grasshopper’s hop,
an infant’s fingernails,
plankton,
a snowflake.
I RESTORE lost love.
Act now! Special offer!
You lie on last year’s grass
bathed in sunlight to the chin
while winds of summers past
caress your hair and seem
to lead you in a dance.
For further details, write: “Dream.”
WANTED: someone to mourn
the elderly who die
alone in old folks’ homes.
Applicants, don’t send forms
or birth certificates.
All papers will be torn,
no receipts will be issued
at this or later dates.
FOR PROMISES made by my spouse,
who’s tricked so many with his sweet
colors and fragrances and sounds—
dogs barking, guitars in the street—
into believing that they still
might conquer loneliness and fright,
I cannot be responsible.
Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.
Moment of Silence
Wait, you can’t go in there,
it’s all smoke and flames!
—Four kids got trapped inside,
I’m going in for them!
So how do you
suddenly lose the habit
of yourself?
of day follows night?
of the snows of yesteryear?
of rosy apples?
of the yearning for love,