in space as if they had been—
not children! but the thinking male
or the charged and deliver-
ing female frantic with ecstasies;
served rather to present, for me,
a more pregnant motion: a
series of varying leaves
clinging still, let us say, to
the cat-briar after last night’s
storm, its waterdrops
ranged upon the arching stems
irregularly as an accompaniment.
Suzanne
Brother Paul! look!
—but he rushes to a different
window.
The moon!
I heard shrieks and thought:
What’s that?
That’s just Suzanne
talking to the moon!
Pounding on the window
with both fists:
Paul! Paul!
—and talking to the moon.
Shrieking
and pounding the glass
with both fists!
Brother Paul! the moon!
The Mind Hesitant
Sometimes the river
becomes a river in the mind
or of the mind
or in and of the mind
Its banks snow
the tide falling a dark
rim lies between
the water and the shore
And the mind hesitant
regarding the stream
senses
a likeness which it
will find—a complex
image: something
of white brows
bound by a ribbon
of sooty thought
beyond, yes well beyond
the mobile features
of swiftly
flowing waters, before
the tide will
change
and rise again, maybe
Philomena Andronico
With the boys busy
at ball
in the worn lot
nearby
She stands in
the short street
reflectively bouncing
the red ball
Slowly
practiced
a little awkwardly
throwing one leg over
(Not as she had done
formerly
screaming and
missing
But slowly
surely) then
pausing throws
the ball
With a full slow
very slow
and easy motion
following through
With a slow
half turn—
as the ball flies
and rolls gently
At the child’s feet
waiting—
and yet he misses
it and turns
And runs while she
slowly
regains her former
pose
Then shoves her fingers
up through
her loose short hair
quickly
Draws one stocking
tight and
waiting
tilts
Her hips and
in the warm still
air lets
her arms
Fall
Fall
loosely
(waiting)
at her sides
The Collected Later Poems
(1950)
Every Day
Every day that I go out to my car
I walk through a garden
and wish often that Aristotle
had gone on
to a consideration of the dithyrambic
poem—or that his notes had survived
Coarse grass mars the fine lawn
as I look about right and left
tic toc—
And right and left the leaves
upon the yearling peach grow along
the slender stem
No rose is sure. Each is one rose
and this, unlike another,
opens flat, almost as a saucer without
a cup. But it is a rose, rose
pink. One can feel it turning slowly
upon its thorny stem
A Note
When the cataract dries up, my dear
all minds attend it.
There is nothing left. Neither sticks
nor stones can build it up again
nor old women with their rites of green twigs
Bending over the remains, a body
struck through the breast bone
with a sharp spear—they have borne him
to an ingle at the wood’s edge
from which all maidenhood is shent
—though he roared
once the cataract is dried up and done.
What rites can do to keep alive
the memory of that flood they will do
then bury it, old women that they are,
secretly where all male flesh is buried.
Seafarer
The sea will wash in
but the rocks—jagged ribs
riding the cloth of foam
or a knob or pinnacles
with gannets—
are the stubborn man.
He invites the storm, he
lives by it! instinct
with fears that are not fears
but prickles of ecstasy,
a secret liquor, a fire
that inflames his blood to
coldness so that the rocks
seem rather to leap
at the sea than the sea
to envelope them. They strain
forward to grasp ships
or even the sky itself that
bends down to be torn
upon them. To which he says,
It is I! I who am the rocks!
Without me nothing laughs.
The Sound of Waves
A quatrain? Is that
the end I envision?
Rather the pace
which travel chooses.
Female? Rather the end
of giving and receiving
—of love: love surmounted
is the incentive.
Hardly. The incentive
is nothing surmounted,
the challenge lying
elsewhere.
No end but among words
looking to the past,
plaintive and unschooled,
wanting a discipline
But wanting
more than discipline
a rock to blow upon
as a mist blows
or rain is driven
against some
headland jutting into
a sea—with small boats
perhaps riding under it
while the men fish
there, words blowing in
taking the shape of stone
. . . . .
Past that, past the image:
a voice!
out of the mist
above the waves and
the sound of waves, a
voice . speaking!
The Hard Core of Beauty
The most marvellous is not
the beauty, deep as that is,
but the classic attempt
at beauty,
at the swamp’s center: the
dead-end highway, abandoned
when the new bridge went in finally.
There, either side an entry
from which, burned by the sun,
the paint is peeling—
two potted geraniums .
Step inside: on a wall, a
painted plaque showing
ripe pomegranates .
—and, leaving, note
down the road—on a thumbnail,
you could sketch it on a thumbnail—
> stone steps climbing
full up the front to
a second floor
minuscule
portico
peaked like the palate
of a child! God give us again
such assurance.
There are
rose bushes either side
this entrance and plum trees
(one dead) surrounded
at the base by worn-out auto-tire
casings! for what purpose
but the glory of the Godhead
that poked
her twin shoulders, supporting
the draggled blondness
of her tresses, from beneath
the patient waves.
And we? the whole great world abandoned
for nothing at all, intact,
the lost world of symmetry
and grace: bags of charcoal
piled deftly under
the shed at the rear, the
ditch at the very rear a passageway
through the mud,
triumphant! to pleasure,
pleasure; pleasure by boat,
a by-way of a Sunday
to the smooth river.
The Lesson
The hydrangea
pink cheeked nods its head
a paper brain
without a skull
a brain intestined
to the invisible root
where
beside the rose and acorn
thought lies communal
with
the brooding worm
True but the air
remains
the wanton the dancing
that
holding enfolds it
a flower
aloof
Flagrant as a flag
it shakes that seamy head
or
snaps it drily
from the anchored stem
and sets it rolling
from Two Pendants: for the Ears
ELENA
You lean the head forward
and wave the hand,
with a smile,
twinkling the fingers
I say to myself
Now it is spring
Elena is dying
What snows, what snow
enchained her—
she of the tropics
is melted
now she is dying
The mango, the guava
long forgot for
apple and cherry
wave good-bye
now it is spring
Elena is dying
Good-bye
You think she’s going to die?
said the old boy.
She’s not going to die—not now.
In two days she’ll be
all right again. When she dies
she’ll
If only she wouldn’t
exhaust herself, broke in
the sturdy woman, his wife. She
fights so. You can’t quieten her.
When she dies she’ll go out
like a light. She’s done it now
two or three times when
the wife’s had her up, absolutely
out. But so far she’s always
come out of it.
Why just an hour ago
she sat up straight on that bed, as
straight as ever I saw her
in the last ten years, straight
as a ram-rod. You wouldn’t believe
that would you? She’s not
going to die she’ll be
raising Cain, looking for her grub
as per usual in the next two
or three days, you wait and see
Listen, I said, I met a man
last night told me what he’d brought
home from the market:
2 partridges
2 Mallard ducks
a Dungeness crab
24 hours out
of the Pacific
and 2 live-frozen
trout
from Denmark
What about that?
Elena is dying (I wonder)
willows and pear trees
whose encrusted branches
blossom all a mass
attend her on her way—
a guerdon
(a garden)
and cries of children
indeterminate
Holy, holy, holy
(no ritual
but fact . in fact)
until
the end of time (which is now)
How can you weep for her? I
cannot, I her son—though
I could weep for her without
compromising the covenant
She will go alone.
—or pat to the times: go wept
by a clay statuette
(if there be miracles)
a broken head of a small
St. Anne who wept at a kiss
from a child:
She was so lonely
And Magazine #1 sues Magazine
#2, no less guilty—for libel
or infringement or dereliction
or confinement
Elena is dying (but perhaps
not yet)
Pis-en-lit attend her (I see
the children have been here)
Said Jowles, from under the
Ionian sea: What do you think
about that miracle, Doc?—that
little girl kissing
the head of that statue and making
it cry?
I hadn’t
seen it.
It’s in the papers,
tears came out of the eyes.
I hope it doesn’t turn
out to be something funny.
Let’s see now: St. Anne
is the grandmother of Jesus. So
that makes St. Anne the mother
of the Virgin Mary
M’s a great letter, I confided.
What’s that? So now it gets
to be Easter—you never know.
Never. No, never.
The river, throwing off sparks
in a cold world
Is this a private foight
or kin I get into it?
This is a private fight.
Elena is dying.
In her delirium she said
a terrible thing:
Who are you? NOW!
I, I, I, I stammered. I
am your son.
Don’t go. I am unhappy.
About what? I said
About what is what.
The woman (who was watching)
added:
She thinks I’m her father.
Swallow it now: she wants
to do it herself.
Let her spit.
At last! she said two days later
coming to herself and seeing me:
—but I’ve been here
every day, Mother.
Well why don’t
they put you where I can see you
then?
She was crying this morning,
said the woman, I’m glad you came.
Let me clean your
glasses.
They put them on my nose!
They’re trying to make a monkey
out of me.
Were you thinking
of La Fontaine?
Can’t you give me
something to make me disappear
completely, said she sobbing—but
completely!
No I can’t do that
Sweetheart (You God damned belittling
fool, said I to myself)
There’s a little Spanish wine,
pajarete
p-a-j-a-r-e-t-e
But pure Spanish! I don’t suppose
they have it any more.
(The woman started to move her)
But I have
to see my child
Let me straighten you
I don’t want the hand (my hand)
there (on her forehead)
—digging the nail of
her left thumb hard into my flesh,
the back of my own thumb
holding her hand . . .
“If I had a dog ate meat
on Good Friday I’d kill him.”
said someone off to the left
Then after three days:
I’m glad to see you up and doing,
said she to me brightly.
I told you she wasn’t going to
die, that was just a remission,
I think you call it, said
the 3 day beard in a soiled
undershirt
I’m afraid I’m not much use
to you, Mother, said I feebly.
I brought you a bottle of wine
—a little late for Easter
Did you? What kind of wine?
A light wine?
Sherry.
What?
Jeres. You know,jerez. Here
(giving it to her)
So big! That will be my baby
now!
(cuddling it in her arms)
Ave Maria Purissime! It is heavy
I wonder if I could take
a little glass of it now?
Has
she eaten anything yet?
Has
she eaten anything yet!
Six oysters—she said
she wanted some fish and that’s
all we had. A round
of bread and butter and a
banana
My God!
—two cups of tea and some
ice-cream.
Now she wants the wine.
Will it hurt her?
No, I think
nothing will hurt her.
She’s
one of the wonders of the world
I think, said his wife.
(To make the language
record it, facet to facet
not bored out—
with an auger.
—to give also the unshaven,
the rumblings of a
catastrophic past, a delicate
defeat—vivid simulations of
the mystery . )
We had leeks for supper, I said
What?
Leeks! Hulda
gave them to me, they were going
to seed, the rabbits had
eaten everything else. I never
tasted better—from Pop’s old
garden .
Pop’s old what?
I’ll have to clean out her ears
So my year is ended. Tomorrow
it will be April, the glory gone
the hard-edged light elapsed. Were
it not for the March within me,
the intensity of the cold sun, I
could not endure the drag
of the hours opposed to that weight,
the profusion to come later, that
comes too late. I have already
swum among the bars, the angular
contours, I have already lived
the year through
Elena is dying
Selected Poems Page 9