The Changing Light at Sandover

by James Merrill

  Waves au revoir into the chill, red sun.

  Back from Greece, we’ll find our paper done.

  And that will be the end, we hope,

  Of too much emphasis upon possessions

  Worldly or otherwise. No more spirits, please.

  No statelier mansions. No wanting to be Pope.

  Ephraim’s book is written now, is shut.

  Stonington is shut. As our minds are

  To much beyond the long-awaited lightning

  Which hits—at least we’ve told it where and when—

  Athens in April: the old Jacksons fly

  From California. Drastic measures, but

  Nobody else cared. How were they to die?

  Tottering forth, tagged round the neck, they peer

  Through the bright haze of either hemisphere.

  Next door, a flat is furnished with soft blue

  Coverlets and curtains. Die they do

  All too soon. The broken hip. Pneumonia.

  Listless crystals forming in the blood

  Of the survivor. One had somehow trusted…

  No. Come July, they’re resting side by side

  A crow’s black glide from our adored Maria

  In the non-Orthodox division of

  Necropolis. Birds sing. White roses climb.

  “Too soon” has been, it turns out, more than time

  For doctors and a clergyman to call.

  Time for stupor, fear, incontinence

  To fill the house. For such compulsory

  Treats, then, as a farewell, original-cast

  Restaging of the Play that, seasons past,

  Inaugurated, as it had and would

  Countless other Western theatres, this

  Innermost one of David’s. Here they were,

  Old Matt and Mary, for their graybeard boy

  Still to…keep together? keep apart?

  Problem now scalding clear as a hot spring,

  Now ancient, blurred, a tatter of papyrus.

  Nature, still the prompter, overcomes

  (While a robust Greek nurse looks on enthralled)

  Their stage-fright: “Get your fucking hands off Mother!”

  “My wife, goddamit!”—poor old eyes ablaze,

  Old claws brushed from the son’s shirt like crumbs.

  Boys will be boys. She questions the outgrown

  Gilt-washed sandal—where’s her baby gone?

  DJ comes home from them exhausted. Feels

  Everything and nothing. Falls asleep

  Flung across the telephone-grenade

  —Which, one June dawn, would burst in shattering peals.

  .3

  Those last days before Mary died, we made

  Contact again with Ephraim. As things were,

  Where else to look for sense, comfort and wit?

  Also, upwards of a year had passed

  Since fleeing the celestial salon

  Half out of fears that now seemed idle, half

  Frankly out of having had our fill

  Of funeral cakes. Shameful to eat and run

  But ah, we’d needed exercise. Our friends

  In any case received us as if nothing

  Had ever gone, would ever go amiss.

  Maria: CHERS ENFANTS Ephraim: KISS KISS

  How right we were, they added, to equip

  Mary with letters lest her coming trip

  Be clouded. So much nicer to be met,

  Helped through Customs. Patrons could forget

  THE HORROR OF THOSE FIRST CREPUSCULAR

  MOMENTS IN THE BUFFET DE LA GARE

  FIGHTING BACK TEARS D chuckled through his own

  To sip again this warm, unsweetened tone.

  What in fact had frightened us away?

  Intrusion (cf. Ephraim, Section U)

  By a peremptory, commanding power:

  One of those E had hinted at?—the winged

  MEN B4 MANKIND whose discipline

  Thrills through the nine Stages like long waves

  Or whips that crack above the heads of slaves.

  It nailed DJ’s free hand to the Board’s edge,

  Blackened the mirror Ephraim saw us in,

  Issued its ultimatum. Over and out

  In no time flat. A guest from the beyond

  We hoped would not call back. To find, on gingerly

  Getting in touch again with our beau monde,

  No hint of past or future nastiness

  Helped make the hour a distinct success.

  Two friends in particular had died

  The previous year: Maria Mitsotáki

  In January, whom we’d once or twice

  Called but, when we cut our ties, abandoned

  The more unconscionably since Heaven

  Disillusioned her, on a first glance:

  NO PRIVACY NO COFFEE & NO PLANTS

  Then in December Chester Kallman whose

  Suicidal diet—grief, wit, booze—

  Did him in; though he’d at least have Wystan

  While poor Maria…Now to no avail

  The gadfly flick of her pink fingernail,

  The tease of her contagious “Ah, come on!”

  We needn’t have worried. Our crowd sees her point

  Better than we did. Wallace Stevens: SHE

  BELONGS TO THAT SELECT FEW WHO PREFER

  TO SNIFF THE ROSE NOT BE IT So she promptly

  Finds her niche. What doing? U TELL ME

  Not gardening! CLEVER ENFANT U GUESSED

  Like Maya with St Lucy, filming dreams,

  Maria (whom St Agatha employs)

  Is planting FLEURS DE MAUVAISE CONSCIENCE

  In politicians’ beds. Her late husband

  Being a diplomat, her father—worse—

  Three times Prime Minister, I NEVER MINDED

  GETTING MY HANDS DIRTY Has she got

  A representative? MUST WE SPEAK OF THAT

  From the start insouciantly childless,

  She doesn’t seem the type. And does she still

  Wear black? OF COURSE NO LONGER NOW UNJEWELED

  WITH 4 STARS IN MY HAIR (she’s at Stage Four)

  TOO FLASHY BUT THE WARDROBE MISTRESSES

  INSIST YR POOR MAMAN WHAT CAN SHE DO

  We all but kiss the cup that spells her news out,

  And to her fearless charity commend

  DJ’s old parents, now the end is near.

  .4

  Came that midnight in the hospital

  When Mary, since the day before unconscious,

  Eyes open suddenly, looking clear into

  David’s (whose own dream-voice filled his ears:

  Come to me and I’ll dispose of you)

  Breathed her last words, as to a child, “Bye-bye…”

  With which he stumbled from her hand’s live cold

  Into the corridor for a cigarette,

  And mercifully did not see her die.

  The burial was painless. Old Matt, wheeled

  To the raw trench he would another day

  Get to the bottom of, those gates of clay

  Ajar for him, glared round at strangers—who

  Ever imagined things would end this way?

  .5

  Let alone imagined what came next!

  Marius Bewley, who once gave her tea

  Eighteen years ago on Staten Island,

  Takes Mary up. Reads her the Wordsworth Ode,

  Pours out the steeping innocence she craves—

  One cup too many, and he’ll see her home.

  A final life on Earth THIS VERY SWEET

  JAPANESE WO
MAN TELLS ME lies ahead.

  Cowed by delight, as with DJ’s old phone-calls,

  She pleads confusion: TALK TO U KNOW HIM

  —Matt snatching at the line, alive or dead.

  IM NOT CNOFUSDE GODDAM THIS TYPEWRITAR

  Dad, just tell me where the bankbooks are?

  WHAT FOR CANT TAKE IT WITH U (long pause) NONE

  I GUESS THINGS GOT EXPENSIVE TOO BAD SON

  I see…well, how does Mother seem? FINELOOKING

  WOMAN AS ALWAYS WHY HELLO THERE JIM

  THOUGHT U WERE TEACHING No, Matt, not till Fall.

  YOU 2 ARE OK BUT THAT MARIUS

  CANT SEE WHAT YR MOTHER SEES IN HIM

  Perhaps he shows her some consideration

  For a change. You know she’ll be leaving before you?

  SHE WILL WHY Both of you must be reborn.

  DONT SELL THE HOUSE Oh, pay attention, Matt.

  It won’t be California. This time maybe

  You’ll be a little black or yellow baby.

  HA HA JIM I MUST REMEMBER THAT

  All right, don’t believe me. Ask your patron.

  CANT NOW IVE GOT TO MEET A FELLOW WHO

  RAN A CAR AGENCY IN KALAMAZOO

  Marius: EACH TO HIS OWN MARY & I

  ARE OFF TO SEE HER VIRGIN NAMESAKE WHY

  DO PEOPLE BOTHER ALWAYS SUCH A CRUSH

  She holds court? TRAFFIC COURT Mary: BYE BYE

  And starts to leave, but D has broken down.

  NO TEARS O DARLING STOP HIS TEARS DONT CRY

  Mama, your last words—YES YES & YOUR FIRST ONES

  Was it awful? Did it hurt to die?

  I LOOKED DOWN AT YOUR POOR OLD WRINKLED FACE

  THOUGHT OF MY BABY LEARNING HOW TO TALK

  MARIA LOANED ME HER VOICE MINE TOO WEAK

  She goes. —Maria, is that done? ENFANTS

  ALL THINGS ARE DONE HERE IF U HAVE TECHNIQUE

  To share jokes with Maria—a godsend

  Among her flowers; then the gasping purr

  From humor’s blackest bedside telephone;

  Then silence. Yet this time she’s ours for good!

  BE CAREFUL HAD I KNOWN

  — Ringing off (why now?) as during her

  Final ray-therapy in lassitude

  Such that those plots of color by the end

  Took more strength to imagine than at first to tend.

  .6

  Maria (early the next month): BUT WHAT

  A LESSON MES ENFANTS THIS MFJ IS

  MISSING HEAVEN BY A HAIR & NOT

  LETTING IT TURN ONE EITHER WE HAVE ALL

  QUITE HUMBLY KNELT THAT SHE MIGHT STAY WITH US

  This “us” including, Mary has let fall,

  A BLOND GIRL & BLACK BOY WHO CALLED ME MOTHER

  FROM 2 PAST LIVES How did you know each other?

  I WORE A DIFFERENT FACE TO ANSWER THEM

  So all one’s old lives ultimately do

  Run together? That must be upsetting.

  AS WITH THE OLD LOVES ONE FORGETS A FEW

  Actual confrontations are, however,

  Available chiefly to THE PASSER THRU

  Like Mary. Or to newcomers—Maria

  Was hailed on arrival by HORDES OF POLYGLOT

  SELFSTYLED ENFANTS PAS MA FAUTE JETAIS TOO

  HEAVILY FERTILIZED BUT NOW A DECENT

  VEIL IS DRAWN & I HAVE NONE BUT U

  And Mary’s? Were they pleasant? I CANT SAY

  SHE WAS NOT FOR THOSE MOMENTS MFJ

  But you must have seen— WE DO NOT QUALIFY

  AS WITNESSES EXCEPT IN YR MINDS EYE

  Will it ever, ever solve itself,

  This riddle of appearances in Heaven?

  Its claim is slight yet nagging. As we shift

  From foot to foot, poor Mary, measuring

  The fretfulness she turns a collar for,

  Does her best: DEAR JIM JUST THINK OF LETTERS

  OR PHONE CALLS WHERE THE ABSENT FRIEND IS SEEN

  In the mind’s eye. But after? In between?

  We feel the cup change hands. MES CHERS (says Ephraim)

  DO NOT OVERLOOK OUR EVERPRESENT

  REPRESENTATIVES THRU WHOM THE WORLD

  IS QUITE INEXORABLY WITH US MINE

  THIS VERY MINUTE STUDIES THE DESIGN

  OF A HORSE & RIDER TURQUOISE BLUE

  PARTLY FILMED OVER BY CONGEALING STEW

  You see yourselves, then, in the mirror only

  Of a live mind? OR IN THE TALL ANTIQUE

  COBWEBBY ONE OF A PAST LIFE BUT WHO

  HAVE WE HERE

  & WHO DOES THIS DUMB GREEK

  THINK HE IS Words fail Matt. Unspeakable

  Rumors have reached him THAT A SON OF MINE

  —Dad, what is all this? DONT GIVE ME THAT

  YR SMARTASS FRIENDS CAN LAFF THEIR HEADS OFF I

  WAS A GOOD HUSBAND & FATHER JM: Matt,

  Stop carrying on. No one denies your fine

  Traits, your loyalty and optimism;

  His friends see these in David and thank you.

  What better legacy?—and so forth. The cup,

  Stunned at first, commences piteously

  To lurch about. FORGIVE ME LET ME IN

  THESE NICE FOLKS & MY MARY LOST FOREVER

  ILL DO MY BEST IM USEFUL I CD ALWAYS

  MAKE HER SMILE Absurdly touched, we say

  The proper things (and Ephraim, sotto voce:

  HES LOVING EVERY MOMENT) but the hour

  Has tired us. Mary, bless you—au revoir!

  MY BABY BACK TO INNOCENCE BYE BYE

  Exeunt omnes. Wait— CIAO Who is this?

  SWEETIES YOUVE JUST SPOILED YR MOTHERS DAY

  Mama? Mary…Chester! IF U SAY SO

  What Stage are you at? DONT ASK ME NOBODY

  TELLS ME ANYTHING But you’ve had eight

  Whole months—since last December—to find out.

  Have you a representative? A WHAT

  Come off it! What does your patron say? MY WHO

  Well, in that case, what on—what do you do?

  READ BUFF MY NAILS DO CROSSWORDS JUST LIKE LIFE

  THOSE YEARS WITH WYSTAN ONCE A BACKSTREET WIFE

  ALWAYS A BACK Stop this! STREET Chester! WIFE

  Pull yourself together, for God’s sake.

  Wystan admired you. Would there have been a Rake

  Without your knowledge of opera? You know that.

  Plus what you meant to your friends: the funniest,

  Brightest, kindest—must I go on? LET ME

  & THE MOST WASTEFUL GIFTS THE MUSES MADE

  TOO OFTEN BOUGHT A HUMPY PIECE OF TRADE

  ENTIRE NEGLECTED SECTIONS OF MY MIND

  SOUND ROTTEN WHEN I RAP THERES LIGHT BEHIND

  BUT STRENGTH I NEVER HAD IS NEEDED TO

  BREAK DOWN PARTITIONS WYSTAN CRASHES THRU

  WITH GLAD CRIES THE SHEER WONDER IN HIS FACE

  DIMS & DIMINISHES MY LITTLE SPACE

  My dear…& AS FOR INNOCENCE IT HAS

  A GENIUS FOR GETTING LOST I FEAR

  ONCE THE BABE FINDS PLEASURE WHERE IT SUCKS

  THE TRAP IS SET ALREADY ITS TOO LATE

  Excuse me, that’s the doorbell— OR THE BAIT

  But no one’s there. Or only an unfamiliar

  Black dog, leg lifted at our iron gate,

  Marking his territory. Dusk. The mountain

  Rippled by heat, scent of green pine, a star

  Delicately remind us where we are.

  .7

  We hear from Matt that Mary’s two weeks old

  In Iceland. Better late than never, he is

  Making st
rides: I HAVE 1000 EYES

  DEAR SON FORGIVE ME NEVER LET MONEY SOUR U

  I PITY THE OLD ME I AM AT LAST

  AWAKE ALIVE & LEARNING IN A GREAT RUSH

  DO NOT RUN YRSELF DOWN MARY DID THAT

  HER WHOLE LONG BEAUTIFUL STORY WAS ONE BLUSH

  IN A WOMAN FINE IN A MAN WEAKENING

  DAVID I WANTED U TO BRING US BACK

  TOGETHER I STILL WANT IT FIND HER FIND ME

  IN MY NEW LIFE HER NAME IS

        Censorship.

  (It happens now and then. The cup is swept

  Clean off the Board. Someone has overstepped.

  We hesitate to put it back, then do—

  But will we never learn the limits?) WHEW

  Matt, they corrected you? IN NO UNCERTAIN

  TERMS O JIM WE LEARN U HERE You read me?

  WELL FOR THOSE OF US WHO ARENT GREAT READERS

  LETS SAY IT IS AN EXPERIENCE WE HAVE

  & I PICK UP SOME STATUS THRU MY SON

  David, you mean, being the psychic one?

  NO D SPEAKS WE USE HI Censorship

  Stronger than usual. THEY I DONT KNOW

  WHO ARE U A COLD PLACE O GOD O GOD

  Help him, Ephraim! Ephraim? O MES CHERS

  I WAS EXPECTING U ANOTHER TIME

  What’s happening to Matt? LET ME INQUIRE

  Pause. NOTHING GRAVE But the cold place? His cries?

  THE REPRIMAND CAN BE SEVERE Matt: BACK

  SMARTING & SMARTER I SHD NOT HAVE SAID

  WE WELL EVERY LESSON HELPS MY SOUL

  IS CLEARING LIKE THE CREEK AFTER MY BOOTSTEPS

  A clarity you’ll bring to your new life—

  SO I HEAR BUT LIFES JOB IS TO FORGET

  FOR THOSE OF US NOT SPECIAL Then why learn?

  As when a cactus blooms, Old Matt’s reply

  Wakens in us a slow, prickling wonder:

  WE TOO WILL BE RETIRED SOME DAY & NEED

  OUR HOBBIES Dad…I LOVE U SO LONG SON

  MES CHERS EXTRAORDINARY THERE IS TALK

  OF HIS PROMOTION AFTER 2 MORE LIVES

  DJ: He wanted one more life with her…

  JM: But haven’t we learned, these twenty years,

  Better than to meddle? Why this increasing

  Censorship? It can’t just be our own

  Anxieties projected. Need I say

  How very edgy everyone has got?

  The cup now moves like lightning. I AM NOT

  EVERYONE MES CHERS NEITHER ARE U

  WHAT U ONCE WERE 20 YEARS AGO

  Sorry, Ephraim. I should have said Certain Parties

  Were edgy. QUITE FOR THERE IS MORE TO COME