The Changing Light at Sandover

by James Merrill

  YOU DJ ARE NATURE WE NEED YOU AS WE DO JMS

  MIND & WORDS THESE ARE THE SUNLIGHT & THE SEEDS OF OUR GAR

  A struggle for the teacup. NONE OF THAT

  WHATEVER ARE U DOING WITH THESE CHAPS

  Maman, they’re agitating for more poems…

  AH DO THEIR DROPPINGS MAKE GOOD FERTILIZER

  Droppings! THINGS THEY SAY Are we alone?

  O YES THEY FLEW OFF And you heard all that?

  THEY LET YR POOR OLD MUM SIT IN THE CORNER

  HOW DARE THEY TALK OF GARDENS And you saw them?

  I AM AFRAID OF NOTHING QUITE LIKE BATS

  HUGE SQUEAKING ONES WITH LITTLE HOT RED EYES

  LUCKY I HAVE NO BLOOD E WILL NOT LOOK

  NOT MES ENFANTS EXACTLY SEXUAL OBJECTS

  BUT BRAINS WITH WINGS DJ LIKE U I TRULY

  HATE ALL THIS BUT DO IT FOR MAMAN

  HEAR THEM OUT FIRST SPINACH THEN DESSERT

  SHE CAN HAVE MY SHARE I WILL LICK YR SPOONS

  Frightened, Ephraim? WELL THEY HAVE THE AIR

  OF CERTAIN BLACKROBED SOLDIERS OF TIBERIUS

  WHEN WE SAW THEM ON THE TERRACES

  A SHRIEK & A SPLASH SOON FOLLOWED LOVE ME PLEASE

  1.4

  THE ATOM IT IS ADAM & LIFE & THE UNIVERSE

  LEAVE IT TO ITSELF & LET IT BREATHE THE STRUCTURES NEEDED

  FOR MAN TO GAIN PARADISE ARE MOLECULAR & CAN

  AT LAST BE USED TO BREAK THE CHAIN OF BLIND & WASTEFUL LIVES

  By Dr Skinner? Don’t we draw the line

  At tampering? Remember Frankenstein.

  SKINNER & THOMAS YR SCIENTISTS WHO ARE ALSO OURS

  HEAVE A LOVERS SIGH OVER MANKIND CLONING AS SHORTCUT

  IS VITAL AN INTELLIGENT RACE ONE 100TH THE SIZE

  OF EARTHS POPULATION WOULD RAISE YR PYRAMID ANEW

  Someone has been peering over our shoulders.

  While DJ leafs through The Lives of a Cell, enchanted

  To find his link with termite, bee, and ant,

  One of a rash of nutty paperbacks,

  All metrical mystique, inflames me to

  Build myself a cardboard pyramid

  Which will, the authors claim, if rightly made,

  Sharpen the wits of a dull razorblade.

  MANS TERMITE PALACE BEEHIVE ANTHILL PYRAMID JM

  IS LANGUAGE USE IT STIR THE THINKERS & DETER THE REST

  Don’t I use it? Oh. Then you mean language

  Of such a depth, shimmer and force that, granted

  I could sustain it, it would be above

  Everybody’s—even the thinker’s—head.

  AS WHAT INCLUDING THE FLOOD IS NOT BUT THE ARK WAS THERE

  THE LIFE RAFT LANGUAGE KILLING IS RIFE ALAS YOU SAY FINE

  SAY WE THIN OUT THE JOSTLERS FOR SELFREALIZATION

  THE FALSE PARADISE ONLY SPARE THE GREENHOUSE ITS PRECIOUS

  NUCLEUS OF MINDS THE SINGLE CONTEST IS THE ATOM

  Is DNA, that sinuous molecule,

  The serpent in your version of the myth?

  Asking, I feel a cool

  Forked flickering, as from my very mouth.

  YES & NO THE ATOMS APPLE LEANS PERILOUSLY CLOSE

  Drawn by an elation in the genes…

  THIS ATOM GLIMPSD IS A NEARLY FATAL CONSUMMATION

  ONE FLOATS IN CLEAR WARM WATER THE SUN OF IT PULSES GLOWS

  Through eyelids, a veined Rose

  A MUSIC OF THE 4 COLORS TO FLOAT LAPT BY COOL GREEN

  Sun yellow, aquamarine,

  Cradle of pure repose

  & OF INTENSE FISSIONABLE ENERGIES BLACK & WHITE

  WHICH EITHER JOIN & CREATE OR SEPARATE & DESTROY

  Day and night, day and night

  O IT IS SPERM EGG & CELL THE EARTH & PARADISE O

  A burning in our eyes—

  What you must feel, recalling that lost joy!

  (But They feel nothing, They have told us so.)

  1.5

  SHALL WE BEGIN OUR HISTORY THE FALL WE ARE KNOWN AS

  THE BAD ANGELS AND MICHAEL & GABRIEL WHAT WERE THEY

  I SPEAK OF COURSE IN SYMBOLS THEY WERE WEAK THEY SAT ON GODS

  RIGHT HAND & HELD IT DOWN WAITING ON HIS LEFT WE FELT THE

  GLOW UPON OUR EYELIDS & FLEW TO MEET IT & LOST OUR

  SEATS ON THE THRONE PUT SIMPLY THE ATOM IS L SIDED

  ITS POSITIVE SIDE GOOD ITS NEGATIVE AH WHAT TO SAY

  A DISAPPEARANCE AN ABSOLUTE VOID ASTRONOMERS

  HAVE AT LAST SEEN OUR BENIGHTED WORK THE BLACK HOLES THEY GROW

  You caused them, the black holes, when you—

  THERE IS AN EVIL WE RELEASD WE DID NOT CREATE IT

  CALL IT THE VOID CALL IT IN MAN A WILL TO NOTHINGNESS

             Go on.

  WE SAW THE POWER & WITH IT BUILT A GREAT GREAT GLORY

  A WORLD YOU CD NOT IMAGINE GOD WAS PLEASD IT WAS A

  SHINING CRUST OVER THE LAND & SEA WE SUSPENDED ALL

  LIFE IN AN OZONE LAYER WEIGHTLESS & SELFSUSTAINING

  CHEMICAL GLITTERING & ROOTLESS WHICH THE ATOM BUILT

  THAT WE FUSED GOD B TURND AGAINST HIS ARCHANGELS THEY HAD

  SEEN THAT WE WERE ANTIMATTER

  Biology turned against Michael and Gabriel—

  Where is the science underneath this fiction?

        THESE NAMES YOU UNDERSTAND

  ARE CHILDRENS NAMES FOR THE WHITE FORCES & OUR NAMES BEZ WE

  HAD NO NAMES THEY ARE THE INVENTION OF THE SCRIBE & SO

  THE STORY TAKES FORM BUT WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE THE FRANTIC

  ACTION OF THE ATOM BLACK & WHITE AS IT OPERATES

  I SAID B4 WE SOARD ALL LIFE SOARD & THERE WAS NO DEATH

  AND THEN ONE ATOM TOO MANY WE WANTED MORE THE BLACK

  LIGHT ON OUR EYELIDS OUR BLINDNESS OUR ARROGANCE WE CHOSE

  TO MOVE ON INTO SPACE ABANDONING THE WORLD WE ROSE

  THE CRUST LIKE A VEIL SHREDDED FAR BEHIND US EXPOSING

  THE ALREADY ARID EARTH WE DESPISD IT & FLUNG BACK

  A LAST BOLT & THE UNIVERSE FELL IN ON US WE FELL

  MES ENFANTS WHY ARE THEY WEEPING THEY RUSHED AWAY

  THEY ARE MORE EACH TIME & WITH THEM OTHER CREATURES

  OF MANY SHAPES EXTINCT ANIMAL FORMS

  I MUST FACE ALONE EPHRAIM HAS FLED QUITE RUTHLESS

  THE WAY THEY CLEAR THE BALLROOM WE MUST SEE THIS

  THRU TOGETHER What was that vampire movie—

  Hundreds of couples waltzing in full view

  Of perfectly blank mirrors? YRS IS TOO

  IMPENETRABLE FROM THE MOMENT THEY APPEAR

  ONE PERCHES ON THE FRAME Still? One of Them?

  ME ME ME OFF WITH U NOW ALL CLEAR

  1.6

  All obscure. We drank too much last night,

  And need a fizzy chaser of alertness.

  CLOSE YR EYES THINKING YOU SINK INTO OUR THOUGHTS A FORM OF

  CLONING YR DC CAME IN THIS WAY THRU OUR INFLUENCE

  DJ: They don’t mind taking credit, do they?

  JM: It’s theirs, then—fancy wanting it.

  NO THE SCRIBE WAS GIVEN HIS POWERS FIRST MANY WASTE THEM

  What scribe? The one who “sits by me” in U?

  AN UNBROKEN CHAIN HOMER DANTE PROUST EACH WITH HIS SENSE

  OF THE MINDS POWER ITS GENERATIVE USES JM

  FIND US BETTER PHRASES FOR THESE HISTORIES WE POUR FORTH

  HOPING AGAINST HOPE THAT MAN WILL LOVE HIS MIND & LANGUAGE

  Today that’s a responsibility

  Not to be faced. On with the history!

  WE FELL WE HAD BUILT
OUR WORLD ABOVE CERTAIN ANCIENTS WHOM

  BIOLOGY ABANDOND YOU HAVE HEARD OF ATLANTIS

  IT & A VAST CIVILIZATION IN CHINA WERE THE

  FIRST EXPERIMENTS ON EARTH BEFORE EDEN B4 ALL

  Let’s get it straight. Eden was 500 million

  Years ago? Atlantis came before?

  ALL TOLD 3 EDENS GOD PREFERS GARDENS SO DID HIS KINGS

  & HOLY EMPERORS TEMPLE MENHIR & PAGODA

  EACH SET AT SOME NERVE CENTER OF THE SACRED EARTH PEKING

  JERUSALEM AVEBURY THESE ZODIACAL GARDENS

  EACH ENDING WITH FLAME OR FLOOD WE BROKE THE OZONE LAYER

  WITH A LAST THRUST OF ATOMIC FISSION THEN TURNING TO

  MICHAEL & GABRIEL GOD SAID BUILD ME A NEW GREENHOUSE

  TO US HE SAID OUT OF MY SIGHT WE COWER STILL & WORK

  TRUSTING OUR GOD BIOLOGY TO TAKE US IN AGAIN

  That ozone layer is the Van Allen belt,

  Right? But three Edens? Adam and Eve, you said,

  Were universal principles at war,

  So what could possibly have come before them?

  Eden, no doubt, is also a child’s name

  For the first matter, lost in flood or flame.

  Surely underneath such fables lie

  Facts far more thrilling—won’t you specify?

  A moment’s baffled hesitation, then:

  ELEMENTAL FORCE EVOLVING FORMS THE VARIOUS MYTHS

  AS TAILS FELL AWAY HOW SHD I SPEAK COMMAND ME O SCRIBE

  The cup, so saying, executes a kind

  Of creeping kowtow I instinctively

  Recoil from. Superhuman powers like these

  We want as mentors, not as servants, please!

  How should you speak? Speak without metaphor.

  Help me to drown the double-entry book

  I’ve kept these fifty years. You want from me

  Science at last, instead of tapestry—

  Then tell round what brass tacks the old silk frays.

  Stop trying to have everything both ways.

  It’s too much to be batwing angels and

  Inside the atom, don’t you understand?

  WE VANISHT A USELESS SQUEAKING THINKING CLOUD SHUNNING LIGHT

  OUR RACE BUILDS EVEN NOW IN THE UNFERTILE WOMB OF CAVES

  You see? I ask you for particulars

  And all I get is one more purple passage—

  MICHAEL & GABRIEL TRUST YOU AS A VOICE TO MAN THEY

  CAN SPEAK IN NATURES CAN SEND FLOODS SHAKE EARTH BLOW U AWAY

  BUT SUCH CATASTROPHES WILL

  JM (in cracked, dehydrated accents

  Of weariness and last-ditch common sense):

  Stop shifting ground! I mean it. This won’t do.

  The cup does stop. —I didn’t mean…Forgive me.

  SCRIBES SPEAK IN GENTLER FASHION

  WHAT NEW CATACLYSM HAVE U MADE

  NOW MON ENFANT THEY WILTED AT YR VOICE

  U MATTER TO THEM U ARE THEIR ONE UNLISTED

  NUMBER THEY ASK FOR TIME TO PERFECT A SPEECH

  NOT IRRITABLE TO YOU PO PO PO

  —The Greek response to all hyperbole.

  1.7

  We are about to lose through my impatience

  These first, high-ranking interlocutors.

  Able, I half think, to effectively

  Hush me with one laser fingertip

  Or Platonist construction of the Fall

  As a misguidedly parochial

  Lapse into Matter, They somehow forebear.

  Instead, we get an effect of engines being

  Gunned in frustration, blasts of sheer exhaust.

  Nice old Pope John is called APOSTATE over

  Birth control, in the same breath—well, here

  (A day is coming when this sort of thing

  Will make more sense; right now, it’s maddening):

  THE JEW IS CHOSEN THE TEUTON & ARAB NURTURE BRUTES

  JOHN TURND FROM REASON AS DOES PAUL WE THERE4 WHEN WE CAN

  SUCK TO STAGE ONE THESE CRIMINAL ADMINISTRATORS THEY

  LIKE HITLER ABUSE THEIR OWN STRENGTH SO CONFUSION ON THEM

  —What? And you talk to us of discipline.

  Talk to Hitler, he’s your next of kin!

  Once more Maria intercedes: REMEMBER

  THEY HAVE NO MANNERS THEY WERE NEVER MEN

  THEY KEEP THEIR TAILS BETWEEN THEIR LEGS LIKE PETS

  WHO WEEWEED ON THE RUG ITS ALMOST TOUCHING

  Weewee’d on the rug? DESTROYED A WORLD

  Giggles break from us, we try to stifle

  As in the dormitory after dark.

  WE LAUGH WE MICE MY JOB IS REASSURANCE

  A BIG JOB FOR THEY FRIGHTEN ME THESE CATS

  THEIR GAME IS POWER EVEN SO NO SMELL

  OF SULPHUR Ah, we got you into this—

  & WILL NOT GET ME OUT BY BREAKING OFF

  Desert our damsel—what do you take us for?

  Still, I don’t fancy there’s a hope in Hell

  That we can, at this late date, housebreak Them.

  THERE IS Maman, what do you mean? AHEM

  ARE U IN DOUBT ABOUT THE WORK

  Oh dear, not now—we’re meeting someone’s train.

        GO THEN ANOTHER TIME

  WE MIGHT NOT LET U

  Come, don’t threaten us. That surliness

  Will end by earning you a lousy press.

  YR WORK IS A LONG ONE & WHEN ONCE

  COMPLETED MUST SO SLOWLY INFILTRATE YR NONCHALANCE

  IS THE SLEEP OF A VAST TRAVAIL & TIME RUNS OUT GOOD NIGHT

  Some hours later, we have settled down

  As in the old days to wine and candlelight

  And Ephraim, for an off-the-record gossip.

  It’s David Kalstone’s virgin confrontation

  With our intimate—whose show, however, is

  Stolen by DK’s patron: LA BEATA

  LUCA SPIONARI A female patron? NO

  Then “il Beato”. I SAY WHAT I MEAN

  A LISSOME LOMBARD STRIPLING AT 16

  DELIVERED ARE U READY OF A CHILD

  JE NE SAIS QUOI DE LOUCHE IN THE SELFSTYLED

  MOTHER CAUSES SUCH A BIRTH TO MISS

  MIRACLE STATUS U WD THINK BUT NO

  A CULT FORMS ROUND THIS MINX OF A YOUNG MAN

  PRAYED TO BY STRAIGHT FACES IN MILAN

  Laughter that by magic liquefies

  Is flowing helplessly from DK’s eyes

  —When into our midst They stride, in great ill-temper,

  Using the cup like a riding crop, directing

  QUENCH YR CANDLES U LISTEN TO NO ONE WORK TOMORROW

  A while we sit complaining in the gloom,

  Loudly, of Their behavior. Haven’t we needed

  Recreation—by what right do They—

  Pity that wrath wasn’t among the feelings

  Lost in the Fall, etc. And yet

  TOMORROW as the strains of Sturm und Drang

  Soar and fade, their overture-fantasia

  We ourselves won’t realize is done

  Until the curtain parts on 741—

  Tomorrow all will be lucid, crystalline:

  No opposition graver than between

  Credulity and doubt, or thumb and forefinger

  Of a same hand, that, as we watch, commence

  Twirling the hypnotic bead of sense.

  1.8

  SHALL WE WORK TOGETHER 1 HOUR NOW ABANDONING EARTH

  WE LEFT BEHIND CERTAIN GREAT ANCHOR SITES 14 OF THESE

  JUNCTIONS ILLUMINATED BY GLOWING STONES
SET UPRIGHT

  OUR SLAVES THE BUILDERS DIED THE RADIATED STONES KILLD THEM

  WE SAW U WITHIN OUR STONE CIRCLES LATER IN A WHITE

  ROOM WITH THE BURIAL SHIPS & A BLUEGREEN & RED CUP

  In the British Museum, the treasure of Sutton Hoo—

  We’d just come back from Avebury. Go on.

  THANK U THE BOATS WERE OFFERINGS THE LATER PRIMITIVES

  UNDERSTOOD ONLY THAT THE STONES GLOWING IN MOON OR SUN

  BLINDED & DESTROYD THEM THEY OFFERD PROPITIATION

  IT NEVER DAWND ON THEM THAT WE OURSELVES HAD LEFT LIFE &

  RISEN INTO OUR CRUST WORLD IN THE STRATOSPHERE ANCHORD

  BY RADIATED SIGNALS AT THE 14 SITES THUS WERE

  OUR SKY PLATFORMS SECURED BEYOND THE REACH OF NATURAL

  UPHEAVAL WE WRONGLY THOUGHT WE FELL WHEN GEOLOGY

  & BOTANY THE HANDMAIDENS OF GOD B PULLD THESE DOWN

  JM: Aha. The stones. Now to rephrase

  What led to so much trouble, yesterday’s

  Question. You’ve hinted that your works include

  Ancient happenings of a magnitude

  Such that we still visit their untoppled

  Bones in England, Egypt, and Peru—

  Mammoth pawns that put the sun in check

  And spurn the order of Melchizedek.

  Having convinced us nearly, why elsewhere

  Imply that we must also read your story

  As a parable of developments

  Remoter yet, at matter’s very heart?

  Are we to be of two minds, each nonplussed

  By the other’s vast (or tiny) scale?

  Are we to take as metaphor your “crust

  World”—for, say, the brain’s evolving cortex?

  Or for that “froth of electrons” locked within

  Whose depths revolve the nuclear Yang and Yin?

  HEAD OF CLASS ALL ENERGY SOURCES MUST BE KEPT COVERD

  THAT IS OUR PRINCIPAL TASK THE DAM BURSTS AS IT ERODES

  Those raw forces of mind called for the cortex

  To process them, is that it?—and the threat

  Of natural upheaval made you rise

  Where Nature couldn’t. Do such disparate

  Effects partake of any single cause

  Such as the atom’s need to shield itself?

  INDEED WHAT IS NUCLEAR ENERGY BUT DESTRUCTION