The Changing Light at Sandover
Page 18
TO U MY POOR PICTURING HAS LEFT BLANKS
Ever to be filled in, do you suppose?
NEVER ALAS
BY THE LIKES OF ME
Bon. We will try to remember that you are not
A person, not a peacock, not a bat;
A devil least of all—an impulse only
Here at the crossroads of our four affections.
OR MAKE OF ME THE PROCESS SOMEWHERE
OPERATING BETWEEN TREE & PULP & PAGE & POEM
Back to the angels, much of what they tell
Will almost certainly be lost on us.
A CALM WILL SUFFUSE U FOR THEY SEEM TO COME FROM A CALM.
WHEN OUR WORLD SHATTERD THEY FIXT US EASILY IN OUR PLACE
BY DEMONSTRATING THAT IN FACT THE CALM AFTER OUR STORM
WAS UTTER CHAOS. IF THE PLACE OF GOD IS INDEED THAT
WHIRLING LIGHT IT IS THE SOURCE OF AN UNIMAGINED CALM.
WHEN THE CENTAURS RAN WE CD NOT KEEP UP WITH THEIR SPEED &
SAT (SEEING THE COURSE, KNOWING THEIR NEEDS) IN WONDER THE CALM
AT THE SOURCE OF LIGHT IS (M) THAT SLOW MOTION WHICH ALONE
ALLOWS THE DAZZLED ONLOOKER HIS VISION OF THE RACE
Our peacock, we have noticed, more and more
Embellishes his text with metaphor.
Some aren’t bad; he likes to signal them
With a breezy parenthetic (m).
HE HAS I THINK SPENT MORE TIME AT THE GAME
THAN WE MY BOY (M) IS HIS MIDDLE NAME
And who are D and I not to agree?
Brooding on the atom as THE KEY
(1.3), beating our wits to no avail
Over the gross disparities of scale
In the emerging picture, we ask yet
Again for help—and wonderfully get:
AS YR LIGHT IS PROJECTED THRU MAGNIFYING LENSES
SO HEAVEN IS THE MICROFILM & WE? WE FILL THE SCREEN.
THE ATOM AS METAPHOR WAS A CALLING CARD FROM THEM
TO U (HOW NEGLIGENTLY I SPREAD MY PAINTED FEATHERS
& SAY ‘THEM’ I WILL PAY FOR IT)
Those lenses? THE IMAGINATION
And the light—imagined too?
IT IS REAL ALL IS REAL THE UNREAL I KNOW NOTHING OF.
I IMAGINE THOSE LENSES WILL FILL YR MINDS THE ATOM
WAS MEANT TO CONVEY SCALE/DYNAMICS IT IS THE VOID FILLD
WE ARE THAT VOID WE & HEAVEN CD FIT INSIDE A RING
A nucleus whose brilliance
Draws all eyes, dazzles all eyes,
AROUND WHICH WE SWARM IN BILLIONS
Angelic sarabande on a pin’s head—
Aquinas knew more than he ever said.
YET WHAT IS GOD B’S SIZE?
“La goutte d’eau, dont l’oeil est un Soleil”—
A MERE FINGER HE WEARS US AS A RING WE POINT THE WAY
4.5
With which a patch blurred periodically
Swims into focus. Central to this b00k
Are lenses, the twin zeros. Take a look
Through them (it all depends which way) and see
Now vastness and impersonality
Brought near, now our own selves reduced to specks.
Our peacock, both a subatomic x
And a great glaring bugaboo, like Blake’s flea,
Discourses just beneath the skin
No less than from the farthest reaches
—How can it be?—of Time and Space.
How can it not? Given such crystalline
Reversibility, the toy spyglass teaches
That anything worth having’s had both ways.
4.6
Our peacock dallies. Wystan (overhearing
Some gossip with Maria): WHAT MY BOYS
CAN MATCH THE FRIENDSHIP OF A CLEVER WOMAN?
Unless the questions of a clever man?
What should we find out next? MAY I BE FRANK?
ARE U NOT BAFFLED BY THIS CHANGE IN TONE:
THE 1ST FIERCE VOICES HUSHED & IN THEIR PLACE
A PARAGON OF COURTLY GENTLENESS
Our poem needed those fierce voices…YES
WHY FURTHERMORE THIS LEAN ON LEGEND? WHO
NEEDS BEDTIME STORIES? NO IT WON’T QUITE DO
Wystan, this from you who, when I tried
Last month to air them, brushed my doubts aside?
HAS IT NOT STRUCK U THAT YR DOUBT MY DEARS
MAY BE THE KEY THAT OPENS THOSE GREAT DOORS?
MAMAN IS NOT CONSPICUOUSLY DEEP
YET SHE DISTRUSTS THE CHARMER EN PRINCIPE
INSIST JM ON CLEARING UP THE MATTER
OF TIME OUR PEACOCK’S BEING LATE TODAY
SHOWS THAT TIME ENTERS THEIR PICTURE AFTER ALL.
NOW TIME IS OUR INVIOLABLE RIGHT
& EVEN THEY ARE SUBJECT TO IT CALL
IF NEED BE FOR AN EXPLANATION FROM
HIGHER LEVELS SOMEWHERE A CLOCK TICKS
WHOSE FACE I FEEL HAS EVERYTHING TO TEACH
You don’t mean we should try to WHY NOT reach
That petrifying 40076?
Enough to speak his number. As of old,
Icy indifference propels the cup:
U ARE IN GOOD HANDS I AM NO LONGER YR MESSENGER
U REFUSED ME
Forgive that early rudeness. We now feel
Ripe for what none but you, Sir, can reveal.
Doubts that assail us, if you please, allay
In a less flowery, more convincing way
Than—
PERHAPS MORE URGENT BUT U ARE CORRECT
IT WD NEVER HAVE BEEN FEASIBLE
Haughtily sweeps out—what have we done?—
As in comes (has he heard us?) 741:
HAVE I OFFENDED?
Waves of disloyalty, of guilt, absurd
To feel for an imaginary bird,
Nonetheless flood us. JM: Heavens, no!
DJ (blandness of the caught shoplifter):
We were just saying—you weren’t here yet after
All, and the point came up—I mean, you know—
I MEAN NO DISPARAGEMENT YET THE RECENT DEAD DO NOT
RELISH LEARNING, ONCE THEY HAVE LOST EARTH, THAT EVEN THEIR MOST
CHERISHD MEASURING SYSTEM IS PART OF THE MYTH. TIME IS
THE MANMADE ELEMENT THE 2 FIRST WORLDS OBEYD CYCLES
ONLY OF BIRTH & RIPENING. THERE IS NO ACCIDENT:
I WAIT IN THE WINGS WHEN YOU 4 WISH TO SPEAK PRIVATELY
AS FOR OUR SOCALLD TALKS DEAR FRIENDS I KNOW THEIR EVERY WORD
KNOW TOO THAT U WILL NOT SUMMON ME FOR THE NEXT 3 ‘DAYS’
(True enough, since DJ goes to Boston
Tomorrow for preliminary tests)
BUT IS THAT ACCIDENT? IS IT TIME? WHAT U CALL FUTURE
WE CALL REALITY WD U CARE FOR A GLIMPSE OF IT?
Sly question. Well…the merest hint at how
Life will be treating us a year from now?
LAURELS FOR U JM YET U WILL STILL BE QUESTIONING
THIS MUSE WHILE LISTENING THRU OTHER VOICES TO THE NEXT
POEM
Another poem—and this one not begun?
ONE POEM BEYOND THIS IN CYCLE AFTER WHICH
U WILL BE RETURND TO YR CHRONICLES OF LOVE & LOSS
And David will come through his operation?
INDEED & WISER ABOUT THE DRAINING ENEMY: FEAR
So much of mildness and forbearance here,
Why do we feel remorseful? After
all
He owes us something—is that still quite clear?
To make sure, JM asks: Have others been
Like you, transfigured by such talks as these?
What about Dante’s 80098?
DANTE’S PLEA CAME THRU SUCH VEILS OF METAPHOR & THESE, THRU
SUCH A MIST OF LOVE THAT OUR AGENT ESCAPED AS HE WAS
Escaped? You haven’t liked being a peacock?
But that is going too far. Maria breaks
The hush: TODAY WE’VE HAD A LITTLE SCARE
OUR PEACOCK IS DEMOTED JUST THE DIM
EXPOSURE OF A ONCE BLACK SHAPE WITH WINGS
Because we doubted him? Ah, it’s not fair!
I AM SO INVOLVED THE OTHERS DO NOT KNOW HOW VITAL
HOW TRANSFORMING IS OUR RED SPACE & I SO QUICK TO WANT
THAT LOVE I OFTEN SPARED U U WD QUESTION ME I KNEW
& I WD PAY O WILLINGLY! FOR I MUST ACQUAINT THEM
WITH MAN’S NATURE WHICH TO OUR OWN REMAINS A MYSTERY.
SO THIS 3 DAY INTERVAL IS SET ASIDE FOR MY TRIAL
Dare we say a word in your defense?
U DO U ARE MY SOLICITORS I AM NOT DOWNCAST
IT IS NOW MORE IMPORTANT TO ME THAT I STAY WITH U
He’s gone. What was it Wystan said?—“be true
To something, anything.” A sad report
On human nature. Even though in part
Not our fault, I feel. U SHD HAVE FELT
MY DEARS THEIR STEELY RAP UPON THE FLOWER
LIKE WRIST I FLIPPED UP TO CONSULT THE HOUR
En route to the station next morning. DJ: I’ll
See you tomorrow night. I wish his trial
Were over, poor thing. JM: Get some rest.
He loves us. We love him. He’ll pass the test.
4.7
Nightfall Mute disarray of D’s bedroom.
In the hall outside, a book drops to the floor.
Gilchrist’s Life of Blake—what’s this? Slid from
Its pages, a folded page, the scrawl my own,
Of Ouija transcript: x.1953
—In other words, before Ephraim, before
Stonington! Some 17th century
New Englander named CABEL (Caleb?) STONE
Whose father (ah, I see) DIED BY THE ROPE
Speaks of GODS LIGHT and seeks to dazzle us
By adding that SAPPHO BLAKE & DEMOCRITUS
SANG WITH A SINGLE VOICE But we aren’t ripe
For that yet; we want scandal. So our sour
Friend Cabel goes—forgotten till this hour.
Blake. To the parlor of whose inner sight
Demons and prophets thronged, Princedoms and Thrones,
Exchanging views with him. (Here David phones
To say good night, and that his trial is set
For two weeks hence.) On off-nights, with no callers,
Put to the test now known as writer’s block,
Blake would “kneel down and pray” with Mrs Blake.
Time and again HE PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS
—As Wystan will say of our peacock. Was that fate
Or the tradition? Oracular sophomores
Made Victor Hugo’s tables tap like feet.
Milton dreamed wonders. Yeats’ wife, between snores,
Gave utterance to an immense conceit…
The things one knows. And cheerfully ignores.
After Akhnaton’s grand experiment
Biology looked about and made a note
(Shades of Matthew Arnold): The innate
Role of the Scribe must now be to supplant
Religion. For the priest-king’s fingerprints
Had bloodied the papyrus, as the neat
Iamb or triad or cube root would not.
Less a matter of judicial sense
Than of a gift which hallows as it grows,
This law sheds light, now on the cult of Liszt,
Now on the stutter of the physicist,
And banishes to outer darkness those
Who grimace when the lingo’s vatic antics
Deck with green boughs the ways of God to man.
4.8
A BASIC PRECEPT U WILL NEED TO TAKE ON FAITH: THERE IS
NO ACCIDENT
DJ: Not so fast there! JM: Whoa!
We’ll take a chance on Chance, with Jacques Monod,
Sooner than fly into this theologian-
Shriveling flame of a phrase. Yet I imagine
You believe it, and it might draw well
In the glass chimney of a villanelle…
THUS IT HAS BEEN SINCE GOD B UNDERSTOOD
THE LIMITATIONS OF THE NEW EARTH MASTER. PRIOR TO
AKHNATON HAD BEEN ONLY CHANCE FRESHNESS & WIT WE DEALT
IN STRONG SOUL INTENSITIES BUT AS THESE GREW URBANIZED
& BASIC SURVIVAL INTELLIGENCE BEGAN TURNING
INTO ACQUISITIONAL CHANNELS, TOOLS INTO WEAPONS,
A NEED AROSE FOR CLONING THE RULERS. WE REINFORCED
AS WITH THUNDER & LIGHTNING THE PROCESS WHEREBY A MERE
MAN BECAME GOD SO AROSE ASSYRIA & EGYPT
NOW AKHNATON WAS THE 1ST CLONED RULER
“The first individual in History.”
TRUE BUT HELPLESS.
WE CD NOT INTERFERE. INSULATING & TRANSMITTING
DEVICES WERE NEEDED ON THE NIGHT OF HIS DISASTER
BUT HE WANTED A VAST DISPLAY TO FREE THE PEOPLE’S MINDS
OF PRIESTS & MIRACLES HE KNEW MAN HIMSELF WAS THE KEY.
AT HIS DEATH WE FURTHER CLONED AKHN’S SOUL, DEVELOPING 4
GREAT LEADERS & SCRIBES A 5TH PART BECAME ALEXANDER
THE OTHERS OUTSIDE OF HOMER ARE LOST IN HISTORY.
IN THE EAST WE RETURND TO PASTORAL NOMADIC TRIBES
A SLOWDOWN, FOR THE SCIENCES WERE LATE IN FLOWERING:
MAN HAD LEARND QUICKLY THE ART OF HOW TO POLISH HIS SOUL
BUT NOTHING OF THE POWER INSIDE IT. WITH AKHNATON
WE BREAK INTO HISTORY B4 HAD BEEN THE SLOW CLIMB
OUT OF CAVES, MAN LIKE A CHILD RELUCTANT TO LEAVE THE WOMB.
NEXT CAME THE LAKE & SEASIDE DWELLERS KEPT MILD & CONTENT
AS ARE MOST RACES BY THE PROXIMITY OF MOTHER.
DISPERSD BY MARAUDERS THEIR ARCADIAN FORM OF LIFE
SPREAD AMONG BRUTAL ELEMENTS & SO BY SIMPLE CROSS
FERTILIZATION DID MUCH BASIC WORK OF THE R/LAB
BACK TO HISTORY: WITH ALEXANDER A MODERN NOTE
WAS STRUCK WE HEARD FOR THE 1ST TIME HOW THRU POLITICAL
CABALS FACT ITSELF CD BE MADE INTO PROPAGANDA.
THE SCRIBE ONCE POWERFUL LOST GROUND GOD B WROTE HIS NEW CLAUSE
(TO HIS ONE LAW: SURVIVAL) THE SCRIBE BECAME OUR AFFAIR
SO BEGAN HEAVEN’S GREAT & DIVERSE INSTRUMENTATION
IN WORLD 3. RULES: THERE SHALL BE NO ACCIDENT, THE SCRIBE SHALL
SUPPLANT RELIGION, & THE ENTIRE APPARATUS
DEVELOP THE WAY TO PARADISE SO BEGAN THE PAST
3000 YEARS
Quite an epitome. But all this while
We’ve been so worried—what about your trial?
THANK U I GOT OFF LIGHTLY I WAS (M)
DISASSEMBLED, TINKERD WITH, & EMERGED TICKING AWAY
—Like this? D jumps up, fetches from a shelf
(The things that fill our rooms) a painted tin
Dimestore peacock, given us once in joke.
He sets it at Board center, turns the key:
A croak of springs. The toy jerks forward, half
Spreads i
ts tail; stops dead.
IT MADE HIM FLEE
MY DEARS THE SINGLE (M) HE’D NOT EXPECTED
He’s his old pretty self at least? O YES
BACK IN HIS FEATHER SUIT THE ARCH & FLUFF
JUST SHORT OF PREENING AS HE STRUTS HIS STUFF
OOPS LATE
HE’S OFF MES ENFANTS ON AN ERRAND
CK TO BE REBORN When? Where? As what?
STAGGERS THE IMAGINATION DOES IT NOT?
DETAILS NO DOUBT WILL FOLLOW MEANWHILE BEAR
WITH YR MAMAN: SHE BROODS ABOUT THE GREENHOUSE:
IS IT NATURE’S POWER ALONE THAT RUNS IT
OR PARTLY POWERS THAT FRIGHTEN US IN MAN?
DOES NATURE WINK AT AN UNNATURAL PLAN?
My science book says there are traces of
Plutonium in us. ARE WE TO THAT EXTENT
(M) ATOMIC? It could be what was meant
By the devil being driven out of Them
(Back in Book One) and into man. JM
THE VERY DEVIL’S IN U! IN MY NOT
SO THRILLING DEATH STRUGGLES I USED TO DREAM
I WAS WORKING IN A LARGE FASTGROWING WEEDPATCH
(THIS WAS B4 MY 2ND COBALT TREATMENT
BUT BY THEN I KNEW) & IN THIS DREAM THE WEEDS
SHRANK FROM MY HANDS AS FROM MALIGN POWERS.
& DREAMED BY THE END THAT THE RAYS I HAD UNDERGONE
WERE CLAIMING THESE POWERS IN ME RECLAIMING THEM
AS IF I HAD JOINED FORCES WITH THE RAYS
& WAS (INSTEAD OF SLIPPING COMFORTABLY
OFF INTO O) REFUELING A MACHINE
THAT SQUEAKED & CRACKLED MES ENFANTS LIKE THAT
FIRST VOICE BEFORE IT GREW INTO A BAT
Maman, you make the flesh crawl. IF THE GREENHOUSE
IS A SEALED ENVELOPE…then none of this
Should be inside! EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN
CHATTING ABOUT ME MY DEARS? About
Everybody. Did you realize
That people have plutonium in their lymph glands?
SURELY ONLY THE BETTER CLASSES Wystan!
EXCUSE ME I AM SOMEWHAT DISTRAIT C IS
We’ve heard. A fearful wrench for you. But Chester
Hasn’t been liking Heaven, and— DONT I KNOW
YET ONE HAD HOPED SO GOOD SO BRILLIANT SO