The Changing Light at Sandover

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The Changing Light at Sandover Page 20

by James Merrill


  5.3

  Eyelevel sunset. The blue room. JM:

  It’s clear now! Suddenly I see my way—

  Wystan, Maria, you and I, we four

  Nucleate a kind of psychic atom.

  (Mind you, it works best as metaphor:

  The atom being, as They’ve said, a peace

  That passes understanding, we make do

  With its outdated model by Niels Bohr—

  A quasi-solar system.) At the core

  We are kept from shattering to bits

  By the electron hearts, voices and wits

  Of our dead friends—how maddeningly slow

  One is; E told us all this weeks ago—

  In orbit round us. DJ: Each carbon atom,

  This much I remember from high school,

  Has four bonds. Are we four hooked on a redhot

  Coal in plumes? JM: Mixed metaphor.

  We’re like an atom, not a molecule.

  DJ: And five now. 741

  Joined us, changing our atomic weight

  When he changed. JM: Oh, let’s complicate

  It irretrievably! Why stop at five?

  If there’s no accident, all things alive

  Or dead that touch us—Ephraim, the black dog

  In Athens, Cynthia—but why go on?—

  Are droplets in a “probability fog”

  With us as nucleus. And yet our peacock

  Mustn’t touch us. His whole point’s the atom’s

  Precarious inviolability.

  Eden tells a parable of fission,

  Lost world and broken home, the bitten apple

  Stripped of its seven veils, nakedness left

  With no choice but to sin and multiply.

  From then on, genealogical chain reactions

  Ape the real thing. Pair by recurrent pair

  Behind the waterfall, one dark, one fair,

  Siblings pitted each against the other

  —Shem and Shaun, Rebekah’s twins, whichever

  Brother chafes within the Iron Mask—

  Enact the deep capacities for good

  And evil in the atom. DJ (groans):

  I guess so, sure. It’s just that with this damn

  Knife hanging over me in five more days…

  I try not to be frightened, but I am.

  JM: Come on, I feel in my old bones

  That all’s well. Now let’s see what our friend says.

  5.4

  INDEED A PLUS

  About D’s prospects?

     YES & ALL THE REST WE LEAND FROM YR WALLS

  APPLAUDING & SWARMD IN THE GOLDEN SPACE BOUNDED BY BLUE.

  OPPOSING LIGHT MADE A GLORIOUS HAZE U FLOATED IN

  TODAY YR SPECULATIONS TOOK ON WHAT WE RECOGNIZE

  FROM OUR OWN FORMULAS: A GLOW WHICH MEANS PROCEED ?S

        No—proceed, proceed!

  ON THE APPEARANCE OF THE 12 PER CENT THEY WILL BEGIN

  ALONE. KEEP SILENT U WILL HAVE AS WITH ALL EXALTED

  PERSONAGES A ? HOUR THEY ARE THE HEART OF GOOD

  & U NEED NOT FEAR THEM AS THEY DRAW NEARER I WILL BE

  SIGNALD AS TO FURTHER PROTOCOL

  DJ: They’re sticklers? DEAR BOY DOES HE KNOW?

  WE FANCY HE’S INFALLIBLE NOT SO

        AH I KEEP WISHING

  TO BE TAKEN FOR REAL IN MY NEW FINERY LIKE A

  PRINCE IN A PLAY IT WILL BE HARD TO REMOVE THE MAKEUP

  PERHAPS EVEN AFTER YR ROOM HAS SWARMD WITH ANGELS U

  WILL HEAR MY TAP & OPEN AS BEFORE

  Won’t you hear what the angels have to say?

          O O NO NO

  Lightly, dismissively shrugged off, the cup

  Recoiling from the thought. JM: We’ll need

  Help with the poem, things to be looked up.

  —Very excitedly (what a child he is):

  I AM AN EXCELLENT RESEARCHER! NOW ACCIDENT 2:

  WE ARE THE FORCES THAT SOME MIGHT ACCUSE OF DEVIL’S WORK

  WE MAKE THE OIL SHEIK GREEDY & RAISE IN MM’S DREAMBEDS

  HIDEOUS BLOOMS TO STIR UP RIVALRY AT HIGH LEVELS.

  IT IS THE LAST USE FOR RELIGION, TO KEEP AT SWORDSPOINT

  THE GREAT FACTIONS OF EAST & WEST SO THAT LESSER POWERS

  FACING MASS STARVATION WILL BE DISTRACTED FROM DROPPING

  ATOMIC BOMBS TO GET FOOD. IN MAN THIS COMPETITIVE

  ELEMENT IS AN ORIGINAL JEW DENSITY: BY

  EARLY ASSYRIA GOD B HAD CODIFIED 1000S

  OF LOCAL CROC & BULL RELIGIONS INTO INTERNAL

  POLITICS & ONLY RARELY THE SMALL DEVASTATING

  TRIBAL WAR. ONCE THE NATIONS WERE FIXT GOD B INTRODUCED

  HIS RELIGION (TO AKHNATON): ONE GOD IN MAN’S IMAGE:

  A KIND OF PRIDE IN MIND THIS TO PRODUCE THE 3 MAJOR

  FAITHS ON EARTH. HAVING PROMOTED HIS RATIONAL SYSTEM

  GOD B NEXT HAD TO EDUCATE HIS PRIESTS THE SUFFERINGS

  OF GALILEO ET AL AWOKE SCIENCE TO CAUTION

  & COURAGE G (ONE OF THE 5) BECAME A SAINT WITHIN

  HIS OWN LIFETIME & THE PRIESTHOOD BEGAN ITS RELUCTANT

  REAPPRAISAL OF NATURE & HER LAWS

  CONGRATULATE MAMAN LAST NIGHT SHE SOWED

  A SHOCKER INTO BREZHNEV MILLIONS OF LITTLE

  YELLOW FACES STRAIGHT OUT OF THE DAISY PATCH

          ACCIDENT 3:

  THE GAP BETWEEN CAUSE & EFFECT NOW HAD TO BE NARROWD.

  B4, GOD B HAD ALLOWD AN AMPLE MARGIN (NOTHING

  PROMOTES BELIEF QUITE LIKE THE BENEVOLENT ACCIDENT)

  THUS THE THINNING PROCESS OF SOME OF OUR PLAGUES WAS ALLOWD

  TO OUTRUN ITS USUAL COURSE & THE POPE GOT HIS CURE &

  HIS IMMORTALITY, THE CHURCH ITS STRENGTH, & THE PEOPLE

  CLEAN WATER ACCIDENT HAD BEEN USEFUL

  “Your” plagues? GOD B USED US.

  CAUSE: RATS EFFECT: MINOR INFECTION OUR TRUSTY FIRE:

  PLAGUE PROLONGD UNTIL AN EDICT FROM POPE FAUST TO DISPENSE

  IN MARKET PLACES THE HOLY (BOILD BY HIS PRIESTS) WATER

  STOPT IT NONE OF THIS AS U SEE TRULY ACCIDENTAL

     Tell me, have you read Candide?

  MY DEAR HE WROTE IT ANYONE CAN READ

  THE PLAGUE WAS PLANND FOR 2 EFFECTS: THIN POPULATION &

  KEEP IT PREDOMINANTLY RURAL WE HAVE A MAXIM:

  MAN IS HIS OWN HEAT. MAN IN YR TIME IS GROUPD THE MACHINE

  DROVE HIM INTO CITIES GHETTOS OF LITERACY WHERE

  IDEAS LIKE NEUROSES IN LARGE CLOSELIVING HOUSEHOLDS

  INCREASD & GOOD & BAD KEPT PACE (THE CRIMES, THE LIBRARIES)

  ALL THIS FROM THE HEAT OF MAN’S PROXIMITY TO MAN. EARTH

  RADIATES TO US THESE HEAT CENTERS WHICH ALARM GOD B

  INTO EFFECTING NEW METHODS WE MUST CLONE THE SCRIBE TO

  REGULATE URBAN GROWTH LEST IN ITS PLAGUE MAN HIMSELF BE

  BOILD. HIROSHIMA PRODUCED 2 DRAMATIC NOTIONS: FEAR

  OF THE FUSED ATOM AND OF THE FUSED MAN IN HIS CLOSELY

  PACKD CITY. PROPERLY CLONED ARCHITECTS ARE ON THEIR WAY

  YET MUCH OLD-RELIGION-LIKE ALLURE CLINGS TO NARROW STREETS,

  & MAN TO HIS ROMANTIC DISEASE: ANONYMITY

  ACCIDENT 4: GOD B PERCEIVING THAT THE ACCIDENT

  WHICH CAME BETWEEN AKHNATON & PERFECT FISSION WAS SLIGHT,

  IMPOSSIBLE EITHER TO PREVENT OR TO COUNTENANCE,

  KNEW THAT HIS CHILD WAS RIPE FOR THE R/LAB HE HAD PREPARED.

  WE WERE SUMMOND IMPRINTED WITH NEW FORMULAS HENCEFORTH

  ACCIDENT WD BE A T
OOL: JM & DJ MEET &

  E ENTERS WHERE THEIR MINDS SEEK DIVERSION BUT THE MINDS? E?

  THE SHAPING LOVES OF 2 SETS OF PARENTS? NO ACCIDENT

  NOT SINCE THOSE MINUTE DIAMONDS NEARLY DESTROYD WORLD 3

  And yet each actor, as he plays his part,

  Appears to take enormous liberties.

  What is that—the art that conceals art?

  INDEED SO THINKS THE SPERM AS IT RUSHES TOWARD THE EGG

  5.5

  The parlor, Jacksonville.

  Lamplight through the glass transom

  Stained to some final visibility

  Like tissue on a slide—as,

  Hole by pre-punched hole,

  From the magnolia tree

  Outpoured the mockingbird’s

  Player-piano roll…

  The ring flashed. A young girl, a grizzled Midas,

  Hand to heart, more freely

  Drew upon their quota

  Of feelings and fine words.

  Or starlight on the porch

  In Deadwood, South Dakota.

  Glitter of wee facets

  Led Mary’s eye past toothpick and moustache

  And narrow mask of satyr

  Above the lengthening ash,

  Till nothing seemed to matter,

  Her job, the Homestake Mine…

  The future was a scrim

  Behind which forms kept beckoning and shining.

  Just as it went opaque

  She reached out, and touched him.

  5.6

  What of the three or four billion you don’t clone

  In the Research Lab? Don’t their destinies—

  Densities—affect our own?

  I WATCH U COOK U HAVE A MACHINE THAT EATS USELESS THINGS

  THIS IS THE (M) FATE OF USELESS LIVES

       Oh please!

         YET THE STALKS FED TO THAT

  CLATTERING GULLET PRODUCED THE LEAVES U WILL EAT TONIGHT.

  THE EFFECTS OF SUCH LIVES ON U JM ARE IN YR GENES

  R N A: REMEMBER NO ACCIDENT

        ACCIDENT 5:

  THOSE BILLIONS SHED UP TO 150,000 ANIMAL

  SOUL DENSITIES PER HUMAN LIFE THEY MUST BE REPROCESSD

  AT TOP SPEED & WITH MINIMAL STRAIN TO THE LAB WE RUN

  ON AN UNTHINKABLE LEVEL OF WORK HERE LUCKILY

  OUR BUREAUCRACY IS NONUNION. WE WORK LET US SAY

  IN FRIENDLY RIVALRY WITH NATURE NOW NATURE KNOWS NO

  LIMITS BUT I DO & I SEE THAT THE AUDIENCE IS

  LEAVING SO THIS PERFORMANCE WILL BE RESUMED TOMORROW

  DOES IT BEAR THINKING OF? Dear Wystan, who

  Has time for thinking? WAIT LET IT SINK IN

  THEN NO HEXAGONAL LAUGH No sick-sided pun?

  U GOT IT AFTER YEARS OF THOUGHT LOVE TOIL

  GLEAMING DISTORTION & ARTICULATE PAIN

  THE FUTURE’S FLESHLY ROBOTS WILL DISDAIN,

  LET OUR FAUST ASK HIMSELF WHAT’S LEFT TO BOIL

  It sinks in gradually, all that’s meant

  By this wry motto governing things here

  Below and there above: No Accident.

  Patrons? Parents? Healthy achievers, bent

  On moving up, not liable to queer

  The Lab work. It sinks in, what had been meant

  By the adorable dumb omen sent

  TO TEST EXALT & HUMBLE U MY DEAR

  Strato? ET AL Maisie? NO ACCIDENT

  Gunman high-strung and Archduke negligent,

  Warnings garbled in the dreamer’s ear?

  All, all, it sinks in gradually, was meant

  To happen, and not just the gross event

  But its minutest repercussion. We’re

  Awed? Unconvinced? That too’s no accident.

  The clause is self-enacting; the intent,

  Like air, inscrutable if crystal-clear.

  Keep breathing it. One dark day, what it meant

  Will have sunk in past words. No Accident.

  5.7

  WYSTAN TRANSFIGURED BY YR SEMINAR

  LIKENS IT TO OXFORD UNDER NEWMAN

  Entre nous, Chester, I keep wishing our

  Cardinal were dyed a shade less vivid

  By the popular imagination. AH

  NOW I SEE WHAT HE MEANS BY THE CHURCH SUPPERS

  DJ: Are you aware of being used

  To protect us in some form or other?

  QUITE AWARE THEY BORROW MY SCARF IT COMES

  BACK ALL SOOTY WYSTAN CAMPS IT UP

  BUT I CAN TELL HE’S ILL AT EASE: ‘IVE NEVER

  BEEN IN A SCHOOL B4 WHERE IT WAS SO

  OUT OF THE QUESTION TO HAVE A CRUSH ON THE MASTER’

  I LEAVE U PETS LUCA HAS GIVEN THAT

  VULGAR BUT EFFECTIVE 2FINGERED WHISTLE

  Luca! WHY NOT? A MATCH YR EPHRAIM MADE

  MAD LITTLE NUMBER BUT I’M GETTING LIMBERED

  UP FOR THE NEW RACE TO BE RELAID!

  WAIT ANOTHER 16 YEARS & SEE

  WHO CRUISES U IN YR PITH ELEGANT

  HELMETS I’LL BE TURNED ON BY OLDIES BYE

  Maria, keep him dark and continent

  When you return as a jungle. PLEASE A TREE

  Oh, was that settled? Sorry. I’d forgotten.

  ON ME THE DAILY LESSON IS EMBLAZED

  U HAVE DISTRACTIONS THIS IS OUR WHOLE WORLD

  PROTECTED U MAY THINK? BUT I AM BEING

  USED USED UTTERLY TO THE VERY ASH

  NO WASTE NO ACCIDENT OUR BECOMING FRIENDS

  OUR COFFEES GOSSIPS DRIVES TO SOUNION

  What have we done to you, Maman? BAH ONE

  BIG DATING COMPUTER MES ENFANTS GET WISE:

  TO BE USED HERE IS THE TRUE PARADISE

  ACCIDENT 6: HEREDITY & ENVIRONMENT ARE

  CLONABLE THUS IN ADAPTING CK’S OLD DENSITIES

  TO A NEW SOUL WE MUST MAKE DO WITH CERTAIN TASTES ALLIED

  TO HIS CREATIVE WIT BY WAY OF CONTROL WE PLACE HIM

  IN A DECENT EDUCATED AFRICAN HOME FATHER

  WORKS FOR A WHITE ORG A SCOUTMASTER QUITE DEDICATED

  Poor Chester, hard to picture as a Scout

  —Are you OK? For David bites his lip.

  DJ WHAT DO U FEAR? U HAVE 29 LONG YEARS TO GO

  The thought of the anesthetic, the blacking out…

  NOT A TOTAL BLACKOUT CURTAINS WILL RISE ON A VISION

  WE MEAN TO KEEP U ENTERTAIND

  JM (envious): Don’t let him forget it!

         SHALL WE STORE IT UP IN

  THE GINGERPOT? ON THE 9TH POST-OP DAY TELL HIM TO LOOK

  This empty ginger-pot here on the sideboard?

  BLUE & WHITE LIKE OUR CUP HAVE DJ LIFT THE LID MEANWHILE

  TO U JM WILL COME CORRESPONDING DREAM IMAGES

  ALL PART OF OUR LONG PREPARATION FOR THE 12 P/C:

  DJ’S OLD INJURY (OUR AGENT THE MIRROR) THE BREAK

  THE ANESTHESIA EACH ARRIVES ON SCHEDULE

  DJ: The break? IN OUR LESSONS DEAR ENFANT

             ALL GOOD MEALS

  MUST BE DIGESTED NO PEACOCK FEATHER AFTER THIS FEAST

  HAND UP OF OUR ENGLISH FIRSTER?

  SIR IS NOT BELIEF IN A LIFE WHOLLY

  OUT OF HIS HANDS UNNATURAL TO MAN?

          INDEED & THAT IS WHY

  HE NEVER WHOLLY BELIEVES IT, NOT EVEN U HAND UP?

  MAY I? SAVE FOR MY PRESENT DEAR ENFANTS

  I HAD NO CHILDREN WAS THAT MY DESTINY?

  INDEED PARTLY BECAUSE OTHERS WD HAVE C
ROWDED THE NEST

  PARTLY FOR REASONS THAT WD MEAN NOTHING TO U WE PLAN

  NOT FOR ONE SMALL EFFECT THE ACCIDENT GAP DISAPPEARS

  ACCIDENT 7: THE CONFINES OF THE GREENHOUSE THE OZONE

  BELT IS NOT A CEILING BUT THE FLOOR OF THE NEXT LEVEL

  THE (M) FOUNDATION STONE OF EDEN 2 THE SUN & ITS

  WHOLE SYSTEM IS OF THE GREENHOUSE THERE ARE OTHER SYSTEMS

  & THE SUNS & THE GODS OF EACH THESE ARE THE PANTHEON.

  THE SCHEME OF WORLD 3 BEING CHIEFLY BIOLOGICAL

  MIGHT GOD B NOT HAVE BEEN SELECTED FROM THE PANTHEON

  WHEN THIS SYSTEM WAS BORN? FOR WE KNOW THE SUN IS HIS SLAVE

  5.8

  ACCIDENT 8:

  We hate to interrupt, but what connection

  Did Lesson 7 have with Accident?

  A PLUS THE GREENHOUSE IS NO ACCIDENT

  Then neither was your crust world, or Atlantis—

  WHAT OF PREATLANTIS? ONE OF OUR MYTHS IS THAT FROM THE

  GALACTIC PANTHEON CAME GOD B TO BUILD HIS GREENHOUSE:

  THE SUN HIS SLAVE IS ALSO HIS CREATION IT IS HIS

  CENTRAL ATOMIC POWER. THE MYTH OF PROMETHEUS

  IS OUR STORY. NOW MAN TRIES TO SEIZE & RULE THE ATOM

  BUT AS HIS ORIGIN IS ELECTRIC HE WILL REMAIN

  CONTROLLABLE. ELECTRICAL POWER IS ORGANIC,

  ATOMIC POWER…GALACTIC? WE KNOW ONLY IT IS

  THE FIRE THE FUEL OF THE PANTHEON OF THE GODS

  OF THE VARIOUS GALAXIES GOD B GUARDS THIS POWER

  JEALOUSLY IT IS HIS BRIGHT RED APPLE

           ACCIDENT 8:

  WE FELL. WERE WE GOD’S 1ST ACCIDENT? OR 1ST INSTRUMENTS?

  THERE IS NO ACCIDENT ERGO WE WERE USED TO DESTROY

  A USELESS EXPERIMENT. WE IN OUR MYTHS SEE OURSELVES

  AS BROOMS & THE WITCH? OUR VOCATION AS MESSENGERS

  We never asked, were you both male and female?

  WELL

  PUT IT THAT WAY IF U MUST OUR NUMBERS NEVER VARIED

  FROM THOSE PRODUCED IN THE CENTAURS’ HATCHERIES UNTIL, LATE

  IN OUR BRIEF WORLD NEEDING SERVANTS, WE REPRODUCED OURSELVES:

  HALF OUR NUMBERS HAD EGG SACS & HALF HAD INSULATED

  RADIUM VESCICLES WHICH FERTILIZED THEN FED THE EGGS.

  WE WERE AS NOTHING U CAN IMAGINE ONLY YR BAT

 

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