The Changing Light at Sandover

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The Changing Light at Sandover Page 45

by James Merrill


  For whom, like divers plunged abruptly back

  Beyond their depth, this lesson was all black.

  Time! No animal delusion now

  But jet plume rising from the Shy One’s brow:

  Time the destroyer—; but can’t Time renew

  As well? WHO KNOWS WHAT TIME ALONE CAN DO,

  TIME WITHOUT GOD OR NATURE RUNNING WILD

  IN THE BAD DREAMS & BRAINCELLS OF ITS CHILD?

  I see…I don’t see. Why should Time be black?

  Why is it Gabriel’s? MY BOY THINK BACK:

  WE MUST PRESUME THAT THE ORIGINAL

  PACT WAS BETWEEN GOD BIO & THE BLACK

  The Black beyond black, past that eerie Wall—

  PAST MATTER BLACK OF THOUGHT UNTHINKABLE

  Eater of energies, the suck and hum

  Zeroing in upon Ideas until

  They reach, like radium or plutonium,

  Some half-way station to the void? THERE4

  WHO FELL? Who fell? Not…the white angels! YES

  No! The bat-angels fell—that was their constant

  Refrain throughout Book I of Mirabell.

  I SPEAK OF THE GREAT FALL FROM THE GALACTIC

  PRECIPICE TO WHICH GOD SIGNALS BACK

  Back to his Brothers, back to where he planned

  The Greenhouse, long before he’d taken Matters

  Into his own hand? PLATO HAD IT RIGHT?

  POOR GEORGE, ENFANTS, TWICE SCOLDED: TRIED TO SPEAK

  OF THE ‘ADJACENT EXPERIMENT’ That pre-

  Historical atomic blast in China?

  Ephraim dropped (Book P) one scorching hint—

  We left it where it fell. JIMMY I FEAR

  GABRIEL INTENDS TO USE HIS FIRE

  TO MAKE THE GREAT PLAIN GREATER. BUT REMEMBER:

  MATTER HOLDS

  I’ll try to…Do we get

  The sense of Wystan’s “humankind has set

  Idea to Innocence?” Set? AS IN ‘SET ONE’S MIND TO’

  ‘SET TO MUSIC’ ‘SET IN MOTION’ The word

  Evoking in one swoop tenacity,

  Harmony, resistance—

  BUT O OUR QUEEN

  MUM SUCH A COMFORT RADIANT & SERENE

  AND HERS THE LAST WORD DJ: Those old masters?

  XT BUDDHA MOHAMMED THE GREEK PANTHEON

  PLUS WAGNER’S CROWD MY DEARS! ALL HEAVEN ATHROB

  PREPARING FOR THIS PAGEANT AREN’T WE, BOB?

  ME? O I’VE WHIPPED THE CHOIR INTO SHAPE

  JM: Quite a send-off. ENFANT WE’LL BE ‘SENT’

  ALL RIGHT! For humankind, is what I meant.

  DJ: It’s true? They wash their hands of us?

  Of people? After going to such lengths—

  WE TOO ONCE DOTED FONDLY (EH CONFRERE?)

  ON EARLY WORKS WE RATHER SQUIRM AT NOW

  JM: We’ve threatened—therefore we must go—

  Earth and Sea and Air. JIMMY NO NO

  It’s only a “thinning process”, George? THE KEY

  WORD IS ALPHA Yes, yes—“Brave New World”.

  MY BOY U GOT IT WHAT OF THE OMEGAS?

  3 BILLION OF EM UP IN SMOKE POOR BEGGARS?

  Wystan, how can you? COURAGE: GABRIEL

  KNOWS WHAT HE’S UP TO & (LIKE TIME) WILL TELL

  Anyhow, we loved your poem. News

  Like that is easier to take in rhyme.

  TEENIEST BIT NERVOUS WITHOUT NOTES

  BUT DID A ‘KNEELING THETIS’ TO THE MUSE

  ENFANTS WE’RE FAGGED OUT MEET IN THE ROYAL PEW?

  SO LIKE A COUNTRY WEEKEND, EH? ADIEU

  *

  The Last Lessons: 2

  Lights in the schoolroom. A confusing blaze:

  Torches, votive candles, level rays

  Of dawn or dusk, spokes winnowing the air

  —In vain. Today the Great Twins are elsewhere.

  Gabr.

  HAIL, PRINCE!

  Gautama—saffron robes and sandalled feet,

  Palms together, plump as a nut-meat

  Goldenly fitted to its cosmic shell—

  Advances at the sound of a prayer bell.

  Gaut.

  HAIL, BROTHER DEATH.

  Gabr.

  PRINCE, OUR POET SAYS MAN SET IDEA TO INNOCENCE TO ALLAY HIS FEARS & SAVE HIS FEEBLE FAITH.

  TWO HERE BEING MORTAL—FORGIVE THEIR SCANT ATTIRE, IT IS WARM IN YOUR TEMPLE—

  (Church! We’d forgotten—horrors! and have sat

  Down in shorts and tank-tops. Well, that’s that.)

  CANNOT SEE YOUR OWN SPLENDOR RIVALLING EVEN MY DEAR TWIN’S SUN.

  YET ENOUGH. WE MEET IN THE VAST, FAST-ABANDONED COMPLEX OF RELIGION.

  HAS ANY HUMAN ENERGY PRODUCED SUCH A MULTITUDE OF ARCHITECTURES?

  PRINCE, AS OUR COMPANY STROLLS THROUGH THIS SUNSET-LIT COMPOUND,

  Gothic spires, pagodas, minarets,

  Greek columns blazing from each picture-glass—

  But it’s all tinted like an oleograph

  And somehow radiates irreverence.

  SPEAK TO US.

  Gaut.

  BROTHER LORDS, I WAS GIVEN BY GOD’S MESSENGER

  MUCH THE SAME ORDER AS MY BROTHER JESU: TELL

  MAN HOW IN HIS LIFE HE MAY ASCEND THE MOUNTAIN

  OF EXPERIENCE BY CASTING EVER UPWARD

  HIS MENTAL ROPES UNTIL SERENELY STANDING ON

  PEAKS HIMALAYAN. I WENT DOWN, MY LORDS, AND SPOKE,

  BETRAYING NEVER TO THE MULTITUDES THOSE TRUTHS

  OF THE REPEATING SOUL. MY WRETCHED WHORE SHIVA

  STOLE THESE FROM ME IN MY SLEEP AND BREATHED THEM EVEN

  INTO THE EAR OF THE BRAHMIN COW. IT WAS OUT:

  INSTEAD OF A GREAT EARTHBOUND CEREBRALITY

  THEY SET GOING A PINWHEEL OF SPUTTERING LIVES

  EACH MORE USELESS THAN THE LAST. I TRIED, LORD BROTHERS!

  I BEG YOU SPEAK TO OUR FATHER ON MY BEHALF.

  Gabr.

  PRINCE, IT IS SPENT, GOD’S POWER IN SUCH MATTERS.

  YET HE AND WE LOOK KINDLY ON YOU. GO IN PEACE, & BECKON IN THE JEW.

  A lean, rabbinical young man in white

  Bent under an imaginary weight

  Stumbles forward, taking Michael’s light

  For God’s at first; recovering, stands straight.

  Jesus.

  FATHER GOD! YAHWEH? AH LORDS, MY BROTHERS, SHALOM!

  His voice is hollow. Like the Buddha, he

  Acts out his own exhausted energy.

  WHAT A DEAD SOUND, MY NAME, IN HALF THE WORLD’S PULPITS.

  WE, AS MY PRINCELY BROTHER SAYS, SPIN DOWN. OUR WORDS

  LIKE GOD’S OWN PLANETS IN ONE LAST NOVA BURST AND

  GRAVITY STILLS & OUR POWER LOSES ITS PULL.

  HE & I CAME TO DELIVER LAWS, MINE FOR MAN

  TO SHAPE HIMSELF IN GOD’S IMAGE, BUDDHA’S FOR MAN

  TO BECOME GOD. WORDS, WORDS. BUT OUR MESSAGE, BROTHERS!

  I BEG OF YOU, INTERCEDE. BEFORE THE WINE RETURNS

  WHOLLY TO WATER LET OUR FATHER MAKE ME FLESH

  THAT I MAY A SECOND TIME WALK EARTH AND IMPLORE

  WRETCHED MAN TO MEND, REPAIR WHILE HE CAN. AMEN.

  Gabr.

  DEAR SIMPLE PRIEST, STAY WITH US HERE IN HEAVEN, GREET YOUR FAITHFUL,

  GIVING THEM BY YOUR SWEET WAYS COURAGE TO RETURN IN YOUR STEAD.

  Shouldering his burden, Christ withdraws.

  NOW MUSICIAN, STEP FORTH!

  From temple to ‘temple of music’ is but one

  Hal
f-tone. Components of an Odeon:

  Golds, whites, red plush, kid gloves, unheard applause.

  Robert, lyre in hand, shyly ascends

  The podium.

  RM.

  LORDS, DEAR ONES, OUR POET LENDS

  ME WORDS TO WELCOME THIS MOST HONORED GUEST.

  Music. He wasn’t joking—an offstage choir

  Sustains his first original melody:

  MASTER, THE CHARMED CIRCLE LISTENING

  ABOUT YOU HERE IS YOUR NEW RING

  —Plainsong phrase repeated a third higher

  Before its resolution into three

  Chords from the Overture to Parsifal

  Not lost on Wagner who, in flowing tie

  And velvets, stands before the company.

  Wag.

  LORDS OF LIFE! AND YOU, ENVIABLE

  ABOUT-TO-BE COMPOSER, I MAKE BOLD

  TO SAY THAT MUSIC’S RIVER GOLD STILL VEINS

  A PEDESTAL THE GOD HAS TOPPLED FROM.

  NONE NOW BUT THOR, SOLO PERCUSSIONIST, REMAINS

  TO BEAT UPON EMMANUEL’S DRUM

  A FAINT DIRGE FOR THAT FURRED & SAVAGE PANTHEON.

  LORDS, MORTALS, COME SALUTE AT SET OF SUN

  GREAT WOTAN, AS THE ICECAPS MELT!

  Steps down

  To strains of his own death march. Wastes of white

  Are scored too briefly by a raven’s flight.

  Gabr.

  COME SPRITE, QUICKSILVER MESSENGER,

  TUBE HELD IN EARTH’S DRY MOUTH, COME MERCURY MY OWN!

  WHAT, ALONE? YOUR SNOWY HEIGHT

  DOWNTRODDEN BY THE PICNICKER?

  QUICK TELL US, YOU WHOSE FACE

  GLEAMS WITH THE MAGIC STILL, OF THAT OLYMPIAN RACE!

  Out from the mirror (Robert blinks astonished)

  Slips a figure only slightly tarnished—

  Wings quivering on silver helmet, wings

  At silver heel—and silver-throated sings:

  AH LORD GABRIEL

  THOUGH MAN WAS ABLE

  TO CONJURE US

  FROM HIS LOOKING GLASS

  TIME RAN THAT RACE,

  THE HORROR WELLD

  UP & ACROSS

  OUR SHINING FIELD:

  DEEPSEATED DAMAGE,

  A BLACKLY TICKING

  OVERTAKING

  OF EYE & IMAGE

  WHENCE WE ARE NOWHERE

  LIKED OR DISLIKED,

  ONLY SHOULD FAIR

  OR STRONG REFLECT

  DO WE OUTGAZE

  FOR A BRIEF SPELL EYES

  BLIND TO THE PILFER

  OF OUR FLAT SILVER

  Flown. Silence. Then a grave, deliberate

  Glissando of the cup to rainbow’s end:

  ABCDE­FGHIJ­KLMNOP­QRSTU­VWXYZ

  DJ.

  What’s all this?

  JM.

  Looks like the alphabet.

  Gabr.

  THE NEW MATERIALS, YOUNG POET, FOR A NEW FAITH:

  ITS ARCHITECTURE, THE FLAT WHITE PRINTED PAGE

  TO WHICH WILL COME WISER WORSHIPPERS IN TIME

  The Brothers go.

  NO ROBERT IT WAS NOT

  REYNOLDS WRAP (THE HERMETIC LEOTARD

  STUNNING MY DEARS AS WAS YR NUDITY)

  Too awful of us…BROWS WERE RAISED MM’S

  HIT HER HAT Describe it? A SMART DARK SAILOR

  GEORGE SO TACTFUL WORE A YARMULKE

  And Robert? ALL IN MEISTERSINGER WHITE,

  HIS WALTER EGO AS HE CALLS IT. SWEETLY

  SUNG, DEAR BOB (Robert, glowing with pride,

  Dictates his tune—which, tried out by JM

  At the piano, is pronounced a gem.)

  Mohammed wasn’t there? INDEED STOOD WAITING

  SCIMITAR IN HAND FOR THE NEXT LESSON.

  HE IS THE ONE STILL VERY MUCH ALIVE

  FORCE IN THAT CROWD One, also, of the Five.

  THAT TOO. BUT ARAB FAITH & POLITICS

  COMBINE INTO A FAIRLY HEADY MIX

  Tomorrow’s lesson is all his? A DUEL

  WITH GABRIEL? A WRESTLING MATCH FOR FUEL?

  Strange how the energies of the Five so far

  Resist exhaustion. THEY ARE OF THE LAB

  ENFANTS, & MOVE TOO GLADLY FROM LIFE TO LIFE

  TO HARDEN INTO IDOLS. NO IVORY

  EINSTEINS OR MOZARTS ON A CRUCIFIX.

  NEITHER MUST THEY RECRUIT BY JUGGLERS’ TRICKS

  VAST FOLLOWINGS FROM THE BUREAUCRACY

  Yet Christ called God his Father— & SO HE IS.

  THE FIVE HOWEVER ARE MORE LITERALLY

  ‘MEDIATORS’, & GABRIEL’S, WITH OF COURSE

  GOD B’S APPROVAL Or the Monitor’s!

  JIMMY DAVE Yes, George? THE MONITOR

  (RM & I HAVE COME TO REALIZE)

  CANNOT BE GABRIEL BUT FROM (M) NEXT DOOR

  MUST SUPERVISE THE LAB A stronger power

  Than God or Nature? WAS IT GOD U HEARD?

  Why yes—the Brothers told us— DO THEY KNOW?

  ALL CONSCIOUSNESS WAS BANISHED ROUND YOU 4

  HEARING THAT SONG —of the Black God? God A

  For Adversary? OR MASTER? OR ‘CREDITOR’

  WHO LENT BRAIN-MATTER ITS PROVERBIAL GRAY?

  AND PRESSES NOW AGAINST THE WHITE OF MIND

  UNLIMITED UNREPULSED LIGHT THE BLINDING

  REVEILLE: IMAGINATION METAPHOR

  SHATTERED BY WHITE REASON! IS THE BLACK

  HOLE A REFUGE? Where’s the nearest one?—

  Anything to duck this light!

  COME ON

  ENFANTS WE’LL SEE WHAT THEY WANT US TO SEE & A BIT

  (AT LESSON 10) BEYOND THEM As before.

  But this time past God to the Monitor?

  HUSH NOW

  PETRODOLLARS IN TOMORROW’S

  COLLECTION BOX?

  MY BLOKE HERE GENUFLECTING

  AS IF HIS SPINE ITCHED HAH!

  OLD HABITS MY DEAR

  GIVE ONE COURAGE IN THE FACE OF FEAR.

  PACE!

  *

  The Last Lessons: 3

  Faint camel bells. Dry flute. One black-framed scene

  All blazing desert, not a blade of green.

  Above the carpet God’s magnificent

  Somber glory throbs as through a tent.

  Our Lady, veiled, a checkerboard of wraps,

  Seems…aged? withdrawn? Just wearier perhaps.

  Gabr.

  OUR POET ASKED: THIS BLACK BEYOND BLACK, IS IT A STOP TO DREAM?

  POET, NO, FOR IT IS A DREAM.

  IS IT THE HOURGLASS DRAINED OF TIME?

  NO, FOR IT IS THE HOURGLASS IN WHICH SAND RUNS UP!

  Then, as we stare, figuring that one out:

  FATHER, TWIN STAR, BROTHERS, MORTALS, LET US BE MERRY!

  HERE IS A ROUGH ONE, A TENTMAKER (EH POET?) & A WARRIOR. COME, HIRAMBASHID!

  An erect personage, blackbrowed, with broad

  Moustaches, swaggers up—recoiling awed.

  Moh.

  O GOD, O ALLAH BEN ALLAH! LORDS, MEN, WOMEN!

  HERE I AM, JUST AS YOU SEE ME, A SIMPLE MAN

  (He has already regained confidence)

  NEITHER ALL MEEK LIKE MY PROPHET BROTHER JESU

  WHO HAD NO USE FOR WOMEN, NOR BRAINFILLED LIKE MY

  PRINCELY BROTHER—WHAT MAN COMPLAINS OF A WHORE? BAH!

  NO, JUST AS YOU SEE ME. AND BELIEVE ME, MASTER GOD,

  JUST AS SURPRISED AS ANY MAN WHEN MY VISION CAME
.

  ME? ME TO SAY ALL THAT! WHY, I COULD NOT READ,

  HONORABLE SCRIBES, IMAGINE! WELL, I WENT OUT,

  SPOKE. IT WAS EASY! JESUS, YOU SEE, HAD A DIFFERENT

  WORLD TO TRY TO WIN OVER TO LOVE & MERCY.

  JEWS ARE GREEDY, ACCOUNTANTS, PILING UP DEBTS,

  BALANCING THESE WITH PROFITS: A SIN, A GOOD DEED.

  HEAVEN ON EARTH NOT LIKELY TO ATTRACT MY ROVERS!

  BUDDHA, THO A GREAT FIGHTER, SPOKE TO SUCH MULTITUDES,

  THEIR VERY NUMBERS MEANT LEAN BELLIES. MIND? A SAD

  MESSAGE FOR MEN RIDING HORSES THE LIVELONG DAY.

  ‘TELL THEM OF HEAVEN’ I DID, MY & THEIR KIND.

  DO THIS, YOU GET TO NUMBER 1: A SKINNY

  BITCH ON YR LAP & AN ETERNITY

  OF THIN SOUP. DO SOMETHING BETTER, & NUMBER 2:

  BETTER RUMP, BETTER GRUB, AND SO ON UP. BROTHERS,

  SIMPLE AS I AM, I RAN OUT OF HEAVENS AT 7

  & FROM WHAT I’VE SEEN OF 9 THERE’S NOT MUCH TO CHOOSE.

  YES, WE ARE FIGHTERS, YOU GOD MADE US THAT.

  OURS IS THE CRADLE OF MAN, HE SPRINGS UP GUTSY,

  READY FOR A KILL & A PLUMP WOMAN ON HI

  A woman’s hand upraised, one flashing look

  Of soot-and-emerald over the yashmak.

  Psyche had charmed us. Now we see another

  More dumbfounding facet of the Mother.

  Nat.

  YES YES, WE KNOW. ENOUGH, WILY MOHAMMED.

  DRIVE YOUR TENTPEG DEEPER INTO THAT FATEFUL SAND. SPEAK!

  Moh.

  O? SO THE GAME IS UP? Biting his lip.

  YES, THE BLACK. I DID NOT MENTION THE BLACK.

  THESE MORTALS?

  Nat.

  SPEAK!

  Moh.

  GOD, UNDER OUR SANDFLOORED TENT

  THERE IS A BUBBLING OF LOST GREEN. YOU TOLD ME THEN:

  ‘THIN OUT YOUR RACE AND KEEP IT THIN WITH BLOODSHED,

  FOR YOU SIT ON TIME MADE BLACK.’ I DID THAT, GOD,

  I DO STILL, APPEARING IN DREAMS & STIRRING TROUBLE

  Nat.

  MOHAMMED, THE BLACK!

  Threatens to unveil. A chain of shocks.

  Rewound on Gabriel’s cassette, the flute

  Gibbers insanely. The framed world in flight.

  Mohammed kneeling, eyeballed like an ox.

  Moh.

  IT CALLS TO US ‘COME BACK TO THE HEAVENS SPEEDING

 

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