The Changing Light at Sandover
Page 47
Arcadia (and our own cells) born again…
Gabr.
THE REST? LET US REST. STAND HERE, NOT TOO FAR FROM OUR WAGON, & CONSIDER THESE RUIND PROSPECTS, THESE PAINFUL MEMORIES
A drawn-out sigh escapes the darkened angel.
BROTHER GENII, IT IS AN EASY IMAGE TO SPEAK OF GOD’S MATTER, ANTIGOD’S ANTIMATTER.
THAT IS THE ODD THING ABOUT LANGUAGE. THE PARTICULAR FAILS TO EXPLAIN ITS OWN WORKINGS.
(This lesson, then, in lieu of a week’s lecture
On the fine points of atom- or cell-structure?)
WE MUST ASSUME OUR FATHER WAS GIVEN A LIMITED CHARTER.
FOR THERE IS, SIMPLY, NO ‘QUARREL’ BETWEEN LIGHT & SHADOW, SO LONG AS SUBSTANCE (PSYCHE OF MATTER) STANDS
BETWEEN THEM. NOW BACK
INTO THE WAGON. WE’VE LAID OUR WREATH ON THIS TOMB.
1 2 3 4 5 6
The schoolroom brightens as the cup ascends
To Intuition, and the lesson ends:
TOMORROW (HOW REFRESHING HERE OUT OF THE SULPHUR MISTS) WE WILL TALK OF THE WAY GOD SPEAKS,
HE TO US, WE TO YOU,
AND HOW THIS TOO HELPS HOLD IT BACK.
The Brothers go.
So that’s it. What a tale…
DJ: But why blame God? Didn’t the angels
Make the wingèd man in their own image?
JM: If so, then God accepted him.
What struck me was how fondly Gabriel
Spoke of the creature from Atlantis—whom
Michael had mocked for its shy hanging head
And great blank eyes. DAVE JIMMY AS U’VE GUESSED
IT COMES DOWN TO THE NATURE OF THE ATOM:
‘FIRSTBORN WAS CHAOS’ THE BLACK VOLATILE HALF
Bat wings unfurled against the light— INDEED.
THEN MINUTES ONLY AFTER THE BIG BANG
CAME THE FIRST NUCLEI OF HELIUM
Matter’s white half? DEPENDABLE, (M) 4 FOOTED
Like Uni!
SIRS? It’s nothing, Uni. (Wistfully
Nuzzles Robert and trots out.)
I THINK
THE 2 ASSESSMENTS OF A CREATURE LACKING
SHAPING HANDS MY BOY REFLECT THE 2
KINDS OF CRITIC, I.E. GABRIEL WHO
CONSIDERS THE DOER’S MANNER, & MICH WHO LOOKING
TOWARD THE THING DONE IMAGINES ITS RECEPTION
So here we are, back at a pedigree—
Uni’s or Mirabell’s—that can be traced
To motes and gases, outermost thin paste
Of life, and innermost dichotomy
RESOLVED BY SUBSTANCE, EVEN BY THE STUFF
OF OUR ‘CREATION’ WHICH (EXAMPLE) BRINGS
WM CARLOS WM’S THOUGHTFUL THINGS
& THE COLD VIRGIN VERB OF MALLARME
TOGETHER, & RELIABLY ENOUGH
HOLDS BACK THE NOTHING WE HAVE FOUND TO SAY
ONLY IN OUR WORST MOMENTS. THIS ESTATE
WHERE WE ARE GUESTS (OR CAPTIVES?) WD HAVE BEEN
GHOSTLY & UNENDURABLE WITHOUT
THE FRIENDLY WHINNY FROM THE PADDOCK GATE
OR CRY OF THE HERALDIC BIRD THAT PREENS
ABOVE THE MOAT But if it’s all a fable
Involving, oh, the stable and unstable
Particles, mustn’t we at last wipe clean
The blackboard of these creatures and their talk,
To render in a hieroglyph of chalk
The formulas they stood for? U MY BOY
ARE THE SCRIBE YET WHY? WHY MAKE A JOYLESS THING
OF IT THRU SUCH REDUCTIVE REASONING?
ONCE HAVING TURNED A FLITTING SHAPE OF BLACK
TO MIRABELL, WD YOU MAKE TIME FLOW BACK?
SUBTRACT FROM HIS OBSESSION WITH 14
THE SHINING/DIMMING PHASES OF OUR QUEEN?
CONDEMN POOR UNI TO THE CYCLOTRON
AFTER THE GREENS U’VE LET HIM GALLOP ON?
Dear Wystan, thank you for reminding me
The rock I’m chained to is a cloud; I’m free.
DJ: How touching Gabriel was…AH YES
HE IS WISDOM SADLY ARRIVED AT, PROUDLY KEPT:
NUCLEAR COMMANDER OF THE GREENHOUSE,
HIS STOCKPILE UNDER LOCK, HIS POWDER DRY
After the illustration. O WELL WHY
TELL THE HISTORY OF A BOMB? ENACT IT!
Yesterday’s explosion wasn’t by
Any chance an actual one? INDEED:
UNDERGROUND SIBERIA (And we’ll read
In tonight’s Herald of just such a test
Picked up by seismographs throughout the West.)
Maria hasn’t spoken. NO ENFANTS
TOMORROW A LONG SILENCE WILL BE BROKEN
*
The Last Lessons: 6
All present. Schoolroom tidied overnight.
Gabr.
MAY I SPEAK FOR YOU, FATHER?
Intuiting his answer in the Light.
THANK YOU.
OUR FATHER LAST APPEARD TO ONE OF HIS CREATURES WITH THE WORDS: ‘LOOK IN MY EYES’
DJ.
Lord, am I crazy? I thought Nature said
Her eyes and God’s, both, looked into the ape’s.
Gabr.
LOYAL HAND, GOD LOOKD ONCE AT EACH OF HIS CREATURES, HE SPEAKS TO THEM STILL (AND MAY TO YOU TWO AT 10)
BUT NO LONGER APPEARS BEFORE THEM. HIS TRUST? WENT OUT OF HIM.
NOT THAT HIS LAST LOVE, MAN, PROVES UNWORTHY OF IT, NO
BUT OUR FATHER HAS UNDERSTOOD THAT TO LIVE EVEN THE CAREFREE LIFE OF A MORTAL
FORMS A SHIELD AROUND HIS CREATURE’S THOUGHT
& ALWAYS IS POSSIBLE (RARE BUT AS OUR MUSICIAN SHOWD US, POSSIBLE)
A BLACK BLANK SPACE BEHIND IT.
THEREFORE SINCE THOSE WORDS & THAT APPEARANCE HE HAS SAID:
‘GO MICHAEL, PLAY GOD. WRITE ON A WALL. FORM A STARRY MESSAGE FOR THE BYZANTINE KING.
TELL THROUGH YOUR MESSENGERS THIS INDIAN PRINCE, THAT HASSIDIC JEW, THIS TENTMAKER WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW.’
AND CONTENTING HIMSELF WITH THE TRIPLE SYSTEM OF THE SENSES, FROM MAN TO ELEMENTS TO HIS SONS, IN ORDER TO LEARN OF THE LIVING,
OR ON RARE OCCASIONS PRESENT WHILE ONE OF OUR CHERISHD FIVE REPORTS HIS LIFE (‘I DREW BREATH! O GOD, THE SWEETNESS!’ & SO FORTH)
GOD KEEPS IN TOUCH.
YET, & WE UNDERSTAND, HE TOO IS WISTFUL OF LIFE.
WE LOOK AT YOU. NO MATTER THE MANY FRUITLESS PURSUITS, THE FLAWD STARTS & VIOLENT ENDS,
WE LOOK & OFTEN SIMPLY MARVEL AT THOSE SUDDEN UNEXPECTED FIREWORKS OF PLEASURE YOU TAKE IN YOUR LIVING. AND THEN FROM TIME TO TIME
GOD WANTS A CHILD IN HIS PALM, A LIVE ONE.
TO FEEL THE OLD CLAY, TO HEAR THAT HUMAN ELECTRIC BEAT.
WE FIX UP A SYSTEM, MY BROTHERS & I, WHEREBY THIS IS DONE:
SO THE SLEEPER’S DREAM, THE APPROACH THROUGH VISIONS, & MANY A CLEVER WAY TO BRING HIS DARLING WITHOUT TERROR,
WITH SOMETHING OF THAT SURPRISING FRESHNESS INTO HIS PRESENCE.
YET NOT ALL CAN BE TRUSTED TO WITHSTAND THE MOMENT & BE RETURND UNCHANGED.
MANY A HAPLESS SECT SWARMS UP & FLICKERS OUT AFTER A LEADER’S BRIEF BRUSH WITH HIM.
MANY A SUBTLY, OFTEN COMICALLY MISREAD IDEA: ‘HE IS ALL FIRE, O’ OR ‘HE SAYS, FREE FRANCE FOR MY SON THE KING.’
AND NOW AS MAN MULTIPLIES, GETS CLEVERER WITH HIS TOOLS, CONTRIVING NEARLY PERFECT SUBSTITUTES FOR GOD’S NATURAL POWERS,
GOD NEEDS MORE (& MORE COMPLEX) CONTACT WITH HIS CHILD, THAT EACH MAY KNOW THE OTHER’S GOOD WILL.
Fond amusement blazing from his eyes.
WE ARRANGE THESE
. MADAME?
MM.
LORDS,
FROM THE FIRST I CALLED THEM ENFANTS. WHEN IN THE COURSE
OF MY WORK I WAS GIVEN THEM TO STUDY (‘THESE MIGHT DO
FOR THE V WORK WE WANT. CHECK THEIR THOUGHTS, COME & REPORT’)
I GREW TO LOVE THESE TWO. DEAR ENFANTS, YES.
FORGIVE YOUR OLD BLACK MAMMY.
JM.
For what? Who are you?
DJ.
God took you on His palm?
MM.
YES LORDS, THERE IS AN INSTANCE OF THEIR WIT. I READ
PALMS, DEAREST ONES. I GAVE YOU GIFTS: A LAMP? THOSE TEACUPS?
SYMBOLIC & AS SUCH UNFAIR, FOR HAD YOU GUESSED
ALL WD HAVE BEEN WASHED FROM YOUR HEARTS AS IN A DREAM.
THE POINT WAS TO TRUST ONE ANOTHER, PREPARE OUR ‘DESK’
& THAT MAMAN BE NO LESS QUALIFIED IN YOUR EYES
TO STAND BY AS A CLAY VESSEL FOR THE MIDNIGHT OIL
THAN SHE TESTIFIED YOU WERE IN HERS TO SEE BY ITS LIGHT.
(DJ: Make sense to you? JM: Not yet.)
I MADE A BARGAIN WITH MY BROTHERS: ‘LOOK,
I LIKE THESE CHAPS & THEY ME. LET ME SEE THEM THROUGH
THEIR SCHOOLING. LET THEM SEE ME BACK INTO THE WORLD.’
JM.
More bargains? Ephraim’s, Mirabell’s—now yours?
MM.
AH THOSE JM WERE BASEMENT BARGAINS. BUT EPHRAIM, YES,
BROUGHT YOU TO ME, AS I HAVE YOU TO THESE MY LORDS.
THE COMMAND FOR YOUR TRILOGY WAS GIVEN, & MAMAN
GOT SAFELY OUT OF THE WAY OF HER CHILD’S FURIOUS WORK:
COULD SHE HAVE BORNE GIVING UP OUR DRINKS & COFFEES?
NO LONGER BEING, AS THRUOUT YR TESTING PERIOD WITH E,
‘THE MUSE OF YOUR OFF-DAYS’?
DJ.
That phrase, it’s from your poem to Maria—
JM.
She died the same week I began
Ephraim—four years ago next January.
MM.
NO ACCIDENT. LIFE GROWS
LOGARITHMICALLY, LESS CAREFREE AS ONE IS
LESS MORTAL. CHILDREN: I AM OF THE FIVE.
(Those are her words. An icy terror
Flows through our veins—good Lord!
Or is it the bereavement we most feel?
It’s now, Maman, before we break the mirror,
We lose you? Was the person we adored,
Her gaiety, her ordeal,
Merely projected by some master reel?)
MM.
AH COME ON! MY MISSION? CATCH A FISH.
JM.
Maria, seriously, please—
MM.
DOUCEMENT. NOW IS IT SO STARTLING JM, THAT YOU
SMALL BUT CLEVERLY GLINTING IN THE STREAM OF LETTERS
GOT POINTED OUT (NOTHING ESCAPES OUR MICHAEL): ‘GET
ME HIM, SEE IF HIS MIND IS WITH US, HE MAY DO.’
RM.
A murmur as the schoolroom melts away.
GREAT GODS & LITTLE FISHES
(Love for Maria both suspends
And quickens disbelief.
Those thousand and one coffees came to warrant
A certain tact. If Heaven took our friend’s
Voice and aspect, copied to the life,
To clothe its naked current—
Well, such tricks work because they are transparent.)
MM.
LIPON, ENFANT,
I FOUND YOU NOT JUST CLEVER BUT FINNY WITH WIT
& RUSHING INTO THE HOUSE PULLED OFF MY WADERS CRYING
‘I GOT HIM! YES HE’LL DO!’ & THEY MY BROTHERS COMMANDED
‘GO FIX YR FACE IN THAT MIRROR, WHILE WE COOK
OUR PISCES POET.’
JM.
“Cooked” poetry? This mirror in the hall?
Your compact mirror at the café table?
(Beneath my incredulity
All at once is flowing
Joy, the flash of the unbaited hook—
Yes, yes, it fits, it’s right, it had to be!
Intuition weightless and ongoing
Like stanzas in a book
Or golden scales in the melodic brook—)
O IMAGES, DEAR ENFANT, IMAGES…
NEVER LET THOSE SCALES DROP FROM YOUR EYES
Making Song of It
We’d hoped that Wystan and George were of the Five
For the poem’s sake—a feather in its cap.
You, though, we loved (we thought) “just as you were”
And never dreamed of a promotion there.
DJ: Mind if I smoke? Are we alone?
YES THEY BACKED OUT LIKE THE MATCHMAKER
DURING THE ‘GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER’ PHASE
But who—which one are you? I thought the Five
Had to be scientists, musicians— NO
NEVER MY THING. MINE’S THE PLATONIC WAY
You, all along, were Plato? BUT HOW DJ,
HOW, ANCIENT BUMPY TOOTHLESS NUMERO,
WD YOU HAVE TAKEN IN THE TRUTH? ‘MEET PLATO, CHAPS
YOU KNEW HIM AS MARIA’? But the rays—
JM: The Five are indestructible.
DJ: And we—we were your life’s work?
WELL, NO. THERE WERE (BLUSH) OTHERS IN MY DAY
I HAVE BEEN WHAT U MIGHT CALL A PROFESSIONAL SHOPPER.
IN ENGLAND: ‘YES LORDS, SHE’S A STEADY CHILD.
LET THE FLIGHTY ONE GO’ & EXIT EDWARD
That’s how Elizabeth became Queen! INDEED
NO MALE ERRORS PLUS THE ODD JOB HERE
WHILE YOU 2 CHAPS SHAPED UP. MY PLATONIC ASPECT
A MUSLIN LETTING IN LIGHT & INSTRUCTIONS
& ENSURING THE (M) MOISTURE OF THE CHEESE.
WE 5 CAN’T LOLL ABOUT THE LAB U UNDERSTAND
WAITING FOR TALENT SLOTS GENES DENSITIES
NO, WE HAVE QUICK ANONYMOUS V WORK GIVEN US
TO KEEP OUR HAND IN, OUR POOR HUMAN HAND.
Human? You who call the Angels brother?
—Although the Five we met in Lesson 5
Spoke like slaves. AH MY OLD DRESSING GOWN
MAKES ME RELUCTANT TO PUT ON THE GLASS
SLIPPER BUT IN FACT YES, WE ARE GODS ALAS
Because you…suffer? BUT ARE LUCKIER THAN
FOR INSTANCE CHRIST: WE ARE SO OFTEN MAN.
THERE’S ALSO THE WHOLE TICKLISH ? OF CLASS
OR SENIORITY THAT OLFACTORY LOBE?
The nose—Plato—is eldest? YR MAMAN
IS MAMA N’S OWN CHILD THUS OF A RANK
NEAREST THE ANGELS. OTHERS OF THE 5
(HARD TO FIT 5 INTO 4 IN LESSON 5)
MUST DO A CERTAIN KOWTOWING I’M SPARED
More elitism? DJ THAT SYSTEM THRIVES,
I’M BORN WITH THE SILVER SPOON IN ALL MY LIVES:
‘MY DAUGHTER WASH A DISH? YOU MUST BE MAD!’
JM: Well, there’ll be servants in Bombay—
If that’s your destination now, and not
The vegetable world. NEARLY THE SAME
SAYS RM Frankly, Maria, does all this
Go in the poem? WHY NOT? DOESN’T (SAYS WYSTAN)
THE BUTLER ALWAYS DO IT? The inside job…
PLUS ILLUSTRATION OF THE ‘BEATRICE
MECHANISM’ DJ: What? (JM reminds him
Of the little girl whom Dante scarcely knew
But loved on sight, forever.) NOW GUESS WHO!
SO DJ, HAND, THAT DAY I PATTED YOURS
& ASKED WHY WERE WE BORN, U PASS
ED THE TEST:
YR PLEASURE IN THE DAY IN ME IN LIFE
YR TOUCHING EAGER DEFENSE— ‘BROTHERS, HE’LL DO!’
I didn’t fall asleep? I DREW THE SHADE
WASTING NO TIME, TILL MY REPORT WAS MADE
But are you Plato now, in beard and toga?
NEVER! STAYING WHILE I CAN IN DRAG,
I LOVE IT! YOU SAID SOMETHING ELSE DJ
ON A DRIVE HOME: ‘THE MEDITERRANEAN
MAKES SUCH HEAVY PROSE OF BEING MALE.’
NOW THESE ESCAPES INTO A FEMALE LIFE ARE VAST
REFRESHMENTS. WE (THE 5) ARE LARGELY CHILDLESS,
SO THAT A RICH & (MAY I SAY IT?) CLEVER
WOMAN’S LIFE IS PARTICULARLY DENSE
WITH THE JOY OF LIVING. A GOOD VAC, MY LAST
JM: Last? Time’s that short—? CHILD, MY MOST RECENT.
U NO KNOW ZE INGLIS? ME MISTAKEN?
BOYS, THROW HIM BACK! BUT NOW LET’S COUNT TO 5
AS I BECOME YR OLD MAMAN AGAIN,
YR SOUL- & SCHOOL-MATE 1 2 3 4 5
VOILA ADIEU
There’s so much more to settle!
DEAR TROUBADOUR IF U ARE NOT YET GLAD
MAKE SONG OF YOUR MISGIVINGS A ballade?
When x-rays of Giorgione’s painted scene
(Controversy over which still brews)
Forcing its secret, made the green
Of boughs, the rose-red doublet, the whole view’s
Light indrawn by thunderblacks-and-blues
Disclose the spectral moonbather
Pressed underneath, like petals of a ruse,
Was anyone prepared for it? U WERE
Or if at dusk a scroll in the vitrine
Of its own self, caked with taboos,
Began to give off an unearthly sheen
And then—no longer the papyrus whose
Demotic tatters one construes
But a shed skin of Thought’s pure Lucifer—
Uncoil, encompass, utterly bemuse…
No one could be prepared for that. U WERE
Plato, python, frontal gems of keen
Outstreaming radiance that suavely woos,
Strictly recycles through long discipline
The lovers drawn to it by twos,
Their lives illumined, which they soon will lose—
You were Maria? Served us lunch in her
Salt garden? Wandered Athens in her shoes?
Why, why weren’t we— ENFANTS U WERE