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The Changing Light at Sandover

Page 50

by James Merrill


  BRAVO MR ROBERT! BIM BAM BOOM

  —Till silenced, and ourselves brought halfway down

  To Earth, by a couplet mild and gray as dawn:

  ENOUGH UNI. YOU & I

  HERE ALONE IN EMPTY SKY.

  Mirabell? Nature’s very own now, free?

  IS IT NOT INDEED A MIRACLE?

  We wished for nothing better, certainly.

  OLD & DEAR PUPILS, MY MOST LOVING THANKS.

  NOW OFF & AWAY ON UNI’S FLANKS!

  (With which, back to the void they whisk—

  Cielo stellato of the asterisk.)

  *

  Woken—a bark? Night freshness and dazzle edging

  The room’s pitch bright as day. Shutter flung wide,

  In streams moonlight, her last quarter blazing

  Inches above that wall of carbon mist

  Made of the neighbors’. Whereupon the bedside

  Tumbler brims and, the tallest story becoming

  Swallowable, a mind-altering spansule,

  This red, self-shuttered poverty and Heaven’s

  Glittering oxygen tent as one conspire.

  Dark dark the bogs do hark…Instreaming, overwhelming

  Even as it pulls back, the skyward undertow

  Leaves, throughout city and countryside, wherever

  Somebody wakes and goes to his window, a glowing

  Tide-pool dram of bliss, diminuendo,

  The most (here JM topples back to sleep)

  His outflung arms could hold.

  AH WHAT A FETE

  Sighs Wystan after breakfast—rendezvous

  Set early, not to clash with Lesson Ten.

  U MY DEARS SAW IT ALL, NOTHING FOR US

  TO SPELL OUT GABR’S 4-D IMAGINATION

  PUT TO (M) SHAME, BUT GENTLY, LOVINGLY

  MICHAEL’S ILLUSIONS By 4-D you mean

  Maria taking on Plato’s dimension—

  BEYOND LIFE, HEAVEN, ART (OUR COMMON 3)

  AND BOB STRAVINSKY’S, YES, AND DJ YEATS’.

  THOSE TRUE MIRACLES OF YESTERDAY

  MEASURED THE LEAP BETWEEN FETES 1 & 2

  This was the Masque we’d all been waiting for!

  & CENTERED PROPERLY UPON THE MONARCH

  On Nature— TRUE, FROM ONE END OF THE SPYGLASS

  And from the other? WHO MY DEARS BUT YOU!

  MANKIND: ALL EYES IN HEAVEN FOCUSED ON

  THE MORTAL, SACRED (& EXPENDABLE) THRONE

  AND OH THE STAGECRAFT! SIMPLE SOLID JOY

  Maria, are you still an Indian boy?

  NO NO A MINIGLIMPSE OF THINGS TO COME

  THEN BACK INTO THE SHAPE U KNOW ME BY

  UNTIL U BREAK THE GLASS. AMONG THE BETTER

  PARTIES, EH? THO MY CHAPS HERE SOMEWHAT VEXED

  BY QM’S QUOTE ‘MISREADING’ OF THEIR TEXT.

  I’D WARNED THEM: NOT TOO MANY FINE POINTS, SHE

  WILL NOT WEAR GLASSES IN PUBLIC

  BUT I MEAN!

  MUFFING ON PURPOSE ROBERT’S HEAVENLY PUN:

  ‘GOOD DOCTOR, U’VE BROUGHT IN NO SCENTS?’ ALL DONE

  NICELY IN THE NAIF TETRAMETER

  OF A NURSERY PAGEANT. PITY. I admit

  To having been up tinkering since dawn

  With Yeats’s stanza, which came through a bit…

  MR M, I MADE A HASH. YOU’VE MADE IT CLEAR.

  THANK YOU. Oh please, Mr Yeats, you who have always

  Been such a force in my life! WYSTAN, U HEAR?

  MAITRE, I HAVE EVER HEARD

  THE GOLDEN METER IN YOUR WORD,

  AND KISS YR HAND (This with the straightest of faces

  As Yeats withdraws into the palm’s oasis.)

  DJ: They’re all on the side of life, then? YES

  Gabriel had us frightened. HE IS GOD’S,

  AT MOST INHERITING HIS MOTHER’S ONE

  BLACK OR ‘RESISTANT’ GENE AS LIAISON

  WITH THE CHAOTIC FORCES But in fact

  Nature said Yes to man—the question’s settled.

  SHE SAYS DEAR BOY EXACTLY WHAT SHE MEANS

  LOOK IT UP “A last resounding Yes.”

  LAST? The fête was ending. JM: Or

  Because man won’t be hearing Yes much more?

  AH SHE SETS MEANING SPINNING LIKE A COIN.

  HEADS UP? You’re asking us? TIP SCALE TO YES

  & ALL’S THE GLINT OF QUEEN M(AB)’S ALLEGRESSE.

  LEAN TOWARD NO, & NO AMOUNT OF SKILL

  WILL KEEP HER IMPS LOCKED UP IN GABRIEL’S SCHOOL.

  We do the judging? Everyone? INDEED

  2 LINES HER MAJESTY REFUSED TO READ:

  ‘NOW LET US BANISH GLOOMY DREAMS

  FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH MOST LIKELY SEEMS’

  REST NOW ENFANTS TODAY YOU ARE TO BE

  EXTRAORDINARILY FAVORED How do we dress?

  I THINK WHITE WD BE NICE LAST NIGHT’S INSTREAMING

  VISIT A DIM FORETASTE That moonlit hour,

  Maman, what rapture! YOU JM LEANED BACK

  SURRENDERING TO US YOU DJ AROSE

  & THREW ON COVERS DJ: I felt cold!

  CALL US IN 2 DAYS WE MAY HAVE A FEW

  CLARIFYING AFTERTHOUGHTS ADIEU

  The Last Lessons: 10

  The Greenhouse. DJ and JM alone.

  No pulsing zeroes, no ascent. The vast

  Black spaces of this lesson’s counterpart

  Are not invoked. Or else our cup contains them,

  Soberly springing, at a touch, to life:

  MY SON MICHAEL LIT UP YOUR MINDS MY SON

  GABRIEL TURNED THEM TO THE DARK FORCE WE

  CONTAIN POET FROM THIS MAKE A V WORK

  GIVING BOTH PAUSE AND HOPE TO THIS FIGURE

  I SEE EMBLAZONED HERE

  YES to NO to A to Z to YES

  (Quincunx where ghosts of Five and Twelve perambulate)

  The cup…crosses itself? Inscribes a stark

  Twinbladed axe

  Upon the block, sideways? Is it the mark

  That cancels, or the letter-writer’s kiss?

  The X

  Of the illiterate?

  Fulcrum and consort to our willowy &?

  The space of a slow breath indrawn,

  Simplicity itself, it waits and then goes on,

  Taking us like children by the hand:

  MY UPRIGHT MAN

  FULL OF TIME HE STRUGGLES TO HOLD IT BACK

  AND CREATE FOR ME A PARADISE I

  IN MY OWN UPSTRETCHED ARMS WILL SHOW CRYING

  SEE BROTHERS WE HAVE HELD IT BACK SEE SEE

  I AND MINE BROTHERS IN OUR DAY SURVIVE

  Drifting to the outer limit. Gone.

  *

  First things first. Down from the Pantheon

  Yesterday’s Speaker and His Twin descended,

  He with His proven innocence, and She

  With Her rich wardrobe of ideas and motives.

  ENFANT ONE HATES TO BOAST BUT IT’S TOP DRAWER:

  ‘YES PET, YOU’RE OF THE OLDEST FAMILY

  ALL WRIT DOWN IN THE DOOMSDAY BOOK’ Yet here

  In their New World, this branch at least, these two

  Have fallen on hard times. Their Mayflower

  Long run wild, they bend to the poor lamplight,

  Her deft hands full of mending, His roughened ones

  Forming letters which the flame, tipped blue

  As if with cold, breathes fitful life into:

  I’ve found work, we get on, Sister keeps house.

 
Stay well, and please do not abandon us…

  ALAS ENFANT THERE’S NO DECEIVING U

  Or you. Did nothing in our lessons come

  As a surprise? MY VISION OF THE VEG WORLD,

  WYSTAN’S OF EARTH’S CORE, GEORGIE’S OF THE CHILL

  FRONTIERS OF ANTIMATTER THESE WERE ‘FIELDS’

  ONLY RECENTLY DECLASSIFIED.

  TILL NOW NOT EVEN THE 5 HAVE HAD SUCH TRAINING

  AS WE CHAPS GOT THEN MIRABELL’S MISTAKES!

  Some we’ve corrected. Poor thing, were there others?

  WHEN HE ASSIGNS (BOOK 5) NO ACCIDENT

  TO A GALACTIC LEVEL? MAMAN BIT HER TONGUE

  TO KEEP FROM SILENCING THAT BATTY BIRD

  How do we know he was wrong? BECAUSE U HEARD

  OF POOR GOD’S PAIN & CONSTERNATION WHEN

  HIS FIRST 2 CREATURES WENT AWRY Still, couldn’t

  Some Clause more comprehensive than God B’s

  Have dictated those “accidents”? YOU SEE?

  WE SCRIBES WILL WRITE IT AS IT IS, MARIA!

  She answers from her highest horse: U THINK?

  HAH! IF MY MOTHER WERE HERE U’D RUN OUT OF INK!

  Friction made the first thin consommé

  Of all we know. Soon it was time for lunch.

  Between an often absent or abstracted

  (In mid-depression) father and still young

  Mother’s wronged air of commonsense the child sat.

  The third and last. If he would never quite

  Outgrow the hobby horse and dragon kite

  Left by the first two, one lukewarm noodle

  Prefigured no less a spiral nebula

  Of further outs. Piano practice, books…

  A woman speaking French had joined their sunstruck

  Looking-glass table. Fuels of the cup

  Lowered to her lips were swallowed up.

  The child blinked. All would now be free to shatter,

  Change or die. Tight-wound exposures lay

  Awaiting trial, whose development

  Might set a mirror flowing in reverse

  Forty years, fifty, past the flailing seed

  To incoherence, blackout—the small witness

  Having after all held nothing back?

  HUSH ENFANT FOR NO MAN’S MIND CAN REACH

  BEYOND THAT HIM & HER THEIR SEPARATION

  REMAINS UNTHINKABLE. WE ARE CONFINED

  BY THE PINK CARNATION, THE FERN FIDDLEHEAD

  & THESE BREATHMISTED PANES OF HUMAN SPEECH

  That was the summer my par— YR PARALLELS

  DIVERGE PRECISELY HERE I from the I

  Who shook those bars, who burned to testify

  At the divorce. Scales flashing, bandage loosened,

  Pitiless gaze shining forth—ah cover it

  While time allows, in decent prejudice!

  Mine’s for the happy ending. Weren’t the endings

  Always happy in books? Barbarity

  To serve uncooked one’s bloody tranche de vie…

  Later, if the hero couldn’t smile,

  Reader and author could; one called it style.

  Poetic justice, if you like. A spell

  Which in mid-sentence, turning iron to sunlight—

  Where were we? SAFE AS YET IN THE IMMORTAL CELL

  *

  The Sermon at Ephesus

  Bright, empty days. Then DJ thinks to wonder:

  Was it as Plato that you joined our tour

  Of Ephesus? U GUESSED! & GAVE A LIVELY

  SYMPOSIUM, EH WYSTAN?

  QUITE SPLENDID Its theme?

  TIME PASSING AS O GO AHEAD THEN

  ‘AH

  CHILDREN OF THE GREAT GODDESS (I SAID) EVEN

  THESE BREASTS WILL RUN DRY. PREPARE TO WEAN

  YRSELVES OF THE FATAL DELUSION OF ALLPROVIDING

  HEAVEN. MAN MUST PROVIDE (HERE JM MISSES

  A STEP NO LONGER THERE) YES, MAN ALONE

  MUST UNDERSTAND THAT VANISHED MARBLE TREAD

  GIVES WAY IN TIME TO THE STEEP & SOLITARY

  PATH OF MIND’ & THEN AS (IN OUR TIME WARP)

  THEY BOOED, WE FLED IN YR TAXI! And JM’s fall,

  A leak of pain? A warning from the black

  Transmission case? A PLUS

  It sounds as though you—

  INDEED (the answer comes before he asks)

  WE OF THE 5 ARE PARCELED INTO MORE

  THAN ONE LIFE AT A TIME OUR ENERGIES

  CONCENTRATE WITHIN THE PRINCIPAL LIFE

  BUT EACH LEAST POWER IS USED. THE NEXT RM:

  STRAVINSKY POWDER, A HALF CUP A TEASPOON

  OF MOZART DOLLOP OF VERDI THESE AS U KNOW,

  ASPECTS OF HOMER BUT AN OVERFLOW

  UNNEEDED BY OUR MAN IN EAST BERLIN.

  THUS THE MELODIC SENSE REFINED IN LIVE

  ALEMBICS THRU THE CENTURIES WILL GO

  LARGELY TO RM. MAMAN IN HER NEW LIFE

  TAKES ON ALL PLATO’S POWER TO SEE INTO

  & MAKE SENSE OF THE COSMOS. WHAT MOST DREW

  HIS PUPILS (CHARM? PERSUASION?) GOES HOWEVER

  INTO VARIOUS DRAB POLITICOS

  NEEDING A HELPING HAND OUT OF THE CAVE.

  The way you listened, Maria, seemed to hear

  Words unspoken—all that charm was yours!

  AH WELL SAY JUST A DAB BEHIND EACH EAR?

  MY CABLE POINTS Your ears? DJ WITHOUT

  SOMEONE TO TAKE IN I’D HAVE TAKEN OFF.

  WE OF THE 5 ARE NEVER NEVER ALONE:

  THEY DROP IN WITHOUT TELEPHONING FIRST!

  POOR MITSOTAKI I’D LEAVE BED & SIMPLY

  TRAIPSE INTO A ROOM FOR 2 DAYS? 3?

  OR DINNER PARTIES LIKE A FAIRYTALE

  THE ENTIRE TABLE PUT TO SLEEP BUT ME

  AND WHY? BECAUSE QM WANTED TO CHAT

  My naps at Sounion…MANY WAS THE BLUE

  UNCLOUDED DAY ENFANT WE SPOKE OF YOU

  *

  Appearances

  Another week, JM: But have we missed

  The point? If there are none, why so insist—?

  BOB?

  YES MARIA?

  LEAVE YR AQUARELLE

  & SEE WHAT YOU CAN TELL

  APPEARANCES…

  The cup considers. HMM Steps back a pace.

  LET ME RECONSTRUCT MY ‘DEATH’ FOR YOU

  After more thought, I HEARD A VOICE ‘HE’S GONE’

  AND LOOKED DOWN AT MY OLD FRIEND: MEAT & BONE.

  LOOKED UP: THE SKY! ALL STARS! NO FEELINGS. FAINT

  UNCONNECTED DAUBS OF THOUGHT LIKE PAINT

  WERE FORMING ME AS IMAGE IN MY MIND.

  ‘ROBERT, REMEMBER THIS, REMEMBER THAT’

  THE THOUGHTS SAID TILL THEY SMOOTHED INTO A SOLE

  UNBROKEN ONE: ‘THAT LIFE IS OVER, LEAVE IT.’

  BY THEN THE IMAGE OF MY SELF WAS WHOLE,

  THE STARS INVISIBLE —where Self itself

  Had blacked out Heaven? BACKING OF A MIRROR?

  IN MY CASE, THANKS TO YOU THE GENERAL BLACK

  TURNED INTO A (M) MAFIA LIMOUSINE

  A Black Maria! NO ONE ACTUALLY

  BUT AT THE WHEEL A POWER NOTHING IMPEDES,

  BRINGING ME TO YOU NEXT I STEPPED BAREASS

  THRU SAND & WATER OF YR MIRROR GLASS

  & SURFACED WHERE 2 OLD & 3 NEW CHUMS

  WELCOMED ME, SKINS GLISTENING WITH LIGHT

  NO BRUSH COULD EVER RENDER

  NOW THIS LIGHT

  HAS BEEN (SAID WYSTAN) CONSTANT IN YOUR FIELD

 
FROM THE MOMENT MICHAEL’S HERALD CAME TO YOU

  Ephraim spoke of his light as revealing

  The souls who gathered round us to each other;

  But that was Ephraim whistling in the dark.

  OR SOMEONE ELSE STOOD BY YOU EVEN THEN

  WITH A LAMP But who—Plato? YOU’RE ASKING ME?

  MUCH HERE IS PURE AND SIMPLE MYSTERY.

  DOWN AT THE HEDGE WE DO NOT SEE EACH OTHER,

  ONLY HERE & WHERE YOU DUG FOR FACTS,

  THE BATWORLD’S MINESHAFT, WAS OF COURSE PITCH BLACK

  BUT FOR YOUR PEACOCK’S APPARITION OR

  SOME FEEBLE WATTAGE BEAMING FROM YOU 4.

  THOSE WERE THE LONE ‘WHISTLERS’ IN THAT DARK

  BUT THIS LIGHT? HMM IT’S LIKE A STAR WE ENTER

  TO FIND OURSELVES. IF IT’S THE LIGHT OF LOVE

  ALL ELSE IS HEDGING Robert, but—you’ve lit

  Our blind spot up! That blacking-out’s the screen

  Of self which forms between God and His creature,

  A numb, a numbered starlessness all eyes,

  All ego, singularity, dark gullet,

  Palate, palazzo braced, impervious

  To wintry tidings of its own collapse?

  SENSATIONALLY PHRASED BUT, WELL, PERHAPS.

  MY PRESENT THEORY IS THAT PARADISE

  ON EARTH WILL FLOOD EACH EMPTY PIGEONHOLE

  OF THE BUREAUCRACY WITH RADIANCE

  Stop, we must pack for Venice! And friends already

  Plead for no more big speeches in small caps.

  DEAR J WE LEARN HERE NOT TO TRUST A LIVING SOUL

  DJ: Is that you, Robert? May I say

  You sound so changed. No baby talk, no gossip.

  OOPS HAS THE GREAT RESTORER OVERDONE IT?

  No, you know what I mean. I DO THE VARNISH

  STRIPPED AWAY & THE WILD OATS I SOWED

  EATEN BY UNI Comforting for us

  That you stay put while others hit the road,

  But why? THE WORLD NOT READY FOR ME YET?

  How long before you’re born? HMM You don’t know?

  ONE MOMENT AH YES, MAJESTY ‘MR ROBERT

  (A VOICE JUST BREATHED) ELEVEN MONTHS TO GO’

  SIRS? ARE WE GOING OFF TO SEA?

  Yes, Uni, where the lake-dwellers once settled,

  A wonderland not underwater yet.

  One of our anchor points. You’ll meet DK,

 

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