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The Changing Light at Sandover

Page 51

by James Merrill


  You’ll meet a wingèd Lion. MR R SAYS ALSO

  4 OF THOSE I WAS FORERUNNER TO!

  The golden horses on St Mark’s—indeed.

  AT THE HEDGE MISS ALICE SAID I WOULD HAVE

  A STRAW HAT IF I WOULD BE HER STEED.

  ‘GERTRUDE, YOU KNEW I WAS A RIDER?’

  ‘A WRITER?’ ‘NOT QUITE: AN EQUESTRIENNE!’

  Well, as you know, we sail two days from now.

  YES! THIS IS UNICE SAYING CIAO

  & MAMAN SAYING BASTA TO THIS DREAM

  SHE LONGS TO WAKE FROM WD THAT THE GRAND SCHEME

  LET A MIRROR NOW & THEN MATURE

  INTO A SIMPLE PIECE OF FURNITURE

  She’s tired of us. (It’s late, we’re on the terrace

  Watering.) From Maria’s point of view

  This work’s done. Her next one takes on weight

  And character halfway around the world.

  With birth so near, an ordinary soul

  Would be in situ, and unreachable—

  Not she. She’s learned that kid stuff inside out.

  At most, like Sounion, she comes and goes,

  Gardens, has lunch, a little nap, but knows

  Better than to spend the night there—nipping

  Back to heavenly Athens while she can!

  (Laughter. Gurglings from the hose, and heat

  Delicious through wet flagstones to bare feet.)

  DJ: When we first met Emmanuel

  Nearly eight months ago, Maria told us

  That she “experienced her mother’s womb”.

  JM: She was conceived then? Po-po-po!

  DJ: Or as a two-week fetus had been sent

  To check the room out, before Management

  Put itself to any further trouble.

  (Laughter. The ninth moon setting—at whose full

  Enormous turtles, barnacled like moons,

  Eggs buried in the lap of silver dunes,

  Regain the ebbing world they mustn’t fail.)

  JM: Plato appears in Mirabell

  First as a sex-fiend, squinting through keyholes

  At slim young bodies; then we get his later

  Liaison with Luca. The Tibetan

  Book of the Dead reports that apparitions

  Of copulating figures may beset

  The pilgrim soul. Surrendering to them

  Means the long road taken back to Earth.

  (If we’re still laughing now, it’s at the motley

  Worn by sober Truth. Then DJ aiming

  The hose upright, from under his thumb streams

  Fanwise, heavenward a ghostly jet

  Whose fallout tickles lifted faces wet.)

  Turn it off. Another day. Sweet dreams

  —But who has plucked my sleeve?

  An old arthritic Cassia shrub one March

  Glimpsed by Maria from the car

  And, dug up wild, brought home. A “sensitive”,

  Its leaves are folded in the night, a dim

  Green gooseflesh along every limb

  Tells of the coming fit:

  Another fifteen days will see

  The stunted twiggery

  Robed in oracular yellow head to foot.

  Tonight it has just this to say:

  I too, O sonneteer,

  Was marked, transported by her, and this year

  Given a part to play.

  *

  Venetian Jottings

  “Showing a film of Maya’s!” shouts DJ

  Across the Piazza. JM shuts his Dante.

  Which film? “Who knows? I got seats anyway.

  Tonight at nine. Part of some sort of anti-

  Biennale thought up by the students, bless

  Their hearts.” Amen. Thank Heaven we’re not twenty.

  It’s morning still. The tourist’s merciless

  Fun-ethic has been goading us all week

  From gondola to gallery, from princess

  To restaurant, from poolside to boutique.

  Today’s gray drizzle comes as a reprieve,

  Affording a noon hour in which to speak

  With the invisible companions we’ve

  Brought to this drowning, dummy paradise

  Whose nude, gnawed Adam and eroded Eve

  Cling to their cornice, and September flies

  Revolve above the melting tutti-frutti.

  One happy shade at least feels otherwise:

  AWASH MY DEARS POLLUTED BY THE BEAUTY!

  (We’ve set our Board up on the kitchen table

  At David Kalstone’s, back of the Salute.)

  GERTRUDE & WALLACE WINDOWSHOP, UNABLE

  TO FIND A PREWAR GONDOLIERE HAT.

  UNI INCONSOLABLY HAUNTS THE STABLE,

  HIS LONGLOST GILT BRONZE COUSIN LAID OUT FLAT

  AMONG HEADSHAKING VETS. RM WE FEEL

  KEEPS UP THE ‘TONE’ BY FLITTING LIKE A BAT

  BELFRY TO BELFRY: ‘ONE GRAND GLOCKENSPIEL’

  GK APPALLED TESTS THE CANAL: ‘DO NOT

  TOUCH A DROP OF THESE REFLECTIONS!’ HE’LL

  LEARN ENFANTS. MD ALL STAGEFRIGHT: ‘WHAT

  TO WEAR TO MY PREMIERE?’ And Maman—you?

  SHAWLED IN BLACK OVER THE PASTA POT

  Hans? Alice? Marius?—but Luca who

  Is DK’s patron, as we now recall,

  Darts forward: BELLO! BELLO SEMPRE DI PIU!

  VOGLIO CON LUI FAR L’INCESTO! All

  On hand, in short, and eager for good times.

  (Another morning, after a bad squall,

  There in full view is Peggy Guggenheim’s

  Waterlogged gondola. MY DEARS OF COURSE

  WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN EVERYBODY CLIMBS

  ABOARD 12 SHADES, A PEACOCK & A HORSE!

  Who was the twelfth? PYTHAGORAS HE WENT

  DOWN WITH THE SHIP And so on.) Not to force

  The issue, but if this is all they meant

  By GO OUT LAUGHING…Now at twilight here’s

  Our old resounding bridge. Indifferent

  Both to high spirits and fall sightseers,

  It waits for winter lightning’s coup de grâce,

  The solving gales. I know; in not three years

  Since the great cloudburst turned me to a glass

  Model of stamina—but where is Wendell?—

  My sand and water chafe. Here’s an impasse

  Deep in which red flickerings enkindle

  More than curiosity. The street-

  At-evening’s densely peopled Coromandel

  Panel folds back upon a blast of heat

  So powerful we’ve paused: it’s the glass-blowing!

  A glory hole roars, pulses. Color of peat

  Artisans dip the long rod into glowing

  Pots, fire within fire, gasping conflate

  Ember with embryo, by rote foreknowing

  —Much as they twirl, lop, tweezer at a rate

  Swifter than eyesight—the small finished form.

  Twice more we watch the rose-hot blob translate

  Itself to souvenir, to hardly warm

  Bud-vase or pony, harlequin or bird—

  Its newfound cool no refuge from the storm

  Of types—and can move on. Here’s the dust-furred

  Fleabag cinema. An unsmiling speaker

  Asks that to “bourgeois discourse” be preferred

  The “radical mutism” of the image-
maker.

  (Are these the latest terms? I simply gawk.)

  At last lights dim. Drums gibber. Credits flicker.

  A bare beach. Glinting wavelets—the sidewalk

  Colorist in each of us ransacks

  His box for that jade-green or azure chalk

  Lost among dialectic whites and blacks.

  Then sunset, hills, a road, a figurine

  Ambling past. Action slowed by the soundtrack’s

  Treacherous crosscurrent, if not swept clean

  Away by particles that so bombard,

  So flay an image to the bone-white screen

  That vision ducks too late and winces, scarred.

  It is the flak fired outward from time’s core.

  Now they’ve assembled. Shirtsleeved houngan. Hard

  Dirt of the ceremonial dance floor

  Where in white meal he traces Erzulie’s

  Curlicue-and-checker heart, the four

  Chambers strewn with grain. Held above these

  A (peck) dazed hen (peck-peck) greed overcomes.

  Will the gods accept it? Silence. Freeze:

  The headless, blood-slimed bird. Then again drums,

  Faces, feet. The counterclockwise drain

  Of chanted phrase on equilibriums

  Until it happens. Ghédé with his cane,

  Smoked glasses and top hat struts avenues

  No one else sees. Through flurries of cocaine

  The youth he’s mounted sizzles like a fuse.

  A woman pitches, is held up, advances

  Pale and contorted—but it’s Maya! (Who’s

  Holding the camera?) Next we know, her trance has

  Deepened, she is combed, perfumed and dressed

  In snowy lace, beaming at whom she fancies.

  The frown, the flood of tears, and all the rest

  Will have been cut, or never filmed. Delight

  Alone informs her dance, unself-possessed.

  Partner by partner, David’s face goes white:

  We are the ghosts, hers the ongoing party

  At which she was received one summer night

  (How many years ago now, twenty? thirty?)

  Into the troupe, glowworm and lunar crescent,

  That whole supreme commedia dell’ arte

  Which takes a twinkling skull for reminiscent

  Theatre, and soul for master negative.

  It’s Maya dancing. She is here and isn’t,

  Her darks print out as bright, her dyings live

  —Do they? In Venice’s uncomprehending

  Eyes? Painful to think, hard to forgive

  What “today” makes, what “Paradise” impending

  Will, if a trace remains, of…Let that be.

  One last shot: dawn, the bare beach. “Happy ending?”

  Smiles DJ as we link arms, tacitly

  Skipping the futuristic coffee-bar’s

  Debate already under way (ah, me)

  On the confusing terms: Dance, Gods, Time, Stars.

  *

  Exits and Entrances

  JUNGLES! QUITE BEAUTIFUL I’M SURE BUT O THE DISORDER! A CHAOS OF SORTS!

  (Is it Herself? The cup darts to and fro—

  Intermezzo marked prestissimo.

  Outdoors, cars honk like geese, the very sun

  Heads south. We’re back in Athens. Fall’s begun.)

  CITIES, FORESTS, THESE WE KNOW ABOUT, MUCH THINNING TO COME IN THE FORMER, BUT JUNGLES!

  WHO CAN COUNT THE LIVES THERE? CAN I? NO, IN A WORD. O THERE’S MUCH TO BE DONE!

  POET, THINK ON THAT WHEN YOU GO LIKE A FOX TO EARTH, HAH! & REPORT TO ME, ME!

  NOW COME ALONG MY DEAR, SO SORRY ABOUT INDIA BUT WE CAN’T ALL HAVE DISHWASHERS & ELECTRICAL GADGETS I’M SURE!

  BEAT YOUR SERVANTS, THEY’LL WORSHIP YOU!

  YOU OTHERS, LOOK ALIVE! MUCH TO DO! THE SUMMER TO GET UNDER WRAPS!

  AU RESERVOIR!

  WHEW I UNDERSTAND NOW WHY MARIA

  GOES ABOUT MUTTERING ‘BOMBAY, WHAT BLISS!’

  Who’s this? ME GEORGE THE SAUCERS ARE I THINK

  HER SPECTACLES TO KEEP THE WORLD IN FOCUS

  Bombay. And you, George? JIMMY THEY’LL TAKE ME APART

  THE OLD TIN WOODSMAN, LINKED FOREVERMORE

  TO THAT AMAZING LAB OF GABRIEL’S

  OR RATHER TO 18 LABS THRUOUT THE WORLD

  AS ‘HELPER’: THIS CHART MISPLACED, THAT TESTTUBE CHANGING

  COLOR RUINS THE EXPERIMENT

  OR PROVES IT, LIGHTS BLINK OUT, THE CHIEF OF STAFF

  STRICKEN WITH A MIGRAINE…I WILL BE

  THE PURELY SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLE

  And the creative. MAKING SENSE OF IT

  The mirror breaks. What happens in those first

  Minutes, can you say? SAY! WE’VE REHEARSED

  MY BOYS FOR MONTHS. I’LL SHIFT THRU VEINS OF METAL

  GETTING THE FEEL OF IT, THEN SURFACING

  (AN IFFY MOMENT THERE WELL, WHAT IF SOME AFRICAN

  DUSKY PICKS A BIG BRIGHT SPARKLER UP?

  Easy—we’ll ask for you at Carrier’s.

  CAFE SOCIETY SO UN-ME ALWAYS

  MISSING ACT I AT THE OPERA) THEN INTO

  THE WORLD A CLIFF? A BEACH? OUR WORK BEGINS:

  COVERING THE SINS OF MULTITUDE

  WE MARCH WE GRAINS OF SAND! Creating famine.

  Time’s latest cover story tells it all—

  “Nature’s Revenge: The Creeping Deserts”. INDEED

  A COOL HALF MILLION THIS MONTH IN ETHIOPIA!

  NO MORE APPALLING THAN THE CHEMICALS

  U ATHENIANS BREATHE (MY BROTHERS TAKING

  OVER YR LUNGS) & THEN MY DEARS WE SHAKE !

  THEN IN A CENTURY OR SO UNITE,

  STAGE SET FOR RAPHAEL’S NEW EPOCHMAKING

  ALL STAR REVIVAL OF THE RAKE

  AS A GARDEN TOOL: WE FROM THE ROYAL BOX

  WATCHING ACT I, THE PROMPTER OUT OF SIGHT

  WHISPERING ‘ADAM, THIS TIME GET IT RIGHT!’

  ENFANTS THE NEW MOON, SAUCER FOR OUR CUP,

  WHISPERS IT IS TIME TO SERVE US UP.

  ON DJ’S 55TH Three days from now!

  We’ve planned a party— Softly: SO HAVE WE

  THE TIME IS NOW AT HAND HAND, LET IT BE

  Then, as impenetrable feelings twine

  Round and round us, tough as any vine:

  JUNGLES? WE’LL THIN! THIN! THIN!

  HOW I APPROVE OF DESERTS! NOTHING MOVES UNSEEN! IT NEVER RAINS!

  NO, JUNGLES MUST BE THINNED AND WILL BE!

  MICHAEL, EMMANUEL, CONFERENCE!

  *

  It never rains…At this eleventh hour

  Two still-warm shades, finding our schoolroom door

  Ajar, take refuge from the shock of Heaven.

  Cal Lowell first: CHRIST ON MY WAY HERE 4

  FAMILY PORTRAITS CAME TO DO I MEAN

  LIFE? O MR AUDEN! A mild teacher,

  Wystan strolls him past the spears of green

  Chalk grass on every blackboard—Uni’s art-work,

  Our Robert having urged the dear good creature

  To develop “faculties”. We’re smiling when

  In sweeps a new Maria, la Divina,

  Callas herself, fresh from her greatest role:

  THEY CALL THIS THE STAR’S DRESSING ROOM? THIS HOLE ?

  —Whom Robert, himself heartsick, must console.

  Maman, suppose we visited Bombay?

  SHALL WE? (inst
ant complicity) DO WE DARE?

  Going on recklessly to set the year

  1991, the hour and day

  And landmark in whose shade there will appear

  A SCRUBBED 14 YEAR OLD PUNJABI LAD

  CARRYING SOMETHING U WILL KNOW ME BY.

  IS IT A DATE? You bet your life. (We’re mad.)

  JIMMY GIVE MY LOVE TO YOU KNOW WHO

  Without fail, George. MY ONE LIFE HAD TOO FEW

  ATTACHMENTS YET IF LOVING’S 88

  PERCENT IS CHEMICAL I ANTICIPATE

  FORMING SOME STRONG NEW BONDS LIVE WELL MY FRIENDS

  & COMFORTABLY ON THEIR DIVIDENDS!

  9 MY DEARS? THE BIRTHING MONTH THE STAGE

  B4 THE OVAL ENIGMA: LIFE’S INDRAWN

  BREATH, THE BASIN WHERE OUR OLD SELVES DROWN.

  ARABIC 9 (AS ON YR TRANSCRIPT PAGE)

  FACE AVERTED FROM THE CIPHER LOOKS

  BACK ON THE LONG ROAD TRAVELED. ROMAN IX

  SERVES FOR US: ONE FOOTSTEP FROM THE CRUX

  OF TIME WE STAND POISED WAITING TO LEAP IN

  THE PARTY AT THE STATION WILL INCLUDE

  ENFANTS 5 SILENT PRESENCES QM

  & BROTHERS SO NO TEARS IN FRONT OF THEM.

  WE’LL CHAT INFORMALLY BEFORE WE’RE CLAD

  IN ‘TRAVELING DRESS’ & THE TRAIN CHUGS AWAY…

  RM CAN FILL U IN ANOTHER DAY

  Glimpses of the Future

  When that day comes it’s we who’ll read aloud

  The text, to Robert, of our grand farewell

  Which he and Uni witness, but through glass:

  A vague, dust-spattered shadow play; the music,

  Vibration without pitch; our three departing

  Figures here one moment, gone—light’s carriage

 

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