Up there on the mountain road, the fireworks
blistered and subsided, for once at eye level:
spatter of light like water flicked from the fingers;
the brief emergent pattern; and after the afterimage bled
from the night sky, a delayed and muffled thud
that must have seemed enormous down below,
the sound concomitant with the arranged
threat of fire above the bleachers.
I stood as tall and straight as possible,
“Even Duccio can’ t match
Giotto’ s stage management of great tragedy”:
Transgendered Professor Y. in leather miniskirt
paces before the screen, wood pointer
scraping saint faces, slapping
hunched women of the Lamentation.
Blue-gold tumult of the chapel walls.
After-lunch lecture hall heat.
You’ re in that class with me. We go on
from there — not long. You do The Waste Land
in different voices — Come in under the shadow
of this red rock — Strom Thurmond, Aussie
bartender, Cantonese. HURRY UP PLEASE
Now that I know
That passion warms little
Of flesh in the mold,
And treasure is brittle,
I’ ll lie here and learn
How, over their ground,
Trees make a long shadow
And a light sound.
August 1922
This poem originally appeared in the September 1988 issue of Poetry. See it in its original context.
Love is the kindest
expression
of absence —
Or else
is a day
by the river,
in which by
motion
it becomes clear —
there have been
in an hour an
infinite train
of rivers, & which
did you want
to see? One
comes slowly
to realize
there is no evading things
(the heart will have
its way, though
its will go
unfulfilled),
& there is no shame
in this.
The pleasures in this world —
soft breeze, soft
thighs, a bit of music,
All night long I hear the sleepers toss
Between the darkened window and the wall.
The madman’ s whimper and the lover’ s voice,
The worker’ s whisper and the sick child’ s call —
Knowing them all
I’ d walk a mile, maybe, hearing some cat
Crying its guts out, to throttle it by hand,
Such simple love I had. I wished I might —
Or God might — answer each call in person and
Each poor demand.
Love not too much. But how,
When thou hast made me such,
And dost thy gifts bestow,
How can I love too much?
Though I must fear to lose,
And drown my joy in care,
With all its thorns I choose
The path of love and prayer.
Forbear, bold youth, all’ s Heaven here,
And what you do aver,
To others, courtship may appear,
’ Tis sacriledge to her.
She is a publick deity,
And were’ t not very odd
She should depose her self to be
A pretty household god?
First make the sun in private shine,
And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams confine
In complement to you.
’ Tis now since I began to die
Four months, yet still I gasping live;
Wrapp’ d up in sorrow do I lie,
Hoping, yet doubting a reprieve.
Adam from Paradise expell’ d
Just such a wretched being held.
’ Tis not thy love I fear to lose,
That will in spite of absence hold;
But ’ tis the benefit and use
Is lost, as in imprison’ d gold:
Which though the sum be ne’ er so great,
Enriches nothing but conceit.
It was so simple: you came back to me
And I was happy. Nothing seemed to matter
But that. That you had gone away from me
And lived for days with him — it didn’ t matter.
That I had been left to care for our old dog
And house alone — couldn’ t have mattered less!
On all this, you and I and our happy dog
Agreed. We slept. The world was worriless.
