Soon After Rain Page 3
to say, whatever we’d been in life, we had died
honorably, friends and lovers huddled together.
To stave off that anonymous, blank fate, I walked,
stumbling and feeling my way to closed quarters,
but the hot air was sour, oppressively dank,
the frightened faces green and the chairs awry —
I had to flee back out, into cold open air,
for another sea was swelling in me,
bilious waves tossing me, upending me,
but I would not collapse: I swore I’d stay
upright and reject the temptation to faint
into the senseless pull toward oblivion,
and though inclined to pitch myself overboard
I sat on the edge of the stern and faced larboard,
black fishing cap in hand and cocked to keep
the spray off my face, for lines of the wretchedly sick
were hunching then heaving and retching along both rails
while a woman who’d fallen a long time ago,
too weak to rise or even resist the pitch
and yaw, swept back and forth across the deck,
her inertial bulk sliding and slamming against
this set of shins, then that set of shins,
and no one, not even the crew, had Dramamine.
We weren’t even close to being able to dock
at a place that had exploded more than an age ago.
Like all the rest, I was sick, my world a-waste,
but turning my gaze toward the sea’s wild pitch,
I cursed and sang out nasty epithets
blasting, blaspheming Poseidon, for all I knew,
as all of us were whipped and tossed, was just
this fact: Poseidon was alive and, like Odysseus,
I didn’t like the mean old bastard at all,
even if he were, some said, the brother of God.
Revenge
It’s time, some say, to kill those men,
the ones who killed the diplomats,
and many men will cheer us on,
revenge a tonic now and then.
The ones who killed the diplomats
will pay a high and lethal price —
revenge a tonic now and then
though killing seldom stops a war.
They’ll pay a high and lethal price
for murdering the innocent,
though killing seldom stops a war —
but do we want the war to stop?
For murdering the innocent
the murderers will surely pay,
but do we want the war to stop?
Menacing talk feels so damn good.
The murderers will surely pay.
A certain group is now in place.
Menacing talk feels so damn good.
What’s bracing is restorative.
A certain group is now in place,
and armed and resolute they’ll spring.
What’s bracing is restorative.
We’re not through killing, so why stop?
And armed and resolute we’ll spring,
and many men will cheer us on.
We’re not through killing, so why stop?
It’s time, we say, to kill those men.
The Draw of the Other
I’m drawn, I know, toward what I do not know,
for foreignness has never made me what
I do not recognize — I see what is,
I see what might have been, I see what might
yet come to be, but most I see a form
of clarity that’s not till now been mine.
I hear new cries for justice, too. I hear
cries for compassion now and realize
I’ve pitched my tent most everywhere. I’ve been
where there was little left but hope, and there
I saw high bursts of mountain majesty:
a shock of craggy forms that were not mine
and likely never would be mine though they
somehow found home in me, and I in them.
I’m drawn, I know, toward what I do not know.
It’s often otherness that blesses me.
A Curious Man
(Robert Hooke, 1635 – 1703)
Few remember Robert Hooke, though Hooke,
it seems, knew everyone and was unimpressed,
let’s say, with some of England’s brighter lights.
His attention and temper going everywhere,
he worked with Wren after London’s great fire
to redesign St. Paul’s then he built Bethlehem
and blasted young Newton who, he thought,
needed more than a bit of seasoning,
and tinkering with his own machines, he worked
with others to refine their own inventions,
and those he made himself include the sprung
balance wheel that clocks need (or did until
digital circuitry), the iris diaphragm
cameras use (they weren’t around back then)
and, going on, the universal joint
for turning wheels, not to mention the first
reflecting telescope, and because so much
in London needed reorganization
he occupied himself with city works.
The record’s, however, askew on whether
he had — let’s call it — much social life.
His diary is simply a long list of events —
there’s nothing at all analytical there,
and nothing reflective, and all sex gets
is a curious symbol — his mate most often
the housekeeper — a fair number of those,
including his niece — help so hard to keep.
But the subject of love never comes up.
It was science that made the lightning strike:
pumps, optics, various types of measures,
but never philosophy, except to say
England needed to be freed from Bacon —
so said Robert Hooke who few remember.
He’d shown up in London alone, thirteen
years old, with plans to become a painter.
Our Friend’s Son
They threw me out. Why?
I didn’t hurt them yet.
I might. Might hurt them good.
This street is not my home.
I want my home. I want it back.
But not if they’re still there.
They threw me out.
This street’s no place for home.
And underneath the bridge:
that too’s no place for home.
They ought to go away.
They taken all I had. I want
my home. I want it back.
But they don’t understand.
I didn’t hurt them yet.
I didn’t hurt them both at all -
not yet not yet not yet.
Cervantes
His left hand mangled in battle
and his years in prison
magically turned into stories,
he gave us one book, a few plays
and a batch of poor poems,
but also one thing more:
Seeing a man in a wagon
laughing uncontrollably,
King Felipe said,
“He’s either lost his mind
or he’s reading Don Quixote.”
IV.
The Artemisia Suite
A Finely Cold Will
(Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes, c. 1620)
She painted grief though there is no grief
in her depiction of Judith
beheading Holofernes.
The tension that structures the scene
depicts the angle and force,
the turn of mind one needs
to work a blade through a neck.
See: a bit of blood has marked her breast
and the trim of the bod
ice on her dress —
but stains, she knows, must be endured.
Artemisia learned that eight years back
when her teacher raped her,
but that didn’t break her —
Judith, we see, is proof of that.
Slicing through gristle and bone, though,
is tough, but now the job’s been done —
the painting long ago signed, sold, and hung
Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting
(Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, 1630)
The drama’s in the gesture,
the sharpness of focus
she showed herself portraying,
but what I see tonight
is her emphasis on the act
of driving her fire for art
onto a canvas we can’t see.
But as I study the image
that she’s presented,
I see she hasn’t glorified
herself, she hasn’t idealized
her face, she hasn’t divinized
her form, she hasn’t done
much of anything except
to show herself as she was
on an unnamed day.
And what she’s shown I believe:
her eyes on an image before her,
her hand and brush shadowed,
and though she’s not looking at us
we’re looking intensely at her
and seeing rhythms that sing beyond our own.
Susanna and the Elders
(Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, 1622)
If she’s looking to heaven,
as some have said,
it’s as a last resort.
One of the two men accosting her
is telling someone off-canvas to hush
while the other figure listens
for the rhythms of wind
to say no one’s near
and they can have Susanna
in whatever way they want.
Look carefully at her eyes.
They say she’s been ravished.
Now look at the eyes of the men.
One of them is ogling her
but the back one looks away
to register any intrusions
that might interfere
with what they want to do.
Of course, she’s afraid.
If she screams, no one will hear,
and if she accuses her attackers
they will accuse her
of luring them to her.
Unable to scream,
she can’t even speak,
for all she knows
is blinding grief.
Corisca and the Satyr
(Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, early 1640s)
There’s such a curious blankness
in the way she looks back at the satyr,
as if there’s no worry now he might
rise from the ground and attack her.
She knows he’ll never turn civilized,
he’ll never understand love’s power,
the dear pleasure of honoring someone
whose love you know has blest you,
that sweet attention you don’t run from.
She knows she’ll have to escape him again,
that strength didn’t save her, it was wit
left him dazed on the ground by the tree,
that place where he’d intended to take her.
Bearded, goat-eared, and fallen, he holds
his right arm up, but it’s not his trophy
he’s holding, it’s hers — he’d grabbed her hair
to catch her, but the hair his fist has clenched
is, he’s startled to see, a wig — she’s free.
No pride has turned her expression smug,
but one detail still seems a mystery:
What was Artemisia thinking when she
made a flash of light show a hard nipple
pressing against Corisca’s golden dress?
Was that a sly display of the painter’s mind
to tease the satyrs who’d never have her?
Or was that a sign showing fear was not
about to ruin love, if love should ever come?
The Sensual Miracle
(Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, Madonna and Child, c. 1610- 1612)
Flesh is a force and a blessing,
Artemisia shows in her painting
of Mary preparing to nurse her boy.
And in both, eyes and mouths suggest
the fact of sensuality, the fact
that this painter knows love.
She makes no suggestion here
of the desert fathers’ depravity,
their foul obsession with sin.
She’s invoking a greater authority,
the miraculous blessing of love —
mother and child both anxious now
for the blessed breast to be nursed.
V.
Bats in Havana
Hearing squeaks overhead
in Havana’s Teatro Nacional,
I turned from the measured talk
on the nearly setless stage
to see what the new noise was
in this shadow-rich place.
Bats were circling the edges
of the water-stained dome,
and watching them I turned
from what I’d come to hear:
translations from Shakespeare.
I began thinking about ghosts
that rose toward the dome,
ghosts that had come
from tales that stirred fear:
then other ghosts came,
these born from the laughter
that sings between thighs
while others came
from the speech of skeletal eyes
Moonwash
The stars are faint tonight:
the brilliant moon has spread
a milky wash across the sky,
and the constellations —
the few I can still see —
have shifted places
since I saw them last.
A lot in fact has shifted,
and is still shifting,
and my legs feel stiff with weight,
but I won’t say why.
The moon is brilliant tonight.
The stars, though, are faint.
Seasonal Changes
1
Snow’s in the air today,
with a deep bone-brittle chill —
or will there come a spray of rain?
2
A thunderhead rides high
and with it rain-promising wind —
high heat settled in that wind.
3
An anvil-topped thunderhead
crowns a high cloud,
but nothing in the formation moves,
as if nothing is explosive there.
4
A balmy, springlike day is here —
but who knows what the season is?
5
Cold, the cirrus clouds drift
high and thin, promising snow.
The air’s at attention tonight.
Who knows how deep the freeze will go?
Winter
A hawk drops
toward a stand
of prickly pear
but nothing there,
it rises
back into sky —
everything near
where it was
staying still.
When Four Tornadoes Joined
When four tornadoes joined and hit us hard
some twenty-thousand people lost their homes
and miles of wreckage kept reminding us
repair and grief would not be done with soon.
Some twenty-thousand people lost their homes
and close to fifty of us died that day.
Repair and grief would not be done with soon
but laught
er made our conversation sing.
Though close to fifty of us died that day
a sense of celebration stirred our place
and laughter made our conversation sing:
we helped each other clear the trash away.
A sense of celebration stirred our place.
As if grace were with us that entire week,
we helped each other clear the trash away.
We shared clothing and food and roof and bed.
As if grace were with us that entire week
we learned reversal’s pain can mean new birth.
We shared clothing and food and roof and bed.
We saw the Stars-of-Bethlehem had bloomed.
We learned reversal’s pain can mean new birth,
and knowing grief would not be done with soon
we saw the Stars-of-Bethlehem had bloomed
though four tornadoes joined and hit us hard.
A Difficult June
Again no rain, though yesterday
a sprinkle came as thunder cracked.
The sky was dark awhile then wind
blew clouds away, and everything
went back to normal here: the lift
moving up the mountain again.
But the shower that came did not
even settle the dust, and the chill
in the air, like clouds, passed away:
this part of the world again in heat,
this part of the world a tinderbox:
fir and spruce had now turned brown.
So many trees leaning sickly,
one wondered when the drought would break,
and it would break, although this place
might fall into disaster first.
It has before and will again,
but still its streams flow cold and fast.
Mountain Butterfly
Like a nymph in disguise, the butterfly
appeared before me in the woods.
To avoid a rapids I’d left the stream
and tramped past brush into a grove
of aspen and spruce, the fragrance
of a sweet world around me,
the butterfly staying close to me,
like a nymph in disguise, the butterfly.
Peripetelia
The piñon pines don’t grow nearby
and little but desert lies close by.
Here summer’s scorch can sear one raw.
In fact, there’s little relief nearby.