THE DISTANCES
Prolegomenon
...if I was to speak to you, out of that, what
would be possible? What would you say?
1.
How can it be this
unbounded— edge
of the continent, constancy
of the elements— surf, salt
air, the clarity of sunlight,
horizontality of sand & water,
one can still feel the world where
property was an alien word
2.
The world in its worldliness
After the disappointment of strip malls,
suburban malls,
ceaseless signage,
endless highways & freeways ending
in dead-endedness;
after the harshly-lit, fast-food emporia,
the bad bargains, the traded lives,
what forgiveness?
3.
Afternoon sun on the runway
shimmers
in sheeted oil;
burnished gold
in obsidian
blinds
the unprotected eye.
The path of the sun athwart
the path of the plane:
O, how
ferocious the beauty
we’re forced to leave behind…
4.
Nothing to stop the wind, nothing
to stop the mindflow, the winter-stripped
oak dreamlike, a giant root with vessel branches
branching off of main arteries,
pulled up and placed upside down.
You want to say it’s looking
for succor, the non-drama
playing out against
a grey, played-out sky, and yet
in this death-in-life there’s a symmetry
and a balance, the smallest, finest
branches being patterned extensions of the larger
ones, each set of limbs
on one side of the trunk echoing
those on the other side, this centuries-old
life, magnificent in its unknowing, un-
conscious of itself, the sky above—you--
indicts the signs on this page, the whole
sideshow of self consciousness.
5.
Dalmatian stone glowed in the warmth of the sun.
The town hall’s masonry had quoins on the corners, rising
to a low parapet on the roof with decorative finials behind it. It’s
the way they used to build buildings, grand with fitted
stones, but with an elegance to them. High above, there
was too much freedom in the sky, with stray, confused
cumuli yielding to a blueness that wasn’t intense, it was just
big. The way a tiny swallow circled overhead made it bigger.
You can’t see it, but the town hall is just steps away from
a harbor of multi-hued blue patches, all jostling for attention.
Brilliance is the retort upon the water.
There’s an asking here. Can you rise to that level,
can you make good on the gift?
6.
Newspapers take up the latest reports of terrorism.
Morning headlines take us hostage.
Terrorists, terrorism, terror—the ugly facts, the ugly spectacles--
undo the mind. But is terror the cause of terror, or
is terrorism the public face, the mask,
for something deeper, something unsayable?
The deeper thing trembles in the dark.
What if God is not God?
Terror’s the flower, fear the seed…
7.
“You were my death,” writes Celan:
“You I could hold
When all fell away from me.”
Everything turns on the “You”:
Is it you? The world in its painful beauty?
Is it the past?
Is it the past that’s forgotten?
Can it be said to be forgotten
if it was never known,
never wanted to be known,
never brought to mind, or to
memory, held
in a state of refusal,
a state of not-that, or even
in the willed unwillingness to invoke negation?
8.
If I were to speak, if I were
lay it all out,
why should anyone listen?
Who should have that privilege?
What would you call a poetry of many voices?
What would you call a poetry that’s heard?
9.
And I am calling & calling,
calling & calling.
Hearing the echo
of my own voice.
Prolegomenon
...if I was to speak to you, out of that, what
would be possible? What would you say?
1.
How can it be this
unbounded— edge
of the continent, constancy
of the elements— surf, salt
air, the clarity of sunlight,
horizontality of sand & water,
one can still feel the world where
property was an alien word
2.
The world in its worldliness
After the disappointment of strip malls,
suburban malls,
ceaseless signage,
endless highways & freeways ending
in dead-endedness;
after the harshly-lit, fast-food emporia,
the bad bargains, the traded lives,
what forgiveness?
3.
Afternoon sun on the runway
shimmers
in sheeted oil;
burnished gold
in obsidian
blinds
the unprotected eye.
The path of the sun athwart
the path of the plane:
O, how
ferocious the beauty
we’re forced to leave behind…
4.
Nothing to stop the wind, nothing
to stop the mindflow, the winter-stripped
oak dreamlike, a giant root with vessel branches
branching off of main arteries,
pulled up and placed upside down.
You want to say it’s looking
for succor, the non-drama
playing out against
a grey, played-out sky, and yet
in this death-in-life there’s a symmetry
and a balance, the smallest, finest
branches being patterned extensions of the larger
ones, each set of limbs
on one side of the trunk echoing
those on the other side, this centuries-old
life, magnificent in its unknowing, un-
conscious of itself, the sky above—you--
indicts the signs on this page, the whole
sideshow of self consciousness.
5.
Dalmatian stone glowed in the warmth of the sun.
The town hall’s masonry had quoins on the corners, rising
to a low parapet on the roof with decorative finials behind it. It’s
the way they used to build buildings, grand with fitted
stones, but with an elegance to them. High above, there
was too much freedom in the sky, with stray, confused
cumuli yielding to a blueness that wasn’t intense, it was just
big. The way a tiny swallow circled overhead made it bigger.
You can’t see it, but the town hall is just steps away from
a harbor of multi-hued blue patches, all jostling for attention.
Brilliance is the retort upon the water.
There’s an asking here. Can you rise to that level,
can you make good on the gift?
6.
Newspapers take up the latest reports of terrorism.
Morning headlines take us hostage.
Terrorists, terrorism, terror—the ugly facts, the ugly spectacles--
undo the mind. But is terror the cause of terror, or
is terrorism the public face, the mask,
for something deeper, something unsayable?
The deeper thing trembles in the dark.
What if God is not God?
Terror’s the flower, fear the seed…
7.
“You were my death,” writes Celan:
“You I could hold
When all fell away from me.”
Everything turns on the “You”:
Is it you? The world in its painful beauty?
Is it the past?
Is it the past that’s forgotten?
Can it be said to be forgotten
if it was never known,
never wanted to be known,
never brought to mind, or to
memory, held
in a state of refusal,
a state of not-that, or even
in the willed unwillingness to invoke negation?
8.
If I were to speak, if I were
lay it all out,
why should anyone listen?
Who should have that privilege?
What would you call a poetry of many voices?
What would you call a poetry that’s heard?
9.
And I am calling & calling,
calling & calling.
Hearing the echo
of my own voice.