New Collected Poems (31 page)

to those who have it more dear than life.

And just as tenderly to be known

are the affections that make a woman and a man,

their household, and their homeland one.

These too, though known, cannot be told

to those who do not know them, and fewer

of us learn them, year by year,

loves that are leaving the world

like the colors of extinct birds,

like the songs of a dead language.

Think of the genius of the animals,

every one truly what it is:

gnat, fox, minnow, swallow, each made

of light and luminous within itself.

They know (better than we do) how

to live in the places where they live.

And so I would like to be a true

human being, dear reader—a choice

not altogether possible now.

But this is what I'm for, the side

I'm on. And this is what you should

expect of me, as I expect it of myself,

though for realization we may wait

a thousand or a million years.

It is called moneywort

for its “coinlike” leaves

and perhaps its golden flowers.

I love it because it is

a naturalized exotic

that does no harm,

and for its lowly thriving,

and for its actual

unlikeness to money.

 

I dedicate this book
with respect
to the poet John Haines

 

Suppose we did our work

like the snow, quietly, quietly,

leaving nothing out.

What banged?

Before banging

how did it get there?

When it got there

where was it?

I leave behind even

my walking stick. My knife

is in my pocket, but that

I have forgot. I bring

no car, no cell phone,

no computer, no camera,

no CD player, no fax, no

TV, not even a book. I go

into the woods. I sit on

a log provided at no cost.

It is the earth I've come to,

the earth itself, sadly

abused by the stupidity

only humans are capable of

but, as ever, itself. Free.

A bargain! Get it while it lasts.

(
to Ed McClanahan
)

Dear Ed,

I dreamed that you and I were sent to Hell.

The place we went to was not fiery

or cold, was not Dante's Hell or Milton's,

but was, even so, as true a Hell as any.

It was a place unalterably public

in which crowds of people were rushing

in weary frenzy this way and that,

as when classes change in a university

or at quitting time in a city street,

except that this place was wider far

than we could see, and the crowd as large

as the place. In that crowd every one

was alone. Every one was hurrying.

Nobody was sitting down. Nobody

was standing around. All were rushing

so uniformly in every direction, so

uniformly frantic, that to average them

would have stood them still. It was a place

deeply disturbed. We thought, you and I,

that we might get across and come out

on the other side, if we stayed together,

only
if we stayed together. The other side

would be a clear day in a place we would know.

We joined hands and hurried along,

snatching each other through small openings

in the throng. But the place was full

of dire distractions, dire satisfactions.

We were torn apart, and I found you

breakfasting upon a huge fried egg.

I snatched you away: “Ed! Come on!”

And then, still susceptible, I met

a lady whose luster no hell could dim.

She took all my thought. But then,

in the midst of my delight, my fear

returned: “Oh! Damn it all! Where's Ed?”

I fled, searching, and found you again.

We went on together. How this ended

I do not know. I woke before it could end.

But, old friend, I want to tell you

how fine it was, what a durable

nucleus of joy it gave my fright

to force that horrid way with you, how

heavenly, let us say, in spite of Hell.

P.S.

Do you want to know why

you were distracted by an egg, and I

by a beautiful lady? That's Hell.

(to my brother)

Dear John,

You said, “Treat your worst enemies

as if they could become your best friends.”

You were not the first to perpetrate

such an outrage, but you were right.

Try as we might, we cannot

unspring that trap. We can either

befriend our enemies or we can die

with them, in the absolute triumph

of the absolute horror constructed

by us to save us from them.

Tough, but “All right,” our Mary said,

“we'll be nice to the sons of bitches.”

(to Hayden Carruth)

Dear Hayden,

How good—how liberating!—to read

of your hatred of
Alice in Wonderland
.

I used to hear my mother reading it

to my sisters, and I hated it too,

but have always been embarrassed

to say so, believing that everybody else

loved it. But who the hell wants to go

down a rabbit hole? I like my feet best

when they're walking on top of the ground.

If I could burrow like a mole, I would,

and I would like that. I would like

to fly like a bird, if I could. Otherwise,

my stratum of choice is the surface.

I prefer skin to anatomy, green grass

to buried rocks, terra firma to the view

from anywhere higher than a tree.

“Long live superficiality!” say I,

as one foot fares waywardly graveward.

(to Ernest J. Gaines)

Dear Ernie,

I've known you since we were scarcely

more than boys, sitting as guests

at Wallace Stegner's table, and I have read

everything you have written since then

because I think what you have written

is beautiful and quietly, steadily

brave, in the manner of the best bravery.

I feel in a way closer to your work

than to that of anybody else of our age.

And why is that? I think it's because

we both knew the talk of old people,

old country people, in summer evenings.

Having worked hard all their lives long

and all the long day, they came out

on the gallery down in your country,

out on the porch or doorstep in mine,

where they would sit at ease in the cool

of evening, and they would talk quietly

of what they had known, of what

they knew. In their rest and quiet talk

there was peace that was almost heavenly,

peace never to be forgotten, never

again quite to be imagined, but peace

above all else that we have longed for.

The river is of the earth

and it is free. It is rigorously

embanked and bound,

and yet is free. “To hell

with restraint,” it says.

“I have got to be going.”

It will grind out its dams.

It will go over or around them.

They will become pieces.

1.
How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.

The first mosquito:

come here, and I will kill thee,

holy though thou art.

As the soldier takes bodily form

(or dissolves) within the rubble and wreck

of war, so the holy Virgin takes

shape within the world of creatures,

and the angel, to come to her at all,

must wear a caul of birds,

his robe folded like the hills.