The sky suspended from a wall
but each leaf on the tree a road.
We came through that town on the way
but now we can’t find it again,
the merry streets, the wine-red neon lights,
bare knees, gruff Teslas of the newly rich.
And now where are we?
A planetary distance from a distant star?
Don’t be romantic, you know
full well where the water flows
and where the fox buries his catch
and why the marmot whistles,
don’t pretend to be
even more ignorant than you are,
than me. The leaf
is laughing now, truly
one of our jobs is to amuse
an audience less mobile than ourselves,
assuming we know how to move.
Move them to tears too
with long poems with startling cadenzas.
But no, we lull.
We play Bach like Chopin
on our soft pianos,
we neglect the ides, forget to lay
healing marigolds at the Virgin’s feet,
we oarless rowers on a becalmed lagoon.
What did you just call me?
What did your phone call mean,
I was afraid to answer,
tell me now in a simple way
so even I can understand.
Some unknown romantic
planted this very tree—
Valéry says it was Chateaubriand
who once rode past this very house
on his exile’s way to Albany—
but our trees are all our own.
Soupault proved words are magnetic,
it takes all our wit to pry them apart
and make them say what we want
not what they actually mean.
So many Frenchmen in one morning,
this comes of hunkering down
to dream at the side of the road
pretending we’re not lost.
2.
When the wolf howled we woke up.
The moon had that sneery look he has
when people down here go astray—
he never loses his way: the sun sees to that.
So we waited for the sun and feared the wolf
and all the other perils that came to mind
the countryside is full of threatening.
The city too—remember cities?
Crowded places full of cruel authorities
but music too. Remember music?
Marching bands with angular trombones!!
Fat tenors with high C’s! Lewd saxophones!
We shiver now and listen to the cornfield,
the wind is busy whistling in there,
not whistling, really, just breathing soft
but our ears expect a person everywhere,
behind every sound a human presence,
hallelujah! the thing that thinks in us.
But what about now, so dark, so streeted
with going now standing still. Make believe
you’re not afraid the Boy Scout said,
the one who led us yesterday and here we are.
But where, where? Ubi sumus Domine
the priest cried out, we thought it wise
to have one of them with us, a rabbi too
for laughs, and a lama to try to wake us
really, he has his work cut out for him
as the carpenter remarked, a tool-less youth
sobbing for his missing saw. Night wears on,
wears us down until we forget the wolf
and stumble our pebbly way back to sleep.
Morning will take care of us, or else.
I dreamt a childhood chemistry set
on Christmas morning, she dreamed a horse,
he dreamed a barbecue in Buffalo,
we have so many hungers, someone else
mainly, and you dreamed a creamy shore
of the bluest north Atlantic, the wind helped.
And sure enough the morning came,
the sun a bronze coin slipped in the slot
to start the whole machine again,
bonjour maîtresse, French at it again,
will we never wake up from philosophy?
soft gleam on asphalt, road paved at least,
lace up your sneakers and trot forward,
may our bravery last as long as light!
one cried, we doubted but obeyed, reduced
to a murmuring chorus with no soloist in sight—
remember music? I asked you that before
but got no answer. Should I go on waiting?
Be careful—language is the best way to wait.
And what’s for breakfast anyhow?
8 July 2020
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