ROBERT
KELLY

Centerbeam
word walk
over the gulf
of nothing said

cantilevered
by sunrays bent
always a little
too much to ignore

so we assemble
the stones
whoever we are

stone stone stone
no book is our law

rejoice!

It all remains to be said,
needle and thread,
bare arm and smile,

simchas the Jews say,
celebrate that.

2.
There is a vegetable garden near,
but not much ripe yet in it,
crisp kale at your service
even in the snow, but still
you can walk there, treading
lightly on the future,
the future,
the thing we dare to call
the dirt beneath our feet.

3.
So often the machine
seems to know
what I am thinking.
Out stream the words,
topple stone on stone
till much has been spoken
but little said–
some things it is not wise to say.

4.
Vaccine at last.
Woman with the needle,
even her mask can’t hide her smile,
right arm or left she asks
I answer and the point
goes painlessly in,
hydrate, hydrate she says
so off I go with my wife
who gave me the whole ocean.

5.
See what I mean about gulfs and silences?
Come dance with me a waltz of guesses,
a czardas of near misses–
we will never get
all the way there
that’s what it means
to dance, to go on.

6.
Polyverse seems just perverse,
look what we’ve done with the one we have…
universe must mean a single verse,
one line of a poem that never ends.
Read your line deeply
then shout it out.
We always need more weather.

7.
Roof I mean,
roof may be root,

build from the roof down,
the crest knows
all that comes below

as from the sky
we maybe came.

5 March 2021

1.
Triple city
of the four-fold heart,
the five fingers
Olson found everywhere,
jawohl, I animate these bones,
animal I am,
inside the three cities inside me.

2.
Now say it in English—
I am the dark that lures such light.

3.
Love Compassion Wisdom
three spires you have to climb
on your own bare feet,
no elevator, nothing to lift you
but the thought of others:
other people, other beings,
ordinary things to love
and care for and understand.
Finally at the very top you see
the whole city where you began.
A simple gospel brought you here
but the swallows do not laugh.

1 March 2021

Meaning comes at you
snowplow at dawn
roaring the road clear
meaning has at you
in the old ways, swordplay
of contrary ideas.

2.
So soliferous, the woman
bearing the sun,
open the blinds, roll
away the stone. Morning
is the first idea–
now what to do
with all you dreamt,
wordless images of
parts of bodies, parts of trees,
o blessed blank white wall.

3.
You have to take
all the things you thought
or thought you saw
and fill your arms with them
and drop them in the well.
The water of will never fail.

4.
Why is he mail?
All questions and no answers.
Spread them on the table,
on the screen. Analyze the obvious.
Sweep them together, turn
off the device. No meaning
in what we say to each other,
the meaning waits, lurks,
deep in the body of the sayer.
Come towards me now! you
cry to the empty air.

5.
The next part of meaning is a stone.
You pick it up and hit with
or build a wall.
You decide. If wall,
you’ll need a roof on it.
If hit, you’ll need to run away.
This is your education.
I want to say History
is pebbles on the shore
of an unknown ocean—
can I get away with that?

6.
There are consolations, though,
for meaning. Words
flutter from my lips,
paintings from your fingertips,
et cetera. I feel like Byron in a bassinet,
not quite sure what I mean.
Morning is such a pretty child,
round eyes briefly wide.

7.
These are tales
the snowplow told,
curves and mounds
and sudden falls,

Kipling now I climb
your hills again
Darjeeling, garden
of the thunderbolt, dorje ling
tool in a strong hand.

8.
On days like these
colors get lost—
that’s what meaning means.
You woke with low green hills
like Neolithic mounds
left by only God knows who.
Yet each hill is still alive, green
I wonder where winter went.

9.
And then the kettle
as they say sings,
and morning has its clothing on
and we have to be ready,
ready, ready. Everything
is on its way all over again–
you know that song,
fierce chorus that ends
your favorite opera The Night.

23 February 2021

Stone sledge
drag the mountain
to the village,
what is a henge,
a kope uplifted
to surround a mystery
suddenly when
you’re in it utterly known.
Sunrise and evening star
because we are,
and are of their nature
as any stone can tell you,
the bigger the louder,
always stand in the center.

2.
Or in your backyard
a dial of pebbles
will sing the same song
you just have to
listen harder.
A snail sails under a leaf
fast enough for this still sea.

3.
At a certain point in life
you have to make everything up yourself
before the extern certainties
swarm back in—
a day without a book or a device,
you’re all alone with the swaying
seductive dances of your guesses.
Does x really imply
a history of y?
And is B true daughter of A?
Nobody knows,
so you must be Nobody now
and declare all by myself
all the roots and branches.

4.
Stand by the stone and say
Stone, stand by me.
Lean on it if it lets you
and confess:
I am not Nobody
but I am Nobody’s father
and I leave this grotto to my son.

5.
The stone will laugh
a little at that
the way they do—
you can feel it in your fingertips.
Or pick the pebble up
and bring it everywhere.

22 February 2021

Boiling softly rice until it swells
and then the question comes:
is eating one single grain of rice
(soft now too, salty from the brine)
the same as eating rice?
Is saying je t’aime and meaning it
the same as speaking French?
Is saying it the same as love?

2.
We are parts of what?
I am a grain of what?
Is growing up the same
as cooking rice?
Or let me bother you again:
is one snowflake the same as snowing?
I will sit here till the answer comes.
something about numbers,
something about the sky.

3.
A smiling round-faced girl
brought the platter in.
Can you tell already
that I’m lying? The rice
never left the pan. One grain
only did I taste of it.
Nothing happened but the image did.

4.
Sundays in Heaven
must be special days
when all the fortunate ascended
turn their devotions down on us
the billions of beings
ripening below, each one
of us a grain. Sometimes
they use sunshine to study our dreams.

5.
This morning is all white and grey,
I try to exit from the dream
but once dreams get inside you
you’re inside them for good.
I want to be a car, headlights on,
hurrying towards anywhere, even here.

7 February 2021

Unusual tool of the day,
the day I hold in my hand
to pry time open with
and see, just see.

2.
Rusty old el train
tracks overhead,
the long street so busy
darkened by all the going
above it, I know this city,
nothing like iron
to make you feel at home.

3.
At the top of the stairs
up to the station
she crouches,
retrieves something
from the iron meshwork,
something small,
stows it in her white jeans.
This is America
and I will never know.

4.
The reflection of the white lampshade
in the window through which
I study the colorless day outside
all grey and snow looks
strangely like a yellow tree—
I thought you should know.

5.
A voice in the hip pocket
sings an iron song,
you listen a while
then try to write it down,
a language you can’t name
but in words you understand,
seems to say Everything I am
is for somebody else, anybody,
everybody, even you.

6.
Who are these strangers
who live in us,
venture out only when we sleep
and then make free
of all our streets, cities,
parts of speech?
What did she put in her pocket?
Was it me? The key
is rusty but opens every door.

5 February 2021