Speech Before the Ungathered Assembly
--------------(continued)
When death broke the spell in the orchard,
Glistening yellow and green apples fell
On the ground where, now, your feet are--
The earth is fixed, like a setting for truth;
There was death before the world,
Death hung over the world
When Christ came from the wilderness--
The immortal man clear from the God
Whose throne was like a mountain
Whose crown was like the clouds
But whose lap was literally the valley
----------------strewn with bones--
Into the populace rabid with bad talk.
Afraid to disturb the sleeping quail, the
Bed of leaves; not a hunter inspired by the
Far trajectory of birds in the level sky,
But a fellow on a stroll, an unimportant guest,
I only thought in unanimous terms (because
Indeed the world was established before me)
Of the cheerful and nonsensical winter,
In the spooky woods, by the lovely knolls,
In a mood of quiet, keen surmising--
Charitable, involved in amateur appreciations
In my tartan jacket and kalki scarf,
Slapping my palm with the lightweight pipe,
Disinclined to gather sacramental roots . . .
I was a stout figure, in a landscape mad
Miraculously after a childish winter,
A man involved with a wonderful deception,
The lopsided sun was frighteningly near,
Beyond stalks of snow and broken trees,
But gone, the clownish head, when I stood
Back to get a sighting--so I could only
--------------------------------stumble forward,
Doomed in a fabulous erudition, all my
Sources unclear, wandering so far from the
Modern world, should I overturn with a
--------------------------------pointed foot,
Some ridiculous abstruse piece of junk,
A headless doll or a burned tin can,
Looking up in the sunlight, crippled in flight
In the singing dusk . . . fatally grinning.
I was always liable to pretend to some intrigue;
The way we dressed, in the winter, the way I
Stood outside the store, clapping my gloves,
Meant that no one could catalogue these moods.
There was just the white iridescent glow peering
Everywhere in the woods, the streams and rocks
And banks disappearing in a snowfall that
Came to the air like a memory, in my eyes, on
My sleeves, alone in the forest, a winter
That seemed to be the mildest of seasons,
Melting the tragic tapestry,
Blue waterfalls beneath my feet,
Snow that collected and melted on my brow
In a touching semblance of tears, as I gazed
With new hilarity--like some madman awakening.
Tremblingly I saw how much things depend
Upon an unsteady witness, here in the forest
Whose center, off-track, I had suddenly
visited . . . at least in conscience.
---------------------------------------And here
We have more unspoken matter. Why is nature
So old, why is beauty so nostalgic? I was
Resigned, that if I spoke I perjured that faith
That is silence, more silent than the
-------------------------------silently held breath
In the personal world. I held the gaze of
The phantom sun, thre was a presence in the
Snow-filled air. And next week I gave the
Order for demolition. It was a relief to see
Houses clearing away the thicket. And nothing
Could wrestle me back from this place in
My thoughts, where my final prayers are
Mixed with the jeapordized lanes.
----------------------------------------All of
Nature is in the past; what happened out of
Time, you have pushed into the memory. Now,
Eternity is where we are, and only episodes,
Like from a gospel, roll like the local wind,
Over this same grass plot, that backdrop of
Grapevines, the blood-red flower and the tree
Stump leaning like a sun-dial in the yard,
Rocks in the water, ruddy animals you’ll not
Find in any fable of creation.
-----------------------------------Nature is not
Here, because it happened out of time. I saw
The sun was a flaming magnet, like a hole in
The sky, I saw the footprints on the beach--
So ready for the conjecture. Like a violent
Youth I stumbled back onto the highway, my
Head full of such dreams. The rocks that tumble
Down as you scramble up the cliffs are waiting
Right there for the return of the stranger.
All this--outrageous proof--it would suffice
For someone’s glory.
-------------------------The trees are in the
Past, the flowers where you find them, they fly
Into the past, they wilt upon the table. The
Fire is more alive with memories of the
Universe, than all the inhabitants of the
Flimsy ten-room shack, where, whenever we
Move, we only multiply the deed--
-----------------------------------------History
Is what you learn, once you take down
This strong enchantment. It was a saviour
Beckoning, faint-hearted on the hill . . . and
When I stood there, stark-cold and unconcerned,
In a deep dilemma, I was thrown forward.
Nothing can be answered with the wailing
Voice, but even these flames too die in the
embrace of the martyr and saint.
There is nothing shaking the foundations of
Life, when in the day with broadening vision,
Boastful, certain, most hopeful for anything,
The man walks out across the city square.
We’ve heard this so many times before, it’s
Passable narration; it’s not time
-----------------------------to veer into a crisis--
He is not called upon to explain himself,
Why should he be? His mind is a roaring of
Winds in which clashing of fabulous things
Rise and sink like the arms of machinery.
Mothers with babies, and girls with dark eyes
Lost in dreams, look down at him. And he
Is only walking in the idea of himself walking,
Because that is where thought arrives.
---------------------------------------------This
Is favorite conversation, sitting back in the
Chair, in ranch houses, hotel lobbies,
Speeding trains and novel dwellings that
Resemble squirrels' dens, and in high apartment
House containing windows to the heavens,
Where she is dreaming in a cozy limbo,
In a state of mind of the popular times,
The wide museum murals and old movies to
Draw off the atmospheric charms, the rich
Nostalgia, the perfumed air, the polish on the wood.
------------to be continued-------------
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