stream
that floats a river past your house and drops
turds
so immense you could build a hut from them
along
the shore to shelter your children.
What
release!
Think of your child pedaling under your hand
and of a sudden—it just happens—you let go
and he's off on his own, free for that first
time—
the achieve of, the mastery of the child.
(Hopkins of course.) See the stalwart trees in
their silence
the stones resting in the driveway, the cat
curled asleep
on the front porch, the smear of blood
on the lion's mouth sitting over his fresh
gazelle
the morning paper and its stories shouting
for attention. The plenitude of it all.
And
perhaps
somewhere a friend is dreaming of me, or someone
a stranger is peeing ecstatic under the same
moon.
A covenant then between us.
True
or not. It is no matter.
THE PAST
wasn't always so. It was a white hot
'69 Corvette once or in 1954 a new
T-Bird sleek and ebony passing you
with wild contempt, or even a Kaiser
convertible in 1952, rose-colored
knight of peculiar countenance striding
on Sunrise highway east towards Montauk
and the sea. Heads did turn in strange surmise.
But
beauty ages, pal,
and even the best lines go soft, the sweetest
body
(let's face it) cannot hold up. Service it
though you will, garage it against life's
storms,
follow every precaution — you can never
do enough. Either fatigue finally sets in —
or boredom. Salute their former dignity
or stash them in a museum, or write
encomia remembering them fondly
or sing of glories (like the ancient poets)
that inevitably go to ruin.
You
know the course:
the child becomes a man, survives
to three score ten, more or less, and then
becomes a child again, or worse.
Soon he's merely memory and then a blank.
Listen up. The day is calling, and the night.
Damn the clichés. Full speed ahead.
Pull out all the stops. Just drive the poet
wrote
"into something rich and strange" —
and keep
the damn thing straight and on the road.
THE
REPUBLIC OF IMPERISHABLE LINES
To
see the world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower
The
world is charged with the grandeur of God
Trailing
clouds of glory do we come.
For
in his morning's orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him
Exuberance
is beauty. Energy is eternal delight.
Surely
some revelation is at hand
And
I am dumb to tell
For
he on honeydew hath fed and drunk the milk of paradise.
O
frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Who
shall say I am not the happy genius of my household?
Nature
never did betray the heart that loved her
Whan
that Aprill with his shoures soote
My
heart in hiding stirred for a bird—
the
achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
That
thou light wing'd Dryad of the trees singest of summer in full-throated ease
But
at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near
The
lone and level sands stretch far away.
April
is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land
A
robin redbreast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage
Never
again would birds song be the same
They
bring the eternal note of sadness in
Bare
ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang
About
suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters
Your
ma and pa they fuck you up, they don't mean to but they do.
I
smiled at him but he stuck out his tongue and called me nigger.
Black
milk of dawn we drink it at dusk we drink it at noon
They
cannot look out far, they cannot look in deep
I
shot him dead because, because he was my foe, just so.
I
learn by going where I have to go.
Farewell,
thou child of my right hand, and joy
Because
I could not stop for Death He kindly stopped for Me
How
do you like your blue-eyed boy, Mr. Death?
Life,
friends, is boring. We must not say so.
I
have measured out my life with coffee spoons
When
I consider how my life is spent
I'd
sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than kill a hawk
I
think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained
What
did I know, what did I know of love's dark and lonely offices?
I
should have been a pair of ragged claws
No
memory of having starred atones for later disregard
Send
not to know for whom the bell tolls
I
have wasted my life
He
moves in darkness as it seems to me
Though
I sang in my chains like the sea
Arg,
we were all beautiful once, she said.
The
art of losing isn't hard to master
Women
have no wilderness in them
Not,
I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee.
The
feelings I don't have, I won't say I have
You
see what I am: change me, change me
For
christ's sake, look out where yr going
For
youas yet but knocke, breathe,
shine, and seeke to mend
We
will make our meek adjustments
A
man's a man for a' that
Whatever
lives lives because of the life put into it
The
ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses
Each
new attempt is a raid on the inarticulate
Till
the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul
When
I have fears that I may cease to be—
The
nothing that is not there and the nothing that is
The
Truth must dazzle gradually—
We
set up mast and sail on that swart ship.
To
follow knowledge like a sinking star.
Now
I am grateful to my small poem for teaching me this again
Poetry
is the supreme fiction, madame
As
imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown
Shine
on, shine on, Perishing Republic.
Merrill Leffler's third collection of poetry, Mark the Music, will be published in the spring of 2011. His first two collections were Partly Pandemonium and Take Hold. With Moshe Dor, he recently guest-edited an issue of Shirim with their translations of poems by the late Israeli poet Eytan Eytan. Leffler is the publisher of Dryad Press (www.dryadpress.com).
