Strand, Mark;
New selected poems
Alfred A. Knopf, 2007, 267 pages
ISBN 0307262979, 9780307262974
topics: | poetry | usa
A powerful voice, strange and gentle, with a philosopher's gleam at every turn. I give those poems in full which are listed online elsewhere.
Unmoved by what the wind does, The windows Are not rattled, nor do the various Areas Of the house make their usual racket -- Creak at The joints, trusses and studs. Instead, They are still. And the maples, Able At times to raise havoc, Evoke Not a sound from their branches' Clutches. It's my night to be rattled, Saddled With spooks. Even the half-moon (Half man, Half dark), on the horizon, Lies on Its side casting a fishy light Which alights On my floor, lavishly lording Its morbid Look over me. Oh, I feel dead, Folded Away in my blankets for good, and Forgotten. My room is clammy and cold, Moonhandled And weird. The shivers Wash over Me, shaking my bones, my loose ends Loosen, And I lie sleeping with one eye open, Hoping That nothing, nothing will happen.
It will be strange Knowing at last it couldn't go on forever, The certain voice telling us over and over That nothing would change, And remembering too, Because by then it will all be done with, the way Things were, and how we had wasted time as though There was nothing to do, When, in a flash The weather turned, and the lofty air became Unbearably heavy, the wind strikingly dumb And our cities like ash, And knowing also, What we never suspected, that it was something like summer At its most august except that the nights were warmer And the clouds seemed to glow, And even then, Because we will not have changed much, wondering what Will become of things, and who will be left to do it All over again, And somehow trying, But still unable, to know just what it was That went so completely wrong, or why it is We are dying.
Those who have chosen to pass the night Entertaining friends And intimate ideas in the bright, Commodious rooms of dreams Will not feel the slightest tremor Or be wakened by what seems Only a quirk in the dry run Of conventional weather. For them, The long night sweeping over these trees And houses will have been no more than one In a series whose end Only the nervous or morbid consider. But for us, the wide-awake, who tend To believe the worst is always waiting Around the next corner or hiding in the dry, Unsteady branch of a sick tree, debating Whether or not to fell the passerby, It has a sinister air. How we wish we were sunning ourselves In a world of familiar views And fixed conditions, confined By what we know, and able to refuse Entry to the unaccounted for. For now, Deeper and darker than ever, the night unveils Its dubious plans, and the rain Beats down in gales Against the roof. We sit behind Closed windows, bolted doors, Unsure and ill at ease While the loose, untied wind, Making an almost human sound, pours Through the open chambers of the trees. We cannot take ourselves or what belongs To us for granted. No longer the exclusive, Last resorts in which we could unwind, Lounging in easy chairs, Recalling the various wrongs We had been done or spared, our rooms Seem suddenly mixed up in our affairs. We do not feel protected By the walls, nor can we hide Before the duplicating presence Of their mirrors, pretending we are the ones who stare From the other side, collected In the glassy air. A cold we never knew invades our bones. We shake as though the storm were going to hurl us down Against the flat stones Of our lives. All other nights Seem pale compared to this, and the brilliant rise Of morning after morning seems unthinkable. Already now the lights That shared our wakefulness are dimming And the dark brushes against our eyes.
Able at last to stop And recall the days it took To get them here, they sit On the porch in rockers Letting the faded light Of afternoon carry them off. I see them moving back And forth over the dullness Of the past, covering ground They did not know was there, And ending up with nothing Save what might have been. And so they sit, gazing Out between the trees Until in all that vacant Wash of sky, the wasted Vision of each one Comes down to earth again. It is too late travel Or even find a reason To make it seem worthwhile. Already now, the evening Reaches out to Take The aging world away. And soon the dark will come, And these tired elders feel The need to go indoors Where each will lie alone In the deep and sheepless Pastures of a long sleep.
p.10 In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing. When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the spaces where my body's been. We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole.
p.13 A man has been standing in front of my house for days. I peek at him from the living room window and at night, unable to sleep, I shine my flashlight down on the lawn. He is always there. After a while I open the front door just a crack and order him out of my yard. He narrows his eyes and moans. I slam the door and dash back to the kitchen, then up to the bedroom, then down. I weep like a schoolgirl and make obscene gestures through the window. I write large suicide notes and place them so he can read them easily. I destroy the living room furniture to prove I own nothing of value. When he seems unmoved I decide to dig a tunnel to a neighboring yard. I seal the basement off from the upstairs with a brick wall. I dig hard and in no time the tunnel is done. Leaving my pick and shovel below, I come out in front of a house and stand there too tired to move or even speak, hoping someone will help me. I feel I'm being watched and sometimes I hear a man's voice, but nothing is done and I have been waiting for days.
It is midnight. He comes up the walk and knocks at the door. I rush to greet him. He stands there weeping, shaking a letter at me. He tells me it contains terrible personal news. He falls to his knees. "Forgive me! Forgive me!" he pleads. I ask him inside. He wipes his eyes. His dark blue suit is like an inkstain on my crimson couch. Helpless, nervous, small, he curls up like a ball and sleeps while I compose more letters to myself in the same vein: "You shall live by inflicting pain. You shall forgive." p. 17
I sat in the cold limbs of a tree I wore no clothes and the wind was blowing You stood below in a heavy coat The coat you are wearing And when you opened it, baring your chest White moths flew out and whatever you said At that moment fell quietly onto the ground The ground at your feet Snow floated down from the clouds into my ears The moths from your coat flew into the snow And the wind as it moved under my arms Under your chin, whined like a child I shall never know why Our lives took a turn for the worse, nor will you Clouds sank into my arms and my arms rose They are rising now I sway in the white air of winter And the starlings cry...lies down on my skin A field of ferns covers my glasses; i wipe Them away in order to see you I turn and the tree turns with me Things are not only themselves in this light You close your eyes and your coat Falls from your shoulders The tree withdraws like a hand The wind fit into my breath yet nothing is certain The poem that has stolen these words from my mouth May not be this poem p.21
I walk down the narrow, carpeted hall. The house is set. The carnation in my buttonhole precedes me like a small continuous explosion. The mirror is in the living room. You are there. Your face is white, unsmiling, swollen. The fallen body of your hair is dull and out of place. Buried in the darkness of your pockets, your hands are motionless. You do not seem awake. Your skin sleeps and your eyes lie in the deep blue of their sockets, impossible to reach. How long will all this take? I remember how we used to stand wishing the glass would dissolve between us, and how we watched our words cloud that bland, innocent surface, and when our faces blurred how scared we were. But that was another life. One day you turned away and left me here to founder in the stillness of your wake. Your suit floating, your hair moving like eel grass in a shallow bay, you drifted out of the mirror's room, through the hall and into the open air. You seemed to rise and fall with the wind, the sway taking you always farther away, farther away. Darkness filled your sleeves. The stars moved through you. The vague music of your shrieking blossomed in my ears. I tried forgetting what I saw; I got down on the floor, pretending to be dead. It did not work. My heart bunched in my rib-cage like a bat, blind and cowardly, beating in and out, a solemn, irreducible black. The things you drove me to! I walked in the calm of the house, calling you back. You did not answer. I sat in a chair and stared across the room. The walls were bare. The mirror was nothing without you. I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes. My thoughts rose in the dark like faint balloons, and I would turn them over one by one and watch them shiver. I always fell into a deep and arid sleep. Then out of nowhere late one night you reappeared, a huge vegetable moon, a bruise coated with light. You stood before me, dreamlike and obscene, your face lost under layers of heavy skin, your body sunk in a green and wrinkled sea of clothing. I tried to help you but you refused. Days passed and I would rest my cheek against the glass, wanting nothing but the old you. I sang so sadly that the neighbors wept and dogs whined with pity. Some things I wish I could forget. You didn't care, standing still while flies collected in your hair and dust fell like a screen before your eyes. You never spoke or tried to come up close. Why did I want so badly to get through to you? It still goes on. I go into the living room and you are there. You drift in a pool of silver air where wounds and dreams of wounds rise from the deep humus of sleep to bloom like flowers against the glass. I look at you and see myself under the surface. A dark and private weather settles down on everything. It is colder and the dreams wither away. You stand like a shade in the painless glass, frail, distant, older than ever. It will always be this way. I stand here scared that you will disappear, scared that you will stay. p.23
Through the crowded street It floats Its vague Tonnage like wind. It glides Through the sadness Of slums To the outlying fields. Slowly, Now by an ox, Now by a windmill, It moves. Passing At night like a dream Of death, it cannot be heard; under the stars It steals. Its crew And passengers stare; Whiter than bone, Their eyes Do not Turn or close. p.28
for Donald Justice The bluish, pale face of the house rises above me like a wall of ice and the distant, solitary barking of an owl floats toward me. I half close my eyes. Over the damp dark of the garden flowers swing back and forth like small ballons. The solemn trees, each buried in a cloud of leaves, seem lost in sleep. It is late. I lie in the grass, smoking, feeling at ease, pretending the end will be like this. Moonlight falls on my flesh. A breeze circles my wrist. I drift. I shiver. I know that soon the day will come to wash away the moon's white stain, that I shall walk in the morning sun invisible as anyone. p.30
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are sad and she walks with her hands in her dress. The poems are gone. The light is dim. The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up. Their eyeballs roll, their blond legs burn like brush. The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep. She does not understand. When I get on my knees and lick her hand, she screams. I am a new man. I snarl at her and bark. I romp with joy in the bookish dark. p.36
1 If a man understands a poem,
he shall have troubles.
2 If a man lives with a poem,
he shall die lonely.
3 If a man lives with two poems,
he shall be unfaithful to one.
4 If a man conceives of a poem,
he shall have one less child.
5 If a man conceives of two poems,
he shall have two children less.
6 If a man wears a crown on his head as he writes,
he shall be found out.
7 If a man wears no crown on his head as he writes,
he shall deceive no one but himself.
8 If a man gets angry at a poem,
he shall be scorned by men.
9 If a man continues to be angry at a poem,
he shall be scorned by women.
10 If a man publicly denounces poetry,
his shoes will fill with urine.
11 If a man gives up poetry for power,
he shall have lots of power.
12 If a man brags about his poems,
he shall be loved by fools.
13 If a man brags about his poems and loves fools,
he shall write no more.
14 If a man craves attention because of his poems,
he shall be like a jackass in moonlight.
15 If a man writes a poem and praises the poem of a fellow,
he shall have a beautiful mistress.
16 If a man writes a poem and praises the poem of a fellow overly,
he shall drive his mistress away.
17 If a man claims the poem of another,
his heart shall double in size.
18 If a man lets his poems go naked,
he shall fear death.
19 If a man fears death,
he shall be saved by his poems.
20 If a man does not fear death,
he may or may not be saved by his poems.
21 If a man finishes a poem,
he shall bathe in the blank wake of his passion
and be kissed by white paper.
p.43
I give up my eyes which are glass eggs. I give up my tongue. I give up my mouth which is the contstant dream of my tongue. I give up my throat which is the sleeve of my voice. I give up my heart which is a burning apple. I give up my lungs which are trees that have never seen the moon. I give up my smell which is that of a stone traveling through rain. I give up my hands which are ten wishes. I give up my arms which have wanted to leave me anyway. I give up my legs which are lovers only at night. I give up my buttocks which are the moons of childhood. I give up my penis which whispers encouragement to my thighs. I give up my clothes which are walls that blow in the wind and I give up the ghost that lives in them. I give up. I give up. And you will have none of it because already I am beginning again without anything. p.46
Not the attendance of stones, nor the applauding wind, shall let you know you have arrived, nor the sea that celebrates only departures, nor the mountains, nor the dying cities. Nothing will tell you where you are. Each moment is a place you’ve never been. You can walk believing you cast a light around you. But how will you know? The present is always dark. Its maps are black, rising from nothing, describing, in their slow ascent into themselves, their own voyage, its emptiness, the bleak temperate necessity of its completion. As they rise into being they are like breath. And if they are studied at all it is only to find, too late, what you thought were concerns of yours do not exist. Your house is not marked on any of them, nor are your friends, waiting for you to appear, nor are your enemies, listing your faults. Only you are there, saying hello to what you will be, and the black grass is holding up the black stars. p.53
That night the moon drifted over the pond, turning the water to milk, and under the boughs of the trees, the blue trees, a young woman walked, and for an instant 5 the future came to her: rain falling on her husband's grave, rain falling on the lawns of her children, her own mouth filling with cold air, strangers moving into her house, a man in her room writing a poem, the moon drifting into it, io a woman strolling under its trees, thinking of death, thinking of him thinking of her, and the wind rising and taking the moon and leaving the paper dark. p. 58
The huge doll of my body refuses to rise. I am the toy of women. My mother would prop me up for her friends. "Talk, talk," she would beg. I moved my mouth but words did not come. My wife took me down from the shelf. I lay in her arms. "We suffer the sickness of self," she would whisper. And I lay there dumb. Now my daughter gives me a plastic nurser filled with water. "You are my real baby," she says. Poor child! I look into the brown mirrors of her eyes and see myself diminishing, sinking down to a depth she does not know is there. Out of breath, I will not rise again. I grow into my death. My life is small and getting smaller. The world is green. Nothing is all. p.61
I have done what I could but you avoid me. I left a bowl of milk on the desk to tempt you. Nothing happened. I left my wallet there, full of money. You must have hated me for that. You never came. I sat at my typewriter naked, hoping you would wrestle me to the floor. I played with myself just to arouse you. Boredom drove me to sleep. I offered you my wife. I sat her on the desk and spread her legs. I waited. The days drag on. The exhausted light falls like a bandage over my eyes. Is it because I am ugly? Was anyone ever so sad? It is pointless to slash my wrists. My hands would fall off. And then what hope would I have? Why do you never come? Must I have you by being somebody else? Must I write My Life by somebody else? My Death by somebody else? Are you listening? Somebody else has arrived. Somebody else is writing. p.63
There is a girl you like so you tell her your penis is big, but that you cannot get yourself to use it. Its demands are ridiculous, you say, even self-defeating, but to be honored somehow, briefly, inconspicuously, in the dark. When she closes her eyes in horror, you take it all back. You tell her you’re almost a girl yourself and can understand why she is shocked. When she is about to walk away, you tell her you have no penis, that you don’t know what got into you. You get on your knees. She suddenly bends down to kiss your shoulder and you know you’re on the right track. You tell her you want to bear children and that is why you seem confused. You wrinkle your brow and curse the day you were born. She tries to calm you, but you lose control. You reach for her panties and beg forgiveness as you do. She squirms and you howl like a wolf. Your craving seems monumental. You know you will have her. Taken by storm, she is the girl you will marry. p.64
The world is ugly, And the people are sad -Wallace Stevens I lie in bed. I toss all night in the cold unruffled deep of my sheets and cannot sleep. My neighbor marches in his room, wearing the sleek mask of a hawk with a large beak. He stands by the window. A violet plume rises from his helmet's dome. The moon's light spills over him like milk and the wind rinses the white glass bowls of his eyes. His helmet in a shopping bag, he sits in the park, waving a small American Flag. He cannot be heard as he moves behind trees and hedges, always at the frayed edges of town, pulling a gun on someone like me. I crouch under the kitchen table, telling myself I am a dog, who would kill a dog? My neighbor's wife comes home. She walks into the living room, takes off her clothes, her hair falls down her back. She seems to wade through long flat rivers of shade. The soles of her feet are black. She kisses her husband's neck and puts her hands inside his pants. My neighbors dance. They roll on the floor, his tongue is in her ear, his lungs reek with the swill and weather of hell. Out on the street people are lying down with their knees in the air, tears fill their eyes, ashes enter their ears. Their clothes are torn from their backs. Their faces are worn. Horsemen are riding around them, telling them why they should die. My neighbor's wife calls to me, her mouth is pressed against the wall behind my bed. She says, "My husband's dead." I turn over on my side, hoping she has not lied. The walls and ceiling of my room are gray — the moon's color through the windows of a laundromat. I close my eyes. I see myself float on the dead sea of my bed, falling away, calling for help, but the vague scream sticks in my throat. I see myself in the park on horseback, surrounded by dark, leading the armies of peace. The iron legs of the horse do not bend. I drop the reins. Where will the turmoil end? Fleets of taxis stall in the fog, passengers fall asleep. Gas pours from a tricolored stack. Locking their doors, people from offices huddle together, telling the same story over and over. Everyone who has sold himself wants to buy himself back. Nothing is done. The night eats into their limbs like a blight. Everything dims. The future is not what it used to be. The graves are ready. The dead shall inherit the dead. p.66
(Robert Strand 1908-1968) 1 THE EMPTY BODY The hands were yours, the arms were yours, But you were not there. The eyes were yours, but they were closed and would not open. The distant sun was there. The moon poised on the hill's white shoulder was there. The wind on Bedford Basin was there. The pale green light of winter was there. Your mouth was there, But you were not there. When somebody spoke, there was no answer. Clouds came down And buried the buildings along the water, And the water was silent. The gulls stared. The years, the hours, that would not find you Turned in the wrists of others. There was no pain. It had gone. There were no secrets. There was nothing to say. The shade scattered its ashes. The body was yours, but you were not there. The air shivered against its skin. The dark leaned into its eyes. But you were not there. 2 ANSWERS Why did you travel? Because the house was cold. Why did you travel? Because it is what I have always done between sunset and sunrise. What did you wear? I wore a blue suit, a white shirt, yellow tie, and yellow socks. What did you wear? I wore nothing. A scarf of pain kept me warm. Who did you sleep with? I slept with a different woman each night. Who did you sleep with? I slept alone. I have always slept alone. Why did you lie to me? I always thought I told the truth. Why did you lie to me? Because the truth lies like nothing else and I love the truth. Why are you going? Because nothing means much to me anymore. Why are you going? I don't know. I have never known. How long shall I wait for you? Do not wait for me. I am tired and I want to lie down. Are you tired and do you want to lie down? Yes, I am tired and I want to lie down. 3 YOUR DYING Nothing could stop you. Not the best day. Not the quiet. Not the ocean rocking. You went on with your dying. Not the trees Under which you walked, not the trees that shaded you. Not the doctor Who warned you, the white-haired young doctor who saved you once. You went on with your dying. Nothing could stop you. Not your son. Not your daughter Who fed you and made you into a child again. Not your son who thought you would live forever. Not the wind that shook your lapels. Not the stillness that offered itself to your motion. Not your shoes that grew heavier. Not your eyes that refused to look ahead. Nothing could stop you. You sat in your room and stared at the city And went on with your dying. You went to work and let the cold enter your clothes. You let blood seep into your socks. Your face turned white. Your voice cracked in two. You leaned on your cane. But nothing could stop you. Not your friends who gave you advice. Not your son. Not your daughter who watched you grow small. Not fatigue that lived in your sighs. Not your lungs that would fill with water. Not your sleeves that carried the pain of your arms. Nothing could stop you. You went on with your dying. When you played with children you went on with your dying. When you sat down to eat, When you woke up at night, wet with tears, your body sobbing, You went on with your dying. Nothing could stop you. Not the past. Not the future with its good weather. Not the view from your window, the view of the graveyard. Not the city. Not the terrible city with its wooden buildings. Not defeat. Not success. You did nothing but go on with your dying. You put your watch to your ear. You felt yourself slipping. You lay on the bed. You folded your arms over your chest and you dreamed of the world without you, Of the space under the trees, Of the space in your room, Of the spaces that would now be empty of you, And you went on with your dying. Nothing could stop you. Not your breathing. Not your life. Not the life you wanted. Not the life you had. Nothing could stop you. 4 YOUR SHADOW You have your shadow. The places where you were have given it back. The hallways and bare lawns of the orphanage have given it back. The Newsboys Home has given it back. The streets of New York have given it back and so have the streets of Montreal. The rooms in Bel?m where lizards would snap at mosquitos have given it back. The dark streets of Manaus and the damp streets of Rio have given it back. Mexico City where you wanted to leave it has given it back. And Halifax where the harbor would wash its hands of you has given it back. You have your shadow. When you traveled the white wake of your going sent your shadow below, but when you arrived it was there to greet you. You had your shadow. The doorways you entered lifted your shadow from you and when you went out, gave it back. You had your shadow. Even when you forgot your shadow, you found it again; it had been with you. Once in the country the shade of a tree covered your shadow and you were not known. Once in the country you thought your shadow had been cast by somebody else. Your shadow said nothing. Your clothes carried your shadow inside; when you took them off, it spread like the dark of your past. And your words that float like leaves in an air that is lost, in a place no one knows, gave you back your shadow. Your friends gave you back your shadow. Your enemies gave you back your shadow. They said it was heavy and would cover your grave. When you died your shadow slept at the mouth of the furnace and ate ashes for bread. It rejoiced among ruins. It watched while others slept. It shone like crystal among the tombs. It composed itself like air. It wanted to be like snow on water. It wanted to be nothing, but that was not possible. It came to my house. It sat on my shoulders. Your shadow is yours. I told it so. I said it was yours. I have carried it with me too long. I give it back. 5 MOURNING They mourn for you. When you rise at midnight, And the dew glitters on the stone of your cheeks, They mourn for you. They lead you back into the empty house. They carry the chairs and tables inside. They sit you down and teach you to breathe. And your breath burns, It burns the pine box and the ashes fall like sunlight. They give you a book and tell you to read. They listen and their eyes fill with tears. The women stroke your fingers. They comb the yellow back into your hair. They shave the frost from your beard. They knead your thighs. They dress you in fine clothes. They rub your hands to keep them warm. They feed you. They offer you money. They get on their knees and beg you not to die. When you rise at midnight they mourn for you. They close their eyes and whisper your name over and over. But they cannot drag the buried light from your veins. They cannot reach your dreams. Old man, there is no way. Rise and keep rising, it does no good. They mourn for you the way they can. 6 THE NEW YEAR It is winter and the new year. Nobody knows you. Away from the stars, from the rain of light, You lie under the weather of stones. There is no thread to lead you back. Your friends doze in the dark Of pleasure and cannot remember. Nobody knows you. You are the neighbor of nothing. You do not see the rain falling and the man walking away, The soiled wind blowing its ashes across the city. You do not see the sun dragging the moon like an echo. You do not see the bruised heart go up in flames, The skulls of the innocent turn into smoke. You do not see the scars of plenty, the eyes without light. It is over. It is winter and the new year. The meek are hauling their skins into heaven. The hopeless are suffering the cold with those who have nothing to hide. It is over and nobody knows you. There is starlight drifting on the black water. There are stones in the sea no one has seen. There is a shore and people are waiting. And nothing comes back. Because it is over. Because there is silence instead of a name. Because it is winter and the new year. p.71-77
1 We are reading the story of our lives which takes place in a room. The room looks out on a street. There is no one there, no sound of anything. The trees are heavy with leaves, the parked cars never more. We keep turning pages, hoping for something, something like mercy or change, a black line that would bind us or keep us apart. The way it is, it would seem the book of our lives is empty. The furniture in the room is never shifted, and the rugs become darker each time our shadows pass over them. It is almost as if the room were the world. We sit beside each other on the couch, reading about the couch. We say it is ideal. It is ideal. 2 We are reading the story of our lives as though we were in it, as though we had written it. This comes up again and again. In one of the chapters I lean back and push the book aside because the book says it is what I am doing. I lean back and begin to write about the book. I write that I wish to move beyond the book, beyond my life into another life. I put the pen down. The book says: He put the pen down and turned and watched her reading the part about herself falling in love. The book is more accurate than we can imagine. I lean back and watch you read about the man across the street. They built a house there, and one day a man walking out of it. You fell in love with him because you knew that he would never visit you, would never know you were waiting. Night after night you would say that he was like me. I lean back and watch you grow older without me. Sunlight falls on your silver hair. The rugs, the furniture, seem almost imaginary now. She continued to read. She seemed to consider his absence of no special importance, as someone on a perfect day will consider the weather a failure because it did not change his mind. You narrow your eyes. You have the impulse to close the book which described my resistance: how when I lean back I imagine my life without you, imagine moving into another life, another book. It described your dependence on desire, how the momentary disclosures of purpose make you afraid. The book describes much more than it should. It wants to divide us. 3 This morning I woke and believed there was no more to our lives than the story of our lives. When you disagreed, I pointed to the place in the book where you disagreed. You fell back to sleep and I began to read those mysterious parts you used to guess at while they were being written and lose interest in after they became part of the story. In one of them cold dresses of moonlight are draped over the chairs in a man's room. He dreams of a woman whose dresses are lost, who sits in a garden and waits. She believes that love is a sacrifice. The part describes her death and she is never named, which is one of the things you could not stand about her. A little later we learn that the dreaming man lives in the new house across the street. This morning after you fell back to sleep I began to turn pages early in the book: it was like dreaming of childhood, so much seemed to vanish, so much seemed to come to life again. I did not know what to do. The book said: In those moments it was his book. A bleak crown rested uneasily on his head. He was the brief ruler of inner and outer discord, anxious in his own kingdom. 4 Before you woke I read another part that described your absence and told how you sleep to reverse the progress of your life. I was touched by my own loneliness as I read, knowing that what I feel is often the crude and unsuccessful form of a story that may never be told. I read and was moved by a desire to offer myself to the house of your sleep. He wanted to see her naked and vulnerable, to see her in the refuse, the discarded plots of old dreams, the costumes and masks of unattainable states. It was as if he were drawn irresistibly to failure. It was hard to keep reading. I was tired and wanted to give up. The book seemed aware of this. It hinted at changing the subject. I waited for you to wake not knowing how long I waited, and it seemed that I was no longer reading. I heard the wind passing like a stream of sighs and I heard the shiver of leaves in the trees outside the window. It would be in the book. Everything would be there. I looked at your face and I read the eyes, the nose, the mouth... 5 If only there were a perfect moment in the book; if only we could live in that moment, we could begin the book again as if we had not written it, as if we were not in it. But the dark approaches to any page are too numerous and the escapes are too narrow. We read through the day. Each page turning is like a candle moving through the mind. Each moment is like a hopeless cause. If only we could stop reading. He never wanted to read another book and she kept staring into the street. The cars were still there, the deep shade of the trees covered them. The shades were drawn in the new house. Maybe the man who lived there, the man she loved, was reading the story of another life. She imagined a bare parlor, a cold fireplace, a man sitting writing a letter to a woman who has sacrificed her life for love. If there were a perfect moment in the book, it would be the last. The book never discusses the causes of love. It claims confusion is a necessary good. It never explains. It only reveals. 6 The day goes on. We study what we remember. We look into the mirror across the room. We cannot bear to be alone. The book goes on. They became silent and did not know how to begin the dialogue which was necessary. It was words that created divisions in the first place, that created loneliness. They waited. They would turn the pages, hoping something would happen. They would patch up their lives in secret: each defeat forgiven because it could not be tested, each pain rewarded because it was unreal. They did nothing. 7 The book will not survive. We are the living proof of that. It is dark outside, in the room it is darker. I hear your breathing. You are asking me if I am tired, if I want to keep reading. Yes, I am tired. Yes, I want to keep reading. I say yes to everything. You cannot hear me. They sat beside each other on the couch. They were copies, the tired phantoms of something they had been before. The attitudes they took were jaded. They stared into the book ad were horrified by their innocence, their reluctance to give up. They sat beside each other on the couch. They were determined to accept the truth. Whatever it was they would accept it. The book would have to be read. They are the book and they are nothing else. p. 79
29
It occurs to me that you may be a woman. What then? I suppose I
become therefore a woman. If you are a woman, I suggest that you
curl up inside the belly of The Monument which is buried horizontally
in the ground and eventually let yourself out through the mouth.
Thus, I can experience, however belatedly, a birth, your birth, the
birth of myself as a woman.
30
... a Poet's mind
Is labour not unworthy of regard.
And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch!
Sometimes when I wander in these woods whose prince I am, I hear a
voice and I know that I am not alone. Another voice another monument
becoming one; another tomb, another marker made from elements least
visible; another voice that says Watch it closely. And I do, and
there is someone inside. It is the Bishop, who after all was not
intended to be seen. It is the Bishop calling and calling.
34
They are back, the angry poets. But look! They have come with hammers
and little buckets, and they are knocking off pieces of The Monument
to study and use in the making of their own small tombs.
Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light. You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, sending up warm bouquets of air. Even this late the bones of the body shine and tomorrow's dust flares into breath. p. 137
I walk into what light there is not enough for blindness or clear sight of what is to come yet I see the water the single boat the man standing he is not someone I know this is another place what light there is spreads like a net over nothing what is to come has come to this before this is the mirror in which pain is asleep this is the country nobody visits." p.138
for Ros Krauss Tell yourself as it gets cold and gray falls from the air that you will go on walking, hearing the same tune no matter where you find yourself — inside the dome of dark or under the cracking white of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow. Tonight as it gets cold tell yourself what you know which is nothing but the tune your bones play as you keep going. And you will be able for once to lie down under the small fire of winter stars. And if it happens that you cannot go on or turn back and you find yourself where you will be at the end, tell yourself in that final flowing of cold through your limbs that you love what you are. p. 139
My son my only son, the one I never had, would be a man today. He moves in the wind, fleshless, nameless. Sometimes he comes and leans his head, lighter than air against my shoulder and I ask him, Son, where do you stay, where do you hide? And he answers me with a cold breath, You never noticed though I called and called and keep on calling from a place beyond, beyond love, where nothing, everything, wants to be born. p.140
Tonight I walked, close to the house, and was afraid, not of the winding course that I have made of love and self but of the dark and faraway. I walked, hearing the wind and feeling the cold, but what I dwelled on were the stars blazing in the immense arc of sky. Jessica, it is so much easier to think of our lives, as we move under the brief luster of leaves, loving what we have, than to think of how it is such small beings as we travel in the dark with no visible way or end in sight. Yet there were times I remember under the same sky when the body's bones became light and the wound of the skull opened to receive the cold rays of the cosmos, and were, for an instant, themselves the cosmos, there were times when I could believe we were the children of stars and our words were made of the same dust that flames in space, times when I could feel in the lightness of breath the weight of a whole day come to rest. But tonight it is different. Afraid of the dark in which we drift or vanish altogether, I imagine a light that would not let us stray too far apart, a secret moon or mirror, a sheet of paper, something you could carry in the dark when I am away. p. 142
Someone was saying something about shadows covering the field, about how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning and the morning goes. Someone was saying how the wind dies down but comes back, how shells are the coffins of wind but the weather continues. It was a long night and someone said something about the moon shedding its white on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead but more of the same. Someone mentioned a city she had been in before the war, a room with two candles against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching. We began to believe the night would not end. Someone was saying the music was over and no one had noticed. Then someone said something about the planets, about the stars, how small they were, how far away. p.144
A man walks towards town, a slack breeze smelling of earth and the raw green of trees blows at his back. He drags the weight of his passion as if nothing were over, as if the woman, now curled in bed beside her lover, still cared for him. She is awake and stares at scars of light trapped in panes of glass. He stands under her window, calling her name; he calls all night and it makes no difference. It will happen again, he will come back wherever she is. Again he will stand outside and imagine her eyes opening in the dark and see her rise to the window and peer down. Again she will lie awake beside her lover and hear the voice from somewhere in the dark. Again the late hour, the moon and stars, the wounds of night that heal without sound, again the luminous wind of morning that comes before the sun. And, finally, without warning or desire, The lonely and feckless end. p. 145
Let it be anywhere on any night you wish, in your room that is empty and dark or down the street or at those dim frontiers you barely see, barely dream of. You will not feel desire, nothing will warn you, no sudden wind, no stillness of air. She will appear, looking like someone you knew: the friend who wasted her life, the girl who sat under the palm tree. Her bracelets will glitter, becoming the lights of a village you turned from years ago. p.147
It is all in the mind, you say, and has nothing to do with happiness. The coming of cold, the coming of heat, the mind has all the time in the world. You take my arm and say something will happen, something unusual for which we were always prepared, like the sun arriving after a day in Asia, like the moon departing after a night with us. p. 148
I gaze upon a roast, that is sliced and laid out on my plate and over it I spoon the juices of carrot and onion. And for once I do not regret the passage of time. I sit by a window that looks on the soot-stained brick of buildings and do not care that I see no living thing –not a bird, not a branch in bloom, not a soul moving in the rooms behind the dark panes. These days when there is little to love or to praise one could do worse than yield to the power of food. So I bend to inhale the steam that rises from my plate, and I think of the first time I tasted a roast like this. It was years ago in Seabright, Nova Scotia; my mother leaned over my dish and filled it and when I finished filled it again. I remember the gravy, its odor of garlic and celery, and sopping it up with pieces of bread. And now I taste it again. The meat of memory. The meat of no change. I raise my fork and I eat. p. 150
Watching snow cover the ground, cover itself, cover everything that is not you, you see it is the downward drift of light upon the sound of air sweeping away the air, it is the fall of moments into moments, the burial of sleep, the down of winter, the negative of night. p. 156
1 When the moon appears and a few wind-stricken barns stand out in the low-domed hills and shine with a light that is veiled and dust-filled and that floats upon the fields, my mother, with her hair in a bun, her face in shadow, and the smoke from her cigarette coiling close to the faint yellow sheen of her dress, stands near the house and watches the seepage of late light down through the sedges, the last gray islands of cloud taken from view, and the wind ruffling the moon's ash-colored coat on the black bay. 2 Soon the house, with its shades drawn closed, will send small carpets of lampglow into the haze and the bay will begin its loud heaving and the pines, frayed finials climbing the hill, will seem to graze the dim cinders of heaven. And my mother will stare into the starlanes, the endless tunnels of nothing, and as she gazes, under the hour's spell, she will think how we yield each night to the soundless storms of decay that tear at the folding flesh, and she will not know why she is here or what she is prisoner of if not the conditions of love that brought her to this. 3 My mother will go indoors and the fields, the bare stones will drift in peace, small creatures -- the mouse and the swift -- will sleep at opposite ends of the house. Only the cricket will be up, repeating its one shrill note to the rotten boards of the porch, to the rusted screens, to the air, to the rimless dark, to the sea that keeps to itself. Why should my mother awake? The earth is not yet a garden about to be turned. The stars are not yet bells that ring at night for the lost. It is much too late. p. 164
for Nolan Miller For us, too, there was a wish to possess Something beyond the world we knew, beyond ourselves, Beyond our power to imagine, something nevertheless In which we might see ourselves; and this desire Came always in passing, in waning light, and in such cold That ice on the valley's lakes cracked and rolled, And blowing snow covered what earth we saw, And scenes from the past, when they surfaced again, Looked not as they had, but ghostly and white Among false curves and hidden erasures; And never once did we feel we were close Until the night wind said, "Why do this, Especially now? Go back to the place you belong;" And there appeared, with its windows glowing, small, In the distance, in the frozen reaches, a cabin; And we stood before it, amazed at its being there, And would have gone forward and opened the door, And stepped into the glow and warmed ourselves there, But that it was ours by not being ours, And should remain empty. That was the idea. p.169
It was an adventure much could be made of: a walk On the shores of the darkest known river, Among the hooded, shoving crowds, by steaming rocks And rows of ruined huts half buried in the muck; Then to the great court with its marble yard Whose emptiness gave him the creeps, and to sit there In the sunken silence of the place and speak Of what he had lost, what he still possessed of his loss, And, then, pulling out all the stops, describing her eyes, Her forehead, where the golden light of evening spread, The curve of her neck, the slope of her shoulders, everything Down to her thighs and calves, letting the words come, As if lifted from sleep, to drift upstream, Against the water's will, where all the condemned And pointless labor, stunned by his voice's cadence, Would come to a halt, and even the crazed, dishevelled Furies, for the first time, would weep, and the soot-filled Air would clear just enough for her, the lost bride, To step through the image of herself and be seen in the light. As everyone knows, this was the first great poem, Which was followed by days of sitting around In the houses of friends, with his head back, his eyes Closed, trying to will her return, but finding Only himself, again and again, trapped In the chill of his loss, and, finally, Without a word, taking off to wander the hills Outside of town, where he stayed until he had shaken The image of love and put in its place the world As he wished it would be, urging its shape and measure Into speech of such newness that the world was swayed, And trees suddenly appeared in the bare place Where he spoke and lifted their limbs and swept The tender grass with the gowns of their shade, And stones, weightless for once, came and set themselves there, And small animals lay in the miraculous fields of grain And aisles of corn, and slept. The voice of light Had come forth from the body of fire, and each thing Rose from its depths and shone as it never had. And that was the second great poem, Which no one recalls anymore. The third and greatest Came into the world as the world; out of the unsayable, Invisible source of all longing to be, it came As tilings come that will perish, to be seen or heard A while, like the coating of frost or the movement Of wind, and then no more; it came in the middle of sleep Like a door to the infinite, and, circled by flame, Came again at the moment of waking, and sometimes, Remote and small, it came as a vision with trees By a weaving stream, brushing the bank Wth their violet shade, with somebody's limbs Scattered among the matted, mildewed leaves nearby, With his severed head rolling under the waves, Breaking the shifting columns of light into a swirl Of slivers and flecks; it came in a language Untouched by pity, in lines lavish and dark, Where death is reborn and sent into the world as a gift, So the future, with no voice of its own, or hope Of ever becoming more than it will be, might mourn. p. 172
Like many brilliant notions — easy to understand But hard to believe — the one about our hating it here Was put aside and then forgot. Those freakish winds Over the flaming lake, bearing down, bringing a bright Electrical dust, an ashen air crowded with leaves — Fallen, ghostly — shading the valley, filling it with A rushing sound, were not enough to drive us out. Nor were those times the faded winter sun Lowered a frozen half-light over the canyons And silent storms buried the high resorts With heavy snows. We simply stayed indoors. Our friends would say the views — starlight over The clustered domes and towers, the frigid moon In the water's glass — great. And we agreed, And got to like the sight of iron horses rusting In the fields, and birds with wings outspread, Their silver bones glowing at the water's edge And far away, huge banks of cloud motionless as lead. p.176 --Always-- for Charles Simic Always so late in the day In their rumpled clothes, sitting Around a table lit by a single bulb, The great forgetters were hard at work. They tilted their heads to one side, closing their eyes. Then a house disappeared, and a man in his yard With all his flowers in a row. The great forgetters wrinkled their brows. Then Florida went and San Francisco Where tugs and barges leave Small gleaming scars across the Bay. One of the great forgetters struck a match. Gone were the harps of beaded lights That vault the rivers of New York. Another filled his glass And that was it for crowds at evening Under sulfur-yellow streetlamps coming on. And afterward Bulgaria was gone, and then Japan. "Where will it stop?" one of them said. "Such difficult work, pursuing the fate Of everything known," said another. "Down to the last stone," said a third, "And only the zero of perfection Left for the imagination." And gone Were North and South America, And gone as well the moon. Another yawned, another gazed at the window: No grass, no trees... The blaze of promise everywhere. p.178
Our masters are gone and if they returned Who among us would hear them, who would know The bodily sound of heaven or the heavenly sound Of the body, endless and vanishing, that tuned Our days before the wheeling stars Were stripped of power? The answer is None of us here. And what does it mean if we see The moon-glazed mountains and the town with its silent doors And water towers, and feel like raising our voices Just a little, or sometimes during late autumn When the evening flowers a moment over the western range And we imagine angels rushing down the air's cold steps To wish us well, if we have lost our will, And do nothing but doze, half hearing the sighs Of this or that breeze drift aimlessly over the failed farms And wasted gardens? These days when we waken. Everything shines with the same blue light That filled our sleep moments before, So we do nothing but count the trees, the clouds, The few birds left; then we decide that we shouldn’t Be hard on ourselves, that the past was no better Than now, for hasn’t the enemy always existed, And wasn’t the church of the world always in ruins? p. 182
When the Continental College of Beauty opened its doors We looked down hallways covered with old masters And into rooms where naked figures lounged on marble floors. And we were moved, but not enough to stay. We hurried on Until we reached a courtyard overgrown with weeds. This moved us, too, but in a moment we were nodding off. The sun was coming up, a violet haze was lifting from the sea, Coastal hills were turning red, and several people on the beach Went up in flames. This was the start of something new. The flames died down. The sun continued on its way. And lakes inland, in the first light, flashed their scales, And mountains cast a blue, cold shade on valley floors, And distant towns awoke... this is what we'd waited for. How quickly the great unfinished world came into view When the Continental Collge of Beauty opened its doors. p. 183
The gifted have told us for years that they want to be loved For what they are, that they, in whatever fullness is theirs, Are perishable in twilight, just like us. So they work all night In rooms that are cold and webbed with the moon's light; Sometimes, during the day, they lean on their cars, And stare into the blistering valley, glassy and golden, But mainly they sit, hunched in the dark, feet on the floor, Hands on the table, shirts with a bloodstain over the heart.
p.187 Imagine a poem that starts with a couple Looking into a valley, seeing their house, the lawn Out back with its wooden chairs, its shady patches of green, Its wooden fence, and beyond the fence the rippled silver sheen Of the local pond, its far side a tangle of sumac, crimson In the fading light. Now imagine somebody reading the poem And thinking, "I never guessed it would be like this," Then slipping it into the back of a book while the oblivious Couple, feeling nothing is lost, not even the white Streak of a flicker's tail that catches their eye, nor the slight Toss of leaves in the wind, shift their gaze to the wooded dome Of a nearby hill where the violet spread of dusk begins, But the reader, out for a stroll in the autumn night, with all The imprisoned sounds of nature dying around him, forgets Not only the poem, but where he is, and thinks instead Of a bleak Venetian mirror that hangs in a hall By a curving stair, and how the stars in the sky's black glass Sink down and the sea heaves them ashore like foam. So much is adrift in the ever-opening rooms of elsewhere, He cannot remember whose house it was, or when he was there. Now imagine he sits years later under a lamp And pulls a book from the shelf; the poem drops To his lap. The couple are crossing a field On their way home, still feeling that nothing is lost, That they will continue to live harm-free, sealed In the twilight's amber weather. But how will the reader know, Especially now that he puts the poem, without looking, Back in the book, the book where a poet stares at the sky And says to a blank page, "Where, where in Heaven am I?"
Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end, Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like When he's held by the sea's roar, motionless, there at the end, Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back. When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat, When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead. When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight, Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end. p.188
This long poem with forty-five-sections "recounts a spiritual quest while
paying homage to several guiding influences ... including Dante (whose
three-line stanzas he borrows), and William Wordsworth)."
- [Ferguson etal 2004]
In the night without end in the soaking dark I am wearing a white suit that shines Among the black leaves falling among The insect covered moons of the streetlamps I am walking among the emerald trees In the night without end I am crossing The street and disappearing around the corner I shine as I go through the park on my way To the station where the others are waiting Soon we shall travel through the soundless dark With fires guiding us over the bitter terrain Of the night without end I am wearing A suit that outdoes the moon that is pure sheen As I come to the station where the others Are whispering saying that the moon Is no more a hindrance than anything else That if anyone suffers wings can be had For a song or by trading arms that the rules On earth still hold for those about to depart That it is best to be ready for the ash Of the body is worthless and goes only so far
Oh you can make fun of the splendors of moonlight, But what would the human heart be if it wanted Only the dark, wanted nothing on earth But the sea's ink or the rock's black shade? On a summer night to launch yourself into the silver Emptiness of air and look over the pale fields At rest under the sullen stare of the moon, And to linger in the depths of your vision and wonder How in this whiteness what you love is past Grief, and how in the long valley of your looking Hope grows, and there, under the distant Barely perceptible fire of all the stars, To feel yourself wake into change, as if your change Were immense and figured into the heaven's longing And yet all you want is to rise out of the shade Of yourself into the cooling blaze of a summer night When the moon shines and the earth itself Is covered and silent in the stoniness of its sleep p.189
It is true, as someone has said, that in A world without heaven all is farewell. Whether you wave your hand or not, It is farewell, and if no tears come to your eyes It is still farewell, and if you pretend not to notice, Hating what passes, it is still farewell. Farewell no matter what. And the palms as they lean Over the green, bright lagoon, and the pelicans Diving, and the glistening bodies of bathers resting, Are stages in an ultimate stillness, and the movement Of sand, and of wind, and the secret moves of the body Are part of the same, a simplicity that turns being Into an occasion for mourning, or into an occasion Worth celebrating, for what else does one do, Feeling the weight of the pelicans' wings, The density of the palms' shadows, the cells that darken The backs of bathers? These are beyond the distortions Of chance, beyond the evasions of music. The end Is enacted again and again. And we feel it In the temptations of sleep, in the moon's ripening, In the wine as it waits in the glass. p.195 [* from Wallace Stevens, "Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu," In a world without heaven to follow, the stops Would be endings, more poignant than partings, profounder, And that would be saying farewell, repeating farewell, Just to be there and just to behold. ]
Is it you standing among the olive trees Beyond the courtyard? You in the sunlight Waving me closer with one hand while the other Shields your eyes from the brightness that turns All that is not you dead white? Is it you Around whom the leaves scatter like foam? You in the murmuring night that is scented With mint and lit by the distant wilderness Of stars? Is it you? Is it really you Rising from the script of waves, the length Of your body casting a sudden shadow over my hand So that I feel how cold it is as it moves Over the page? You leaning down and putting Your mouth against mine so I should know That a kiss is only the beginning Of what until now we could only imagine? Is it you or the long compassionate wind That whispers in my ear: alas, alas?
The folded memory of our great and singular elevations, The tragic slapping of vowels to produce tears, The heavy golden grieving in our dreams, Shaping the soul's solemn sounds on the edge of speech That carry the fullness of intention and the emptiness Of achievement are not quite the savage Knowledge of ourselves that refuses to correct itself But lumbers instead into formless affirmation, Saying selfhood is hating Dad or wanting Mom, Is being kissed by a reader somewhere, is about me And all my minutes circulating around me like flies-- Me at my foulest the song of me, me in the haunted Woods of my own condition, solitary but never alone. These are bad times. Idiots have stolen the moonlight. They cast their shadowy pomp wherever they wish.
I went to the middle of the room and called out,
"I know you’re here," then noticed him in the corner,
looking tiny in his jeweled crown and his cape
with ermine trim. "I have lost my desire to rule,"
he said. "My kingdom is empty except for you,
and all you do is ask for me." "But Your Majesty-"
"Don’t ‘Your Majesty’ me," he said, and tilted his head
to one side and closed his eyes. "There," he whispered,
"that's more like it", and he entered his dream
like a mouse vanishing into its hole.
p.247
I had been a polar explorer in my youth
and spent countless days and nights freezing
in one blank place and then another. Eventually,
I quit my travels and stayed at home,
and there grew within me a sudden excess of desire,
as if a brilliant stream of light of the sort one sees
within a diamond were passing through me.
I filled page after page with visions of what I had witnessed—
groaning seas of pack ice, giant glaciers, and the windswept white
of icebergs. Then, with nothing more to say, I stopped
and turned my sights on what was near. Almost at once,
a man wearing a dark coat and broad-brimmed hat
appeared under the trees in front of my house.
The way he stared straight ahead and stood,
not shifting his weight, letting his arms hang down
at his side, made me think that I knew him.
But when I raised my hand to say hello,
he took a step back, turned away, and started to fade
as longing fades until nothing is left of it.
p. 248
On the eve of my fortieth birthday
I sat on the porch having a smoke
when out of the blue a man and a camel
happened by. Neither uttered a sound
at first, but as they drifted up the street
and out of town the two of them began to sing.
Yet what they sang is still a mystery to me—
the words were indistinct and the tune
too ornamental to recall. Into the desert
they went and as they went their voices
rose as one above the sifting sound
of windblown sand. The wonder of their singing,
its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed
an ideal image for all uncommon couples.
Was this the night that I had waited for
so long? I wanted to believe it was,
but just as they were vanishing, the man
and camel ceased to sing, and galloped
back to town. They stood before my porch,
staring up at me with beady eyes, and said:
"You ruined it. You ruined it forever."
p.249
Sometimes there would be a fire and I would walk into it and come out unharmed and continue on my way, and for me it was just another thing to have done. As for putting out the fire, I left that to others who would rush into the billowing smoke with brooms and blankets to smother the flames. When they were through they would huddle together to talk of what they had seen -- how lucky they were to have witnessed the lusters of heat, the hushing effect of ashes, but even more to have known the fragrance of burning paper, the sound of words breathing their last. p.250
A white room and a party going on and I was standing with some friends under a large gilt-framed mirror that tilted slightly forward over the fireplace. We were drinking whiskey and some of us, feeling no pain, were trying to decide what precise shade of yellow the setting sun turned our drinks. I closed my eyes briefly, then looked up into the mirror: a woman in a green dress leaned against the far wall. She seemed distracted, the fingers of one hand fidgeted with her necklace, and she was staring into the mirror, not at me, but past me, into a space that might be filled by someone yet to arrive, who at that moment could be starting the journey which would lead eventually to her. Then, suddenly, my friends said it was time to move on. This was years ago, and though I have forgotten where we went and who we all were, I still recall that moment of looking up and seeing the woman stare past me into a place I could only imagine, and each time it is with a pang, as if just then I were stepping from the depths of the mirror into that white room, breathless and eager, only to discover too late that she is not there. p.258
Acknowledgments xi FROM Sleeping with One Eye Open Sleeping with One Eye Open 3 When the Vacation Is Over for Good 5 Violent Storm 6 Old People on the Nursing Home Porch 8 Keeping Things Whole 10 The Whole Story 11 The Tunnel 13 FROM Reasons for Moving The Mailman 17 The Accident 18 The Man in the Tree 21 The Man in the Mirror 23 {#mstg|The Ghost Ship] 28 Moontan 30 What to Think Of 32 The Marriage 34 Eating Poetry 36 The Dirty Hand 37 FROM Darker (1970) The New Poetry Handbook 43 The Remains 45 Giving Myself Up 46 The Room 47 Letter 48 Nostalgia 49 Tomorrow 50 The Dress 51 The Good Life 52 Black Maps 53 Coming to This 55 The Sleep 56 Breath 57 The Prediction 58 From a Litany 59 My Life 61 My Life by Somebody Else 63 Courtship 64 Not Dying 65 The Way It Is 66 FROM The Story of Our Lives Elegy for My Father 71 In Celebration 78 The Story of Our Lives 79 The Untelling 86 The Monument 97 FROM The Late Hour The Coming of Light 137 Another Place 138 Lines for Winter 139 My Son 140 For Jessica My Daughter 142 From The Long Sad Party 144 The Late Hour 145 The Story 146 For Her 147 So You Say 148 Poor North 149 Pot Roast 150 The House in French Village 152 The Garden 155 Snowfall 156 FROM Selected Poems (1980) Shooting Whales 159 Nights in Cove 162 A Morning 163 My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer 164 FROM The Continuous Life (1990) The Idea 169 Velocity Meadows 170 A M 171 Orpheus Alone 172 Fiction 174 Luminism 175 Life in the Valley 176 The Continuous Life 177 Always 178 Se la vita sventura 179 One Winter Night 181 The History of Poetry 182 The Continental College of Beauty 183 The Midnight Club 184 The Famous Scene 185 Itself Now 186 Reading in Place 187 The End 188 FROM Dark Harbor 1993 189 I VII VIII XIV XVI XX XXII XXIII XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXXI XXXV XXXVI XXXIX XL XLIII XLIV XLV FROM Blizzard of One 1998 The Beach Hotel 213 Old Man Leaves Party 214 I Will Love the Twenty first Century 215 The Next Time 216 The Night the Porch 219 Our Masterpiece Is the Private Life 220 Morning Noon and Night 222 A Piece of the Storm 224 A Suite of Appearances 225 Here 229 Two de Chiricos 230 Some Last Words 232 In Memory of Joseph Brodsky 234 What It Was 235 The Delirium Waltz 237 The View 243 FROM Man and Camel (2006) The King 247 I Had Been a Polar Explorer 248 Man and Camel 249 Fire 250 The Rose 251 Storm 252 Afterwords 253 Elevator 255 Black Sea 256 Mother and Son 257 Mirror 258 Moon 260 Marsyas 261 My Name 263 Poem After the Seven Last Words 264 --- review: Publishers Weekly 09/17/2007 Strand's 1980 Selected Poems has probably long had a home on most contemporary poetry readers' shelves. That book proclaimed Strand's status as a major poet writing in a sometimes surreal, humorous, oracular mode: "If a man gives up poetry for power/ he shall have lots of power." This new volume extends that book to encompass the intervening two and a half decades and four collections of poems. From youthful masterpieces like the famous "Keeping Things Whole" ("In a field/ I am the absence/ of field") through the haunting middle work of Darker ("The future is not what it used to be./ The graves are ready. The dead/ shall inherit the dead") up to the self-conscious vignettes of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Blizzard of One ("It was clear when I left the party/ That though I was over eighty I still had/ A beautiful body") and last year's Man and Camel ("The wonder of their singing,/ its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed/ an ideal image for all uncommon couples"), this important book offers the first panoramic view of the ongoing career of a poet who has mattered deeply to poets and readers alike. Strand's is one of the contemporary voices that will not fade.
Mark Strand was born to American parents in Prince Edward Island, Canada. His father was an executive with Pepsi-Cola and the family traveled widely. Strand went to Antioch College and then to Yale, where he studied painting with Josef Albers; he has continued to make prints, etchings, and collages, and to write about art and photography. He has edited several anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 1991. "A book of Strand's is like a long night train with a single passenger riding in it," Charles Simic observes. "He is bent over with a small flashlight reading from the book of his life. From time to time, he raises his head, straining to glimpse something of the landscape rushing by beyond the dark window, only to catch sight of his ghostly reflection in the glass. He whispers to himself, hoping that he is being overheard."