A Wave (9 page)

Received opinions redirects the maze, setting up significant

Erections of its own at chosen corners, like gibbets,

And through this the mesmerizing plan of the landscape becomes,

At last, apparent. It is no more a landscape than a golf course is,

Though sensibly a few natural bonuses have been left in. And as it

Focuses itself, it is the backward part of a life that is

Partially coming into view. It’s there, like a limb. And the issue

Of making sense becomes such a far-off one. Isn’t this “sense”—

This little of my life that I can see—that answers me

Like a dog, and wags its tail, though excitement and fidelity are

About all that ever gets expressed? What did I ever do

To want to wander over into something else, an explanation

Of how I behaved, for instance, when knowing can have this

Sublime rind of excitement, like the shore of a lake in the desert

Blazing with the sunset? So that if it pleases all my constructions

To collapse, I shall at least have had that satisfaction, and known

That it need not be permanent in order to stay alive,

Beaming, confounding with the spell of its good manners.

As with rocks at low tide, a mixed surface is revealed,

More detritus. Still, it is better this way

Than to have to live through a sequence of events acknowledged

In advance in order to get to a primitive statement. And the mind

Is the beach on which the rocks pop up, just a neutral

Support for them in their indignity. They explain

The trials of our age, cleansing it of toxic

Side-effects as it passes through their system.

Reality. Explained. And for seconds

We live in the same body, are a sibling again.

I think all games and disciplines are contained here,

Painting, as they go, dots and asterisks that

We force into meanings that don’t concern us

And so leave us behind. But there are no fractions, the world is an integer

Like us, and like us it can neither stand wholly apart nor disappear.

When one is young it seems like a very strange and safe place,

But now that I have changed it feels merely odd, cold

And full of interest. The sofa that was once a seat

Puzzles no longer, while the sweet conversation that occurs

At regular intervals throughout the years is like a collie

One never outgrows. And it happens to you

In this room, it is here, and we can never

Eat of the experience. It drags us down. Much later on

You thought you perceived a purpose in the game at the moment

Another player broke one of the rules; it seemed

A module for the wind, something in which you lose yourself

And are not lost, and then it pleases you to play another day

When outside conditions have changed and only the game

Is fast, perplexed and true, as it comes to have seemed.

Yet one does know why. The covenant we entered

Bears down on us, some are ensnared, and the right way,

It turns out, is the one that goes straight through the house

And out the back. By so many systems

As we are involved in, by just so many

Are we set free on an ocean of language that comes to be

Part of us, as though we would ever get away.

The sky is bright and very wide, and the waves talk to us,

Preparing dreams we’ll have to live with and use. The day will come

When we’ll have to. But for now

They’re useless, more trees in a landscape of trees.

I hadn’t expected a glance to be that direct, coming from a sculpture

Of moments, thoughts added on. And I had kept it

Only as a reminder, not out of love. In time I moved on

To become its other side, and then, gentle, anxious, I became as a parent

To those scenes lifted from “real life.” There was the quiet time

In the supermarket, and the pieces

Of other people’s lives as they sashayed or tramped past

My own section of a corridor, not pausing

In many cases to wonder where they were—maybe they even knew.

True, those things or moments of which one

Finds oneself an enthusiast, a promoter, are few,

But they last well,

Yielding up their appearances for form

Much later than the others. Forgetting about “love”

For a moment puts one miles ahead, on the steppe or desert

Whose precise distance as it feels I

Want to emphasize and estimate. Because

We will all have to walk back this way

A second time, and not to know it then, not

To number each straggling piece of sagebrush

Is to sleep before evening, and well into the night

That always coaxes us out, smooths out our troubles and puts us back to bed again.

All those days had a dumb clarity that was about getting out

Into a remembered environment. The headlines and economy

Would refresh for a moment as you look back over the heap

Of rusted box-springs with water under them, and then,

Like sliding up to a door or a peephole a tremendous advantage

Would burst like a bubble. Toys as solemn and knotted as books

Assert themselves first, leading down through a delicate landscape

Of reminders to be better next time to a damp place on my hip,

And this would spell out a warm business letter urging us

All to return to our senses, to the matter of the day

That was ending now. And no special sense of decline ensued

But perhaps a few moments of music of such tact and weariness

That one awakens with a new sense of purpose: more things to be done

And the just-sufficient tools to begin doing them

While awaiting further orders that must materialize soon

Whether in the sand-pit with frightened chickens running around

Or on a large table in a house deep in the country with messages

Pinned to the walls and a sense of plainness quite unlike

Any other waiting. I am prepared to deal with this

While putting together notes related to the question of love

For the many, for two people at once, and for myself

In a time of need unlike those that have arisen so far.

And some day perhaps the discussion that has to come

In order for us to start feeling any of it before we even

Start to think about it will arrive in a new weather

Nobody can imagine but which will happen just as the ages

Have happened without causing total consternation,

Will take place in a night, long before sleep and the love

That comes then, breathing mystery back into all the sterile

Living that had to lead up to it. Moments as clear as water

Splashing on a rock in the sun, though in darkness, and then

Sleep has to affirm it and the body is fresh again,

For the trials and dangerous situations that any love,

However well-meaning, has to use as terms in the argument

That is the reflexive play of our living and being lost

And then changed again, a harmless fantasy that must grow

Progressively serious, and soon state its case succinctly

And dangerously, and we sit down to the table again

Noting the grain of the wood this time and how it pushes through

The pad we are writing on and becomes part of what is written.

Not until it starts to stink does the inevitable happen.

Moving on we approached the top

Of the thing, only it was dark and no one could see,

Only somebody said it was a miracle we had gotten past the

Previous phase, now faced with each other’s conflicting

Wishes and the hope for a certain peace, so this would be

Our box and we would stay in it for as long

As we found it comfortable, for the broken desires

Inside were as nothing to the steeply shelving terrain outside,

And morning would arrange everything. So my first impulse

Came, stayed awhile, and left, leaving behind

Nothing of itself, no whisper. The days now move

From left to right and back across this stage and no one

Notices anything unusual. Meanwhile I have turned back

Into that dream of rubble that was the city of our starting out.

No one advises me; the great tenuous clouds of the desert

Sky visit it and they barely touch, so pleasing in the

Immense solitude are the tracks of those who wander and continue

On their route, certain that day will end soon and that night will then fall.

But behind what looks like heaps of slag the peril

Consists in explaining everything too evenly. Those

Suffering from the blahs are unlikely to notice that the topic

Of today’s lecture doesn’t exist yet, and in their trauma

Will become one with the vast praying audience as it sways and bends

To the rhythm of an almost inaudible piccolo. And when

It is flushed out, the object of all this meditation will not

Infrequently turn out to be a mere footnote to the great chain

That manages only with difficulty to connect earth and sky together.

Are comments like ours really needed? Of course, heaven is nice

About it, not saying anything, but we, when we come away

As children leaving school at four in the afternoon, can we

Hold our heads up and face the night’s homework? No, the

Divine tolerance we seem to feel is actually in short supply,

And those moving forward toward us from the other end of the bridge

Are defending, not welcoming us to, the place of power,

A hill ringed with low, ridgelike fortifications. But when

Somebody better prepared crosses over, he or she will get the same

Cold reception. And so because it is impossible to believe

That anyone lives there, it is we who shall be homeless, outdoors

At the end. And we won’t quite know what to do about it.

It’s mind-boggling, actually. Each of us must try to concentrate

On some detail or other of their armor: somber, blood-red plumes

Floating over curved blue steel; the ribbed velvet stomacher

And its more social implications. Hurry to deal with the sting

Of added meaning, hurry to fend it off. Your lessons

Will become the ground of which we are made

And shall look back on, for awhile. Life was pleasant there.

And though we made it all up, it could still happen to us again.

Only then, watch out. The burden of proof of the implausible

Picaresque tale, boxes within boxes, will be yours

Next time round. And nobody is going to like your ending.

We had, though, a feeling of security

But we weren’t aware of it then: that’s

How secure we were. Now, in the dungeon of Better Living,

It seems we may be called back and interrogated about it

Which would be unfortunate, since only the absence of memory

Animates us as we walk briskly back and forth

At one with the soulless, restless crowd on the somber avenue.

Is there something new to see, to speculate on? Dunno, better

Stand back until something comes along to explain it,

This curious lack of anxiety that begins to gnaw

At one. Did it come because happiness hardened everything

In its fire, and so the forms cannot die, like a ruined

Fort too strong to be pulled down? And something like pale

Alpine flowers still flourishes there:

Some reminder that can never be anything more than that,

Yet its balm cares about something, we cannot be really naked

Having this explanation. So a reflected image of oneself

Manages to stay alive through the darkest times, a period

Of unprecedented frost, during which we get up each morning

And go about our business as usual.

And though there are some who leave regularly

For the patchwork landscape of childhood, north of here,

Our own kind of stiff standing around, waiting helplessly

And mechanically for instructions that never come, suits the space

Of our intense, uncommunicated speculation, marries

The still life of crushed, red fruit in the sky and tames it

For observation purposes. One is almost content

To be with people then, to read their names and summon

Greetings and speculation, or even nonsense syllables and

Diagrams from those who appear so brilliantly at ease

In the atmosphere we made by getting rid of most amenities

In the interests of a bare, strictly patterned life that apparently

Has charms we weren’t even conscious of, which is

All to the good, except that it fumbles the premise

We put by, saving it for a later phase of intelligence, and now

We are living on it, ready to grow and make mistakes again,

Still standing on one leg while emerging continually

Into an inexpressive void, the blighted fields

Of a kiss, the rope of a random, unfortunate

Observation still around our necks though we thought we

Had cast it off in a novel that has somehow gotten stuck

To our lives, battening on us. A sad condition

To see us in, yet anybody

Will realize that he or she has made those same mistakes,

Memorized those same lists in the due course of the process

Being served on you now. Acres of bushes, treetops;

Orchards where the quince and apple seem to come and go

Mysteriously over long periods of time; waterfalls

And what they conceal, including what comes after—roads and roadways

Paved for the gently probing, transient automobile;

Farragoes of flowers; everything, in short,

That makes this explicit earth what it appears to be in our

Glassiest moments when a canoe shoots out from under some foliage