Map (21 page)

after the labors of Book Five.

The moralists

with the golden syllables of their names

inscribed on finely tanned spines.

Next to them, the politicians braced their backs.

 

No way out? But what about the door?

No prospects? The window had other views.

His glasses

lay on the windowsill.

And one fly buzzed—that is, was still alive.

 

You think at least the note must tell us something.

But what if I say there was no note—

and he had so many friends, but all of us fit neatly

inside the empty envelope propped up against a cup.

 

 

In heavenly May, under an apple tree, lovely

and bursting with blossoms like peals of laughter,

 

under something unruffled by both good and evil,

under something that rustles its branches regardless,

 

under no one's, no matter what anyone calls it,

under something that bears just a foretaste of fruit,

 

under something not caring which year and what country,

what kind of planet and where it is rolling,

 

under something so distant, so different from me,

that it neither heartens nor horrifies me,

 

under something untroubled by whatever happens,

under something whose every leaf trembles with patience,

 

under something as puzzling as if I had dreamed it,

or had dreamed not it but everything else,

all too completely and conceitedly—

 

to linger longer, not to go home again.

Since only prisoners want to go home.

 

 

The buzzard never says it is to blame.

The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.

When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.

If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean.

 

A jackal doesn't understand remorse.

Lions and lice don't waver in their course.

Why should they, when they know they're right?

 

Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,

in every other way they're light.

 

On this third planet of the sun

among the signs of bestiality

a clear conscience is number one.

 

 

Life While-You-Wait.

Performance without rehearsal.

Body without alterations.

Head without premeditation.

 

I know nothing of the role I play.

I only know it's mine, I can't exchange it.

 

I have to guess on the spot

just what this play's all about.

 

Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,

I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.

I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.

I trip at every step over my own ignorance.

I can't conceal my hayseed manners.

My instincts are for hammy histrionics.

Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.

Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.

 

Words and impulses you can't take back,

stars you'll never get counted,

your character like a raincoat you button on the run—

the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.

 

If I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,

or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!

But here comes Friday with a script I haven't seen.

Is it fair, I ask

(my voice a little hoarse,

since I couldn't even clear my throat offstage).

 

You'd be wrong to think that it's just a slapdash quiz

taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.

I'm standing on the set and I see how strong it is.

The props are surprisingly precise.

The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.

The farthest galaxies have been turned on.

Oh no, there's no question, this must be the premiere.

And whatever I do

will become forever what I've done.

 

 

Dear individual soul, this is the Styx.

The Styx, that's right. Why are you so perplexed?

As soon as Charon reads the prepared text

over the speakers, let the nymphs affix

your name badge and transport you to the banks.

(The nymphs? They fled your woods and joined the ranks

of personnel here.) Floodlights will reveal

piers built of reinforced concrete and steel,

and hovercrafts whose beelike buzz resounds

where Charon used to ply his wooden oar.

Mankind has multiplied, has burst its bounds:

nothing, sweet soul, is as it was before.

Skyscrapers, solid waste, and dirty air:

the scenery's been harmed beyond repair.

Safe and efficient transportation (millions

of souls served here, all races, creeds, and sexes)

requires urban planning: hence pavilions,

warehouses, dry docks, and office complexes.

Among the gods it's Hermes, my dear soul,

who makes all prophecies and estimations

when revolutions and wars take their toll—

our boats, of course, require reservations.

A one-way trip across the Styx is free:

the meters saying “No Canadian dimes,

no tokens” are left standing, as you see,

but only to remind us of old times.

From Section Tau Four of the Alpha Pier

you're boarding hovercraft Sigma Sixteen—

it's packed with sweating souls, but in the rear

you'll find a seat (I've got it on my screen).

Now Tartarus (let me pull up the file)

is overbooked, too—no way we could stretch it.

Cramped, crumpled souls all dying to get out,

one last half drop of Lethe in my phial . . .

Not faith in the beyond, but only doubt

can make you, sorry soul, a bit less wretched.

 

 

Island where all becomes clear.

 

Solid ground beneath your feet.

 

The only roads are those that offer access.

 

Bushes bend beneath the weight of proofs.

 

The Tree of Valid Supposition grows here

with branches disentangled since time immemorial.

 

The Tree of Understanding, dazzlingly straight and simple,

sprouts by the spring called Now I Get It.

 

The thicker the woods, the vaster the vista:

the Valley of Obviously.

 

If any doubts arise, the wind dispels them instantly.

 

Echoes stir unsummoned

and eagerly explain all the secrets of the worlds.

 

On the right a cave where Meaning lies.

 

On the left the Lake of Deep Conviction.

Truth breaks from the bottom and bobs to the surface.

 

Unshakable Confidence towers over the valley.

Its peak offers an excellent view of the Essence of Things.

 

For all its charms, the island is uninhabited,

and the faint footprints scattered on its beaches

turn without exception to the sea.

 

As if all you can do here is leave

and plunge, never to return, into the depths.

 

Into unfathomable life.

 

 

The admirable number pi:

three point one four one

All the following digits are also initial,

five nine two
because it never ends.

It can't be comprehended
six five three five
at a glance,

eight nine
by calculation,

seven nine
or imagination,

not even
three two three eight
by wit, that is, by comparison

four six
to anything else

two six four three
in the world.

The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet.

Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.

The pageant of digits comprising the number pi

doesn't stop at the page's edge.

It goes on across the table, through the air,

over a wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, clouds, straight into the sky,

through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.

Oh how brief—a mouse tail, a pigtail—is the tail of a comet!

How feeble the star's ray, bent by bumping up against space!

While here we have
two three fifteen three hundred nineteen

my phone number your shirt size the year

nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor

the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents

hip measurement two fingers
a charade, a code,

in which we find
hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert

alongside
ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,

as well as
heaven and earth shall pass away,

but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing,

it keeps right on with its rather remarkable
five,

its uncommonly fine
eight,

its far from final
seven,

nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity

to continue.

 

 

 

 

THE PEOPLE ON THE BRIDGE

 

1986

 

 

Poets and writers.

So the saying goes.

That is poets aren't writers, but who—