Map (29 page)

this merriment dangling from terror,

not even crying Save me Save me

since all of this takes place in silence.

 

I can even imagine

that they clap their wings

and tears run from their eyes

from laughter, if nothing else.

 

 

Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan.

I'm drowning in debts up to my ears.

I'll have to pay for myself

with my self,

give up my life for my life.

 

Here's how it's arranged:

The heart can be repossessed,

the liver, too,

and each single finger and toe.

 

Too late to tear up the terms,

my debts will be repaid,

and I'll be fleeced,

or, more precisely, flayed.

 

I move about the planet

in a crush of other debtors.

Some are saddled with the burden

of paying off their wings.

Others must, willy-nilly,

account for every leaf.

 

Every tissue in us lies

on the debit side.

Not a tentacle or tendril

is for keeps.

 

The inventory, infinitely detailed,

implies we'll be left

not just empty-handed

but handless, too.

 

I can't remember

where, when, and why

I let someone open

this account in my name.

 

We call the protest against this

the soul.

And it's the only item

not included on the list.

 

 

If we'd been allowed to choose,

we'd probably have gone on forever.

 

The bodies that were offered didn't fit,

and wore out horribly.

 

The ways of sating hunger

made us sick.

We were repelled

by blind heredity

and the tyranny of glands.

 

The world that was meant to embrace us

decayed without end

and the effects of causes raged over it.

 

Individual fates

were presented for our inspection:

appalled and grieved,

we rejected most of them.

 

Questions naturally arose, e.g.,

who needs the painful birth

of a dead child,

and what's in it for a sailor

who will never reach the shore.

 

We agreed to death,

but not to every kind.

Love attracted us,

of course, but only love

that keeps its word.

 

Both fickle standards

and the impermanence of artworks

kept us wary of the Muses' service.

 

Each of us wished to have a homeland

free of neighbors

and to live his entire life

in the intervals between wars.

 

No one wished to seize power

or to be subject to it.

No one wanted to fall victim

to his own or others' delusions.

No one volunteered

for crowd scenes and processions,

to say nothing of dying tribes—

although without all these

history couldn't run its charted course

through centuries to come.

 

Meanwhile, a fair number

of stars lit earlier

had died out and grown cold.

It was high time for a decision.

 

Voicing numerous reservations,

candidates finally emerged

for a number of roles as healers and explorers,

a few obscure philosophers,

one or two nameless gardeners,

artists and virtuosos—

though even these livings

couldn't all be filled

for lack of other kinds of applications.

 

It was time to think

the whole thing over.

 

We'd been offered a trip

from which we'd surely be returning soon,

wouldn't we.

 

A trip outside eternity—

monotonous, no matter what they say,

and foreign to time's flow.

The chance may never come our way again.

 

We were besieged by doubts.

Does knowing everything beforehand

really mean knowing everything.

 

Is a decision made in advance

really any kind of choice.

Wouldn't we be better off

dropping the subject

and making our minds up

once we get there.

 

We looked at the earth.

Some daredevils were already living there.

 

A feeble weed

clung to a rock,

trusting blindly

that the wind wouldn't tear it off.

 

A small animal

dug itself from its burrow

with an energy and hope

that puzzled us.

 

We struck ourselves as prudent,

petty, and ridiculous.

 

In any case, our ranks began to dwindle.

The most impatient of us disappeared.

They'd left for the first trial by fire,

this much was clear,

especially by the glare of the real fire

they'd just begun to light

on the steep bank of an actual river.

 

A few of them

have actually turned back.

But not in our direction.

And with something they seemed to have won in their hands.

 

 

We're extremely fortunate

not to know precisely

the kind of world we live in.

 

One would have

to live a long, long time,

unquestionably longer

than the world itself.

 

Get to know other worlds,

if only for comparison.

 

Rise above the flesh,

which only really knows

how to obstruct

and make trouble.

 

For the sake of research,

the big picture

and definitive conclusions,

one would have to transcend time,

in which everything scurries and whirls.

 

From that perspective,

one might as well bid farewell

to incidents and details.

 

The counting of weekdays

would inevitably seem to be

a senseless activity;

 

dropping letters in the mailbox

a whim of foolish youth;

 

the sign “No Walking on the Grass”

a symptom of lunacy.

 

 

 

 

MOMENT

 

2002

 

 

I walk on the slope of a hill gone green.

Grass, little flowers in the grass,

as in a children's illustration.

The misty sky's already turning blue.

A view of other hills unfolds in silence.

 

As if there'd never been any Cambrians, Silurians,

rocks snarling at crags,

upturned abysses,

no nights in flames

and days in clouds of darkness.

 

As if plains hadn't pushed their way here

in malignant fevers,

icy shivers.

 

As if seas had seethed only elsewhere,

shredding the shores of the horizons.

 

It's nine thirty local time.

Everything's in its place and in polite agreement.

In the valley a little brook cast as a little brook.

A path in the role of a path from always to ever.

Woods disguised as woods alive without end,

and above them birds in flight play birds in flight.

 

This moment reigns as far as the eye can reach.

One of those earthly moments

invited to linger.

 

 

I am who I am.

A coincidence no less unthinkable

than any other.

 

I could have had different

ancestors, after all.

I could have fluttered

from another nest

or crawled bescaled

from under another tree.

 

Nature's wardrobe

holds a fair supply of costumes:

spider, seagull, field mouse.

Each fits perfectly right off

and is dutifully worn

into shreds.

 

I didn't get a choice either,

but I can't complain.

I could have been someone

much less separate.

Someone from an anthill, shoal, or buzzing swarm,

an inch of landscape tousled by the wind.

 

Someone much less fortunate

bred for my fur

or Christmas dinner,

something swimming under a square of glass.

 

A tree rooted to the ground