Map (34 page)

 

He raged at others often, loudly.

He snarled, barked,

raced from wall to wall.

I suspect he liked only me

and nobody else, ever.

 

I also had responsibilities: waiting, trusting.

Since he would turn up briefly and then vanish.

What kept him down there in the lowlands, I don't know.

I guessed, though, it must be pressing business,

at least as pressing

as my battle with the cats

and everything that moves for no good reason.

 

There's fate and fate. Mine changed abruptly.

One spring came

and he wasn't there.

All hell broke loose at home.

Suitcases, chests, trunks crammed into cars.

The wheels squealed tearing downhill

and fell silent round the bend.

 

On the terrace scraps and tatters flamed,

yellow shirts, armbands with black emblems,

and lots and lots of battered cartons

with little banners tumbling out.

 

I tossed and turned in this whirlwind,

more amazed than peeved.

I felt unfriendly glances on my fur.

As if I were a dog without a master,

some pushy stray

chased downstairs with a broom.

 

Someone tore my silver-trimmed collar off,

someone kicked my bowl, empty for days.

Then someone else, driving away,

leaned out from the car

and shot me twice.

 

He couldn't even shoot straight,

since I died for a long time, in pain,

to the buzz of impertinent flies.

I, the dog of my master.

 

 

Madame Atropos?

 

That's correct.

 

Of Necessity's three daughters,

you fare the worst in world opinion.

 

A gross exaggeration, my dear poet.

Clotho spins the thread of life,

but the thread is delicate

and easily cut.

Lachesis determines its length with her rod.

They are no angels.

 

Still, you, madame, hold the scissors.

 

And since I do, I put them to good use.

 

I see that even as we speak . . .

 

I'm a Type A, that's my nature.

 

You don't get bored or tired,

maybe drowsy working nights? Really, not in the slightest?

With no holidays, vacations, weekends,

no quick breaks for cigarettes?

 

We'd fall behind, I don't like that.

 

Such breathtaking industry.

But you're not given commendations,

orders, trophies, cups, awards?

Maybe just a framed diploma?

 

Like at the hairdresser's? No, thank you.

 

Who, if anyone, assists you?

 

A tidy little paradox—you mortals.

Assorted dictators, untold fanatics.

Not that they need me to nudge them.

They're eager to get down to work.

 

Wars must surely make you happy,

what with all the extra help you get.

 

Happy? I don't know the feeling.

I'm not the one who declares them,

I'm not the one who steers their course.

I will admit, though, that I'm grateful,

they do serve to keep me au courant.

 

You're not sorry for the threads cut short?

 

A little shorter, a lot shorter—

Only you perceive the difference.

 

And if someone stronger wanted to relieve you,

tried to make you take retirement?

 

I don't follow. Express yourself more clearly.

 

I'll try once more: do you have a Higher-Up?

 

. . . Next question please.

 

That's all I've got.

 

Well, goodbye then.

Or to put it more precisely . . .

 

I know, I know. Au revoir.

 

 

Just imagine what I dreamed.

Everything as if the way it is.

Ground beneath your feet, water, fire, air,

vertical, horizontal, triangle, circle,

left and right.

Reasonable weather, decent scenery,

a fair number of creatures endowed with speech.

But their speech is different than here on Earth.

 

Sentences are governed by the unconditional.

Names stick strictly to things.

Nothing to add, subtract, change, rearrange.

 

Time always by the clock.

Past and future know their place.

For remembrance a single vanished second,

for predictions a moment

that has already begun.

 

Words as needed. Not one more,

which means no poetry,

no philosophy, no religion.

Such follies don't come into play.

 

Nothing that can just be thought

or seen with eyes shut.

 

Search only for what's right at hand.

Ask only if there are answers.

 

They'd be amazed,

if they could be amazed,

that somewhere there are reasons for amazement.

 

The entry for “uneasy,” considered lewd,

wouldn't dare to appear in their dictionaries.

 

The world seems clear

even in deepest darkness.

Each is charged a suitable price.

No one asks for change at the cashier's.

 

Among feelings—satisfaction. And no parentheses.

Life with a full stop at its heel. And the hum of galaxies.

 

Admit that nothing worse

could happen to a poet.

And afterward nothing better

than waking up.

 

 

—and now a few steps

from wall to wall,

up those stairs

or down the others,

then slightly to the left,

if not the right,

from a wall within a wall

up to the seventh threshold,

from wherever to wherever

to the very intersection

where your hopes, errors, failures,

efforts, plans, and new hopes

cross paths

so as to part.

 

Road after road

without retreat.

Access only to those

you have before you,

and there, as if in consolation,

twist after twist,

gasp after gasp,

view after view.

You may choose

where to be or not to be,

to overpass or to pull over,

only not to overlook.

 

So this way or that,

if not the other,

by intuition, by premonition,

by common sense, by chance,

by hook or crook,

by crooked shortcuts.

Through whichever rows upon rows

of corridors and gates,

quick, since in the meantime

your time is running short,

from place to place,

to those many still left open,

where there's perplexity and darkness

but also gaps and rapture,

where there's happiness, though mishap

is just a step behind,

whereas elsewhere, hither thither,

here and there, wherever,

fortune in misfortune

like brackets in parentheses,

and yes to all of this,

then abruptly an abyss,

an abyss, but a little bridge,

a little bridge, but shaky,

shaky, but the only,

there's no other.

 

There must be an exit somewhere,

that's more than certain.

But you don't look for it,

it looks for you,

it's been stalking you

from the start,

and this labyrinth

is none other than

than your, for the duration,

your, until not your,

flight, flight—

 

 

I misbehaved in the cosmos yesterday.

I lived around the clock without questions,

without surprise.

 

I performed daily tasks

as if only that were required.

 

Inhale, exhale, right foot, left, obligations,

not a thought beyond

getting there and getting back.

 

The world might have been taken for bedlam,

but I took it just for daily use.

 

No—whats—no what-fors—

and why on earth it is—

and how come it needs so many moving parts.

 

I was like a nail stuck only halfway in the wall

or

(comparison I couldn't find).

 

One change happened after another

even in a twinkling's narrow span.