Map (4 page)

watch the lake

blinking in the wind.

 

A moment of silence for the dead

can take all night.

 

I've borne witness

to the flight of clouds and birds,

I hear grass growing

and know what to call it,

I've read millions

of printed marks,

I've trained a telescope

along strange stars,

but no one so far

has called for my help,

and what if I regret

a leaf, a dress, a rhyme—

 

We know ourselves only

as far as we've been tested.

I tell you this

from my unknown heart.

 

 

I wield imagination's oldest right

and summon up the dead for the first time,

I watch for their faces, anticipate their steps,

though I know that dead is dead and gone.

 

It's time to take my head in hand

and say: Poor Yorick, where's your ignorance,

where's your blind faith, where's your innocence,

your wait-and-see, your spirit poised

between the unproved and the proven truth?

 

I believed in their betrayal, they didn't merit names,

since weeds sway on their unknown graves

and the crows mock them, and the snowflakes scoff

—but Yorick, all this bore false witness.

 

Tickets to the afterlife are paid

by our collective memory.

Uncertain coinage. Every day

some dead man's banished from eternity.

 

I see eternity more clearly now:

how we give it, how we strip it from

the so-called traitor—how

his name dies alongside of him.

 

We must give the dead due weight,

our power over them is what we make it:

this court cannot convene at night,

the judge presiding can't be naked.

 

The earth surges—those once turned to earth

rise up, clod by clod, a fistful at a time;

they leave silence behind, return to names,

to the nation's memory, to wreaths and cheers.

 

Where is my power over words?

Words fallen to a tear's depths,

words words not meant to conquer death,

dead record, like a photo with its magnesium flash.

I can't even restore them to half-breath,

a Sisyphus assigned to the hell of poetry.

 

They come to us. Sharp as diamonds,

they pass along shop windows lit in front,

along the windowpanes of cozy houses,

along rose-colored glasses, along the glass

of hearts and brains, quietly cutting.

 

 

Well versed in the expanses

that stretch from earth to stars,

we get lost in the space

from earth up to our skull.

 

Intergalactic reaches

divide sorrow from tears.

En route from false to true

you wither and grow dull.

 

We are amused by jets,

those crevices of silence

wedged between flight and sound:

“World record!” the world cheers.

 

But we've seen faster takeoffs:

their long-belated echo

still wrenches us from sleep

after so many years.

 

Outside, a storm of voices:

“We're innocent,” they cry.

We rush to open windows,

lean out to catch their call.

 

But then the voices break off.

We watch the falling stars

just as after a salvo

plaster drops from the wall.

 

 

His skull, dug up from clay,

rests in a marble tomb;

sleep tight, medals, on pillows:

now it's got lots of room,

that skull dug up from clay.

 

They read off index cards:

a) he has been/will be missed,

b) go on, band, play the march,

c) too bad he can't see this.

They read off index cards.

 

Nation, be thankful now

for blessings you possess:

a being born just once

has two graves nonetheless.

Nation, be thankful now.

 

Parades were plentiful:

a thousand slide trombones,

police for crowd control,

bell-ringing for the bones.

Parades were plentiful.

 

Their eyes flicked heavenward

for omens from above:

a ray of light perhaps

or a bomb-carrying dove.

Their eyes flicked heavenward.

 

Between them and the people,

according to the plan,

the trees alone would sing

their silence on command.

Between them and the people.

 

Instead, bridges are drawn

above a gorge of stone,

its bed's been smoothed for tanks,

echoes await a moan.

Instead, bridges are drawn.

 

Still full of blood and hopes

the people turn away,

not knowing that bell ropes,

like human hair, turn gray.

 

Still full of blood and hopes.

* * *

 

 

 

I hear trumpets play the tune

to a history of woe.

For I lived once in the town

that is known as Jericho.

 

The walls, they all go tumbling,

tra ta ta, sounds the fanfare,

and I stand stripped to nothing

but a uniform of air.

 

So blow, you trumpets, blow true,

quickly, strike up the whole band.

My skin will fall away too,

only whitened bones will stand.

 

 

This is what I see in my dreams about final exams:

two monkeys, chained to the floor, sit on the windowsill,

the sky behind them flutters,

the sea is taking its bath.

 

The exam is History of Mankind.

I stammer and hedge.

 

One monkey stares and listens with mocking disdain,

the other seems to be dreaming away—

but when it's clear I don't know what to say

he prompts me with a gentle

clinking of his chain.

 

 

Across the country's plains

sealed boxcars are carrying names:

how long will they travel, how far,

will they ever leave the boxcar—

don't ask, I can't say, I don't know.

 

The name Nathan beats the wall with his fist,

the name Isaac sings a mad hymn,

the name Aaron is dying of thirst,

the name Sarah begs water for him.

 

Don't jump from the boxcar, name David.

In these lands you're a name to avoid,

you're bound for defeat, you're a sign

pointing out those who must be destroyed.

 

At least give your son a Slavic name:

he'll need it. Here people count hairs

and examine the shape of your eyelids

to tell right from wrong, “ours” from “theirs.”

 

Don't jump yet. Your son's name will be Lech.

Don't jump yet. The time's still not right.

Don't jump yet. The clattering wheels

are mocked by the echoes of night.

 

Clouds of people passed over this plain.

Vast clouds, but they held little rain—

just one tear, that's a fact, just one tear.

A dark forest. The tracks disappear.

 

That's-a-fact. The rail and the wheels.

That's-a-fact. A forest, no fields.

That's-a-fact. And their silence once more,

that's-a-fact, drums on my silent door.

 

 

Faster than sound today,

faster than light tomorrow,

we'll turn sound into the Tortoise

and light into the Hare.

 

Two venerable creatures

from the ancient parable,

a noble team, since ages past

competing fair and square.

 

You ran so many times

across this lowly earth;

now try another course,

across the lofty blue.

 

The track's all yours. We won't

get in your way: by then

we will have set off chasing

ourselves rather than you.

 

 

Returning memories?

No, at the time of death

I'd like to see lost objects

return instead.

 

Avalanches of gloves,

coats, suitcases, umbrellas—

come, and I'll say at last:

What good's all this?

 

Safety pins, two odd combs,

a paper rose, a knife,

some string—come, and I'll say

at last: I haven't missed you.

 

Please turn up, key, come out,