The Old Mule

Here is one of my favorite poems by a favorite poet. I looked all around the house for this book, finally found it next to my bed.

This has been a long seeming half-week, life filled with abrupt change.  In my determination to make sense of things I seem to have tied my mind in knots. A familiar bind. I need to rest, rest. But there is much to do, and I realize the moment is now. Life will stall, then push forth. There is no time to miss the movement. But still a bit to remember how it came to be.

December at Yase - by Gary Snyder

 

You said, that October,

In the tall dry grass by the orchard

When you chose to be free,

"Again someday, maybe ten years."

 

After college I saw you

One time. You were strange.

And I was obsessed with a plan.

 

Now ten years and more have

Gone by: I've always known

where you were--

I might have gone to you

Hoping to win your love back.

You still are single.

 

I didn't.

I thought I must make it alone. I

Have done that.

 

Only in dream, like this dawn,

Does the grave, awed intensity

Of our young love

Return to my mind, to my flesh.

 

We had what the others

All crave and seek for;

We left it behind at nineteen.

 

I feel ancient, as though I had

Lived many lives.

And may never now know

If I am a fool

Or have done what my

karma demands.

I has been a damn long day and I have a lot to say but not the energy to get it going. With a dreary afternoon and the thud of the unexpected, the tolls of the a thing ending can be worse than any pain -- a footprint of the past like an emblem gone, but still held tight. Embedded. I am glad to be free, glad to get up with my own feet and make a new path, a new way out the door. Glad, at least. But I am hurt and will not soon forget how it came to pass. So quick things change. I should have known I would be let down.  

I enjoyed this poem a week ago. It now makes sense.

--

And Here You Are

by Michael Blumenthal

It's such a relief to see the woman you love walk out the door
some nights, for it's ten o'clock and you need your eight hours
of sleep, and one glass of wine has been more than enough

and, as for lust—well, you can live without it most days and you
are glad, too, that the Ukrainian masseuse you see every Wednesday
is not in love with you, and has no plans to be, for it's the pain

in your back you need relief from most, not that ambiguous itch,
and the wild successes of your peers no longer bother you
nor do your unresolved religious cravings nor the general injustice

of the world, no, there is very little that bothers you these days when
you turn, first, to the obituaries, second to the stock market, then,
after a long pause, to the book review, you are becoming a good citizen,

you do your morning exercises, count your accumulated blessings,
thank the Lord there's a trolley just outside your door your girlfriend
can take back home to her own bed and here you are it is morning you

are alone every little heartbeat is yours to cherish the future is on fire
with nothing but its own kindling and whatever it is that's burning
in its flames isn't you and now you will take a shower and this is it.

I was flipping through the New Yorker and I found this great poem. I usually don't get too excited over the poetry in the magazine -- sometimes they lay flat, sonorous society-like, or un-easy to understand. I like a greasy garage, a fishing hole, a woman with a strong heart and a tremble for something new. An island with snow. Iceland, right? Or Montana. Who wouldn't agree that the Wind River is all by itself, set out like palm trees and sand, only bottom river prairie lands and tepees of snow and rock instead.

The mind catches what it wants, what means something to it, and lets the others go. That is my only explanation for all that I have forgotten, and the vivid green wood boat, the rusted moped, tray of boiled crustaceans, North Inlet, all the peculiar events that I recall, ones that do not lead to keen business knowledge, numbers or arithmetic; rather, memories that make a life. So, I wonder, is life worth living if you recall none of it? Is the moment enough? Would you attend a concert if you knew you would never recall the event, just for the pleasure of listening.

I remember looking out of the window of a holiday inn and seeing and old couple drive off towards Estes, Colordao, very slow like old people drive. They had breakfast in a bag and coffees. Windows up. Cold fall morning. Who will transcribe their memories -- the perfect time of an early sun up through mountains. What is the feeling of a life lived in knowledge that one day all memories will be forgotten. What is the feeling of a faith that someone will remember. I would rather take a walk through the woods. I am tired of wondering.

I spent the weekend fishing in the creek for bream, walking with the dog along a tupelo cypress swamp and scaring up wild turkey, bobcat and deer. It is good to be alive in the Fall of 2009.

--

THE HOUSE by Richard Wilbur

Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes

For a last look at that white house she knew

In sleep alone, and held no title to,

And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.

 

What did she tell me of that house of hers?

White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;

A widow’s walk above the bouldered shore;

Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.

 

Is she now there, wherever there may be?

Only a foolish man would hope to find

That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.

Night after night, my love, I put to sea.

 
 

a Tuesday poem

Fifteen by William Stafford

South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one summer
day a motorcycle with engine running
as it lay on its side, ticking over
slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen.

I admired all that pulsing gleam, the
shiny flanks, the demure headlights
fringed where it lay; I led it gently
to the road and stood with that
companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen.

We could find the end of a road, meet
the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about
hills, and patting the handle got back a
confident opinion. On the bridge we indulged
a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen.

Thinking, back farther in the grass I found
the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped
over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale—
I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand
over it, called me good man, roared away.

I stood there, fifteen.