Flow Chart: A Poem (16 page)

in its own bile for a few decades. By then

it should become apparent to whoever has been watching how much the land owes us,

and how we re-distribute it wisely, if only we ever stop to think about it. Don’t

you agree? I mean, don’t you see the silhouetted foothills too? How bland and discordant,

yet after all how deeply satisfying in one’s rage—and then too the pods fall off

all at once eventually, and must rot

if the seeds are to get into the ground, providing they are still alive and haven’t rotted too.

So in all ways I think it’s a question of a man coming—he had

a chicken or something on his arm. And when he arrived, the expected salutation

rang out like a shot; people took cover. I don’t mean

I
did, though. I stood up to him, just like a man, the man I was, or is, and he, he just

looked back at me, kind of funny and defiant-like, but he wuz saying nothing.

Too smart for that.

Since the last heist I sense a quintessential weariness; I can

neither lay my barrel down nor look directly into it; I think I’ll have a go at the food—

h’mm, squirrel ragout again. No, I’ll opt, I’ll ope my eyelids for this next one

coming, without food. It was the cutest darn haunted house you ever saw. It had blue

shutters with squirrel cutouts in them. Inside everything was clean and neat.

But haunted houses are like whores—there’s no such thing as a nice one, no matter

how prim they act, or how the spotted sun greets them as the warm morning is painted.

And then such a one, some other one, would want to know why in the name of thunder

these repairs were necessary. After all, the place looked all right. Even the bailiff

who lived next door said so. In the event of a storm or flood, the door

could be shut, and there was an end to it. But it never occurs to anyone that when the

light of the sun does reach the deep pools which are almost always bathed in shadow,

why then a short plop is heard and two people are unable to occupy the same space.

It sounds simple enough in my book. Someone on lead feet looked out

the upstairs window, astonished at the loud knocking below, and then withdrew.

Whether or not this person was actually coming downstairs to answer the door was unclear,

at least at first, as minutes and then hours seemed literally to go by. At

midnight the door slowly opened a crack: “Who’s there?” Who wants to know?

It would be better if you returned to whatever kingdom you came from. But if you sincerely

want to know, bring me boiling water in a paper hat at three minutes before two, and that

without spilling a drop. Then I may let you in on my age-old secret, which, of course,

isn’t mine. I’m only one of a group of seven or eight people who are in on it,

until then.

I could hear the hissing of soda water in the seltzer bottle and the roar

of the wind in the trees, the cat scratching at the back door, the mice rotating

in place like dust mice, the jangle

of keys the size of fenceposts and the thunk of cylinders as the lock—what was

all the fuss about?—goes through the motions and the clipclopping door falls silent

again. Inside the place reeked of mildew and decay though it looked pretty tidy

considering no one had set foot there for twenty years. A newspaper, still dangling

precariously from the rim of the mail slot, hadn’t aged. There was a coffeepot, still warm,

on the stove.

Presently they began the rudimentary preparations for the raindance

everyone knew was to follow in order for the séance to take place. I’ll

double you. That’s what you think. You can have the two-spot, but please,

leave me the domino with my head scratched into it. Thus the bidding opened,

and it was to be years before it died down again, years that were not unpleasant

on the whole, as many owls stared in amazement at what was happening underneath.

What kind of place is this, anyway, to let such things occur in silence?

Surely there must come a time toward the end when an old man gets up

and says what needs to be said? But a rose, or, more precisely, a cactus, could do that

just as well and still leave time for whatever else wanted to get recognized.

There is no truth, saith the judge, and one is obliged to concur,

if by truth one means that an occasion has been fitted to an event, and it all came

about just so. If, however, one accepts a broader definition along the lines of

something being more or less appropriate to its time and place, then, by gosh, one is

pretty darn sure of having to own up to the fact that, yes, it does exist

here and there, if only in the gaudy hues of the diaphanous wings

of some passing insect. That is enough, however, to send the scribes back to their tablets.

I don’t know where this one came in—but wait,

it is of myself I speak, and I do know! But the looks I got convinced me I was someone

else as I walked in, not at all sure of myself or (rightly, as it turned out) of

the reception I would be getting. There were framed silhouettes hanging on the walls

of the hall, depicting different forms of mild corporal punishment. A large vase

of pussy willows dominated the sitting room—it was here that the occupants

came to cry, out of vexation or frustration, and whence, having experienced some relief,

they departed to seek out others and compare notes

on the battle of time being waged in spiral notebooks and the dour feeling of

banging them shut. There was never any apparent politeness,

but the children sometimes talked with each other for a long time, and, though

conclusions were not ordinarily reached, it shook down some of the stuffing in the mattress

of each one’s ego, for a time at least. A kettle boiled happily

on the hob. But it was too dark and, above all, too damp to read by. Tall

figures like the shadows of men had been blended into the viscosity of the plastered

walls; in short it was a jungle in there, and though for some reason one sometimes felt

tempted to stay, it was obvious that no discussion of the circumstances would ever

be possible. That’s when I happened in, wearing a hat, with some sweet breath

of the streets perhaps still clinging to me, and had my say, without being too brusque

about it either, and afterward was shown the tremendous walk-in closets

they build in those climates, those conditions, conditions

which, I want you to understand, aren’t all that real. But what’s a poor penguin to do?

Meanwhile, fate was simmering down below in its cauldron like some delicious stew

that would never be ready in time; signs of haste in the form of bitten fingernails

and scribbled messages were everywhere apparent, and I have this thing

I must do without knowing what it is or whether anyone

will be helped or offended by it. Should I do it? And there, it was gone.

It will never be printed on a banner in a political demonstration

or fed to rabbits first to see whether they die, and as I live in a house,

am so bound to its principles, in the corners, that coming and going

are very much the same thing to me, in which I no doubt resemble the baby-boomers

who have not let me in peace a single moment since I was thirty years old. Oh,

the good old days! If only we could have received permission to stay a little longer!

But it wasn’t to be. So, sadly, I changed into my plain woollen suit

and moved off toward the crest, attitude upgraded. It was a kind of lumber

room, full of boxes filled with papers (“John’s report cards”) and branches

of artificial holly from Christmases past. It seemed the ghosts

had taken a particular dislike to this room; it felt colder than the others,

though the cold was the result of natural causes. Sunlight, however, warmed the sill.

And I thought of all my lost days and how much more I could have done with them,

if I had known what I was doing. But does one ever? Perhaps it’s best

this way, and a riper, more rounded you could only be the product

of so much inefficiency, hence these pear-shaped tones; conversely,

too much planning could have produced a meticulous but dry outline

of what my speech sketches in the rooms, ghost-like, like clouds of steam

on a day of bitter cold, and the minimal progress beyond life’s friendly mess

would have meant a severe reckoning and probably an audit

later when it doesn’t matter, when only sleep seems of any importance.

At least, that’s my reading of it. But what if there were other,

adjacent worlds, at one’s very elbow, and one had had the sense to ignore one’s

simulacrum and actually wade into the enveloping mirror, the shroud

of a caress, and so end up imbued with common sense but on a slightly higher level,

one step above this one, and then everything you were going to say and

everything they were going to say to you in reply would erupt

in lightning, a steely glitter chasing shadows like a pack

of hounds, once they tasted the flavor of blood, and then this light would gradually

form prickly engraved letters on a page—
but who would read that!

Who, indeed, would want to know what could have been if one had made the slightest

exertion in another direction? So it is always a relief to come back

to the beloved home with its misted windows, its teakettle, its worn places on the ceiling,

for better or worse, to the end where battle will be joined

cum frumentum,
and heaven commingle in the wide smile of its disheveled

tolerance, and the inspectors, at last, be called in,

though the point was to be done with it without diluting it.

How far does that take you? For the whole

is so pasted over with rags of old posters that only a Bedouin could intuit any rationale,

if then, in its insalubrious confusion. Yet, viewed on another day, there does seem to

be the beginning of a point in how it’s boxed in, the hidden partitions commenting help-

lessly on what game of linings and the scarcely appreciable removes that make them the undersides

this was starting to become. Just as one longs for a solitary hole to call one’s own,

so one is horrified at the prospect of being immured in it: that, at any rate,

was my take on the setup this winter. Once past March, the addition

seems not to be complete, to be rambling on to the horizon. So one can lose a good idea

by not writing it down, yet by losing it one can have it: it nourishes other asides

it knows nothing of, would not recognize itself in, yet when the negotiations

are terminated, speaks in the acts of that progenitor, and does

recognize itself, is grateful for not having done so earlier.

When all is

demented, no one individual stands out as enormously opinionated. So it goes, and my

goodness, I don’t see how we are expected to live with it, but the fact of the matter

is we do and might even consider ourselves improved in respect to the way we were

quite recently, if only we could remember how we looked even this morning, forget

last year or even two or more years ago, so quickly do they pass even in the formal

chronologies and chronicles, I’m

not even talking about the sloppy kind of record-keeping that goes on all the time

without anyone there to be aware of or compliment it.

So seven years passed in whose hollows small, twinkling lights could sometimes be perceived

on dark and stormy nights, and the farther one proceeded from one’s destination

the closer it seemed and in fact was, though most people took no notice of it

and read newspapers and glanced at swallows exactly as if in Sezession Vienna and there

was nothing to think about except one’s bowels and the miserable climate.

Breakfasts were consumed; houses were put up for sale; and the whole sad, bad shimmer of it

charmed viewers the way a cobra is mesmerized and waves deliciously to and fro

in the temperate breeze, the while sinkholes open up, and K Marts fall into them,

as icebergs are delivered up to the whims of oceans. It wasn’t bad while one stood,

but as soon as you sat down you appeared vulnerable; issues were raised; and from feeling

it all a mild annoyance but a mere formality, as when a stranger stops you to ask directions

and begins asking pointed questions about your religion, it quickly escalated

into a nightmare that waking would not heal. Retreat, retreat! was all they ever

said, and seemed sometimes not to know what they meant. Thus night

appears to have existed always, and to one’s surprise one finds oneself

adapting to it as though one had never known anything else, and growing fangs and howling

at the moon and avoiding questions from loved ones and overreacting.

Now it was time to be tall too, a further complication. But we were taught that everything

is unexpected. Yes, but this is not the moment for recollecting that and even less

to be pondering the reasons for it. Besides we are merely in the middle of it

and can turn our heads to left and right like weathercocks, in deaf amazement

at all that anyone was ever going to do for us and then stopped mentioning.

The orchard that was right for you has stiffened, another autumn is coming

to place its hand across the sun; geese ruffle their feathers and there are whitecaps on the pond

and daybreak still eludes us. What could be the point of counting, or counting on anything?

The rich
facture
of the trusses and supports is admirable, of course,