The Collected Poems (4 page)

and above ground there is peace
stone slabs and lime on memory

where the avenue of the living
intersects with the new world
under a proudly clicking heel
the cemetery like a molehill
gathers those who request
a hillock of friable earth
a slight sign from above

 

I bequeath to the four elements
all I had in my brief possession

to fire—thought
may fire flourish

to the earth I loved too much
my body that fruitless kernel

and to the air words and hands
and longing superfluous things

all that remains
a drop of water
let it go between
the earth and sky

let it be transparent rain
frost's fern snow's petal

let he who never made heaven
return faithfully like pure dew

to the vale of tears of my earth
slowly crumbling the firm soil

soon I'll give back to four elements
all that I had in my brief possession

—I won't return to a source of peace

 

Cup your hands as if to hold a dream
just as a kernel draws water into itself
and a wood will appear: a green cloud
and a birch trunk like a chord of light
and a thousand eyelids start to flutter
speaking a forgotten tongue of leaves
then you'll remember a white morning
when you waited for the gates to open

you know this land will be unlocked
by a bird that sleeps in a tree in earth
but here is a source of fresh questions
the currents of evil roots run underfoot
so look at the bark's pattern on which
the chords of music are stretched tight
a lutenist adjusts the pegs of the strings
to draw a sound out of what is silent

gather leaves: a wild strawberry patch
dewdrops on a leaf the comb of grass
and then the golden damselfly's wing
and there the ant is burying its sister
higher up above belladona's treacheries
the wild pear is sweetly growing ripe
therefore expecting no greater reward
sit yourself down underneath this tree

cup your hands as if to hold a memory
like a dried kernel of perished names
and another wood: a cloud of smoke
a forehead marked with black light
and a thousand eyelids stretched thin
over the unmoving rounds of the eyes
a tree broken like bread with the wind
the betrayed faith of deserted shelters
and that wood is for us and for you
the dead have need of fairy tales too
a clutch of herbs water of memories
so over the pine needles and the rustles
over the sheer spun silk of fragrances
no matter that you catch on a branch
and a shadow leads up steep passages
for you will find and unlock the gate
to our Forest of Arden.

 

I thought:
she'll never change

she'll always be waiting
in her white dress
with her blue eyes
on the threshold of every door

she'll always be smiling
putting on that necklace

until quite suddenly
the thread snapped
now the pearls winter
in the floor's cracks

mama likes coffee
a warm tile
peace and quiet

she sits
adjusts her glasses
on her pointy nose
she reads my poem
and shakes her gray head at it

he who dropped from her lap
bites his lip and says nothing
so it's a gloomy conversation
under the lamp sweet source

far from your gaze
pierced by blind love
solitude is easier to bear

a week later
in a chilly room
my throat tight
I read her letter

in this letter
each character stands apart
like a loving heart

 

The vast space of little planets
which consumes me like a sea
trembles and heaves with unrest

second hands trapped in pulses
like mill wheels in warm blood
trundle along the fleeting year

the mute needle calls northward
over a swift stream of dark water
under transient clouds and skies

from atoms points hairs comets
I construct my difficult infinity
under the mockeries of Aquilos
I build ports for frail endurance

 

I sowed the idea of infinity
in the unruffled soil
of a wooden stool
you see how nicely it grows
—says a philosopher rubbing his hands

I also knocked together a cylinder
—says the philosopher
at the top of the cylinder a pendulum
I am sure you see where this is going
the cylinder is space
the pendulum is time
tick-tick-tick
—says the philosopher and laughing loudly
he flutters his little hands

finally I came up with the word existence
a hard and colorless word
you gather warm leaves with quick hands a long time
you have to trample images
call a sunset a phenomenon
to discover under all of this
the dead white
philosopher's stone

we now expect
the philosopher to weep over this wisdom of his
but he doesn't weep
existence after all will not be moved
space will not melt
and time will not stand still in its insensate course

• • •

An hourglass bursts
in rough hands
and level space
is storied by the eye

 

Destroy me star
—says the poet—
pierce me with distance's arrow

drink me source
—says a drinker—
to the dregs drink me to nullity

let sharp eyes deliver me
to devouring landscapes

words meant to save the body
may they bring me precipices

a star will sink its root in my forehead
the source will lend my face humanity

 

Whelp of the empty realms
of a still unfinished world
I wear my hands to the bone
laboring over the beginning

With a pilgrim's foot I tamped
earth fragile as dandelion fluff

with an eyelid's double-beat
I consolidated the heavens
and with insane imagination
made them a shade of blue

I cried out when real touch
confirmed an image of rock
and I won't forget the time
I tore my skin on hawthorn

I stored names of plants of beasts
in a chink I dug out with a finger
then lying in the grass I admired
the fern's shape the peacock's tail

in the end I wished to take rest
in a wave's shade on white rock
I wrote a natural history
a complete guide to the species
from a salt grain to the moon
from amoeba to angel

This is for you
dear posterity
so your light dreams
will not be crushed by stones
when night ravages the world again

You cannot pass on the knowledge
yours is the ear and yours the touch
each of us must build from scratch
his own infinity his own beginning

the hardest is to cross the abyss
that yawns beyond a fingernail
to discover with a daring hand
a strange world's lips and eyes

it's not for you to dream of a moment
when the head will be a constant star
not with a hand but with bundled rays
you will greet an earth already extinct

 

They who sailed at dawn
but now will never return
left their trace on a wave—

a shell lovely as a fossil mouth
sinks to the depths of the sea

Those who trod the sandy road
but never reached the shutters
though they could see rooftops—

will find shelter in the air's bell

and those who will orphan only
a chilly room a couple of books
an empty inkwell a blank page

verily did not wholly die

they whisper in wallpaper groves
their flat heads live on the ceiling
their paradise is made of air water
of lime of earth an angel of winds

will chafe their bodies in his hand
they will
waft across pastures of this world

 

In the end one cannot keep this love concealed
tiny quadruped with oaken legs
O skin coarse and fresh beyond expression
everyday object eyeless but with a face
on which the wrinkles of the grain mark a ripe judgment
gray little mule most patient of mules
its hair has fallen out from too much fasting
and only a tuft of wooden bristle
can my hand feel when I stroke it in the morning

—Do you know my darling they were charlatans
who said: the hand lies the eye
lies when it touches shapes that are empty—

they were bad people envious of things
they wanted to trap the world with the bait of denial

how to express to you my gratitude wonder
you come always to the call of the eye
with great immobility explaining by dumb-signs
to a sorry intellect: we are genuine—
At last the fidelity of things opens our eyes

 

Eyelids fell like leaves the tenderness of glances crumbled
the stifled throats of springs still trembled under the earth
finally the bird's voice fell silent the last crevice in a rock
and down amid the lowest plants unrest froze like a lizard

plumb lines of trees on the horizon's scales
a slanting ray fell on an earth come to a halt
The window is shut The winter garden froze
Eyes are teary little clouds form at the mouth

—what shepherd led the trees off Who played
to reconcile everything hand branch and skies
a phorminx sure as a dead woman's shoulders
carried by a northern Orpheus

a patter of angelic feet over our heads
snow falls like wings shedding scales
quietness is a perfect line which brings
earth level with the constellation Libra

buds of glances for winter orchards—may love not wound us
a clutch of hair for cruel destiny—may it burn in the pure air

 

The elements went in front: water carrying silt the teary-eyed earth quick and gluttonous fire then gentle dragons of air tossing their manes opened the procession for flowers young plants and so the artist's chisel praised the grass Green flame inhuman like a flame thrown from a ship the grass which comes when history is fulfilled and is itself a chapter of silence

a clatter of sacrificial beasts blesses moist Tellus they go fleshly and bright their necks carry heat their brows marked with horns oblivious of fate they falter and fall astonished at their own blood They cry out to you elements animals led the way the skies will part and God address you as lightning you humanity low and so very deserving of scorn yet carried high on the back of the earthly species

here the bas-relief breaks off—imagine if you can maybe the sacrifice didn't please the immortal gods or moisture foe of endurance effaced human forms

it kept a sandal a chip of the goddess of Irony's foot and folds of a garment from which a lovely gesture of raised arms can easily be read and that's truly all no hands playing on the horns of sacrificial animals

you do not know what word or casual form of yours a stone wrinkle will hold—not what you think is you nor if they will choose blood and bone or an eyelash to lay in the gracious earth where statues are ripening

 

He who likened you to a marble edifice
surely had a patriotic cataract in his eye

O Pericles
your column must be embarrassed
a simple shadow warheads' pomp
the harmony of outstretched arms

and here's a comic brick farrago
a royal apple of the Renaissance
in a setting of Austrian barracks

maybe only at night in a fever
in a frenzy of woe a barbarian
who from crosses and gallows
learned how mass is balanced

and maybe only under a moon
when the angels leave the altar
to ride roughshod over dreams

and only then
—an Acropolis

 

At last golden deer
quietly sleep in the glades

and mountain goats as well
their heads on a stone

aurochs unicorns squirrels
in general all game
predatory or gentle
and also all birds

 

once he got it into his head
to lay his hands on a Silenus

Three days he chased him
till at last he caught him
hit him with his fist
between the eyes and asked:
—what is best for man?

The Silenus neighed
and said:
—to be nothing
—to die