The Trouble with Poetry (4 page)

The other day as I was ricocheting slowly

off the pale blue walls of this room,

bouncing from typewriter to piano,

from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,

I found myself in the L section of the dictionary

where my eyes fell upon the word
lanyard
.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist

could send one more suddenly into the past—

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sickroom,

lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,

set cold face-cloths on my forehead,

and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the archaic truth

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hands,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

It was late afternoon,

the beginning of winter, a light snow,

and I was the only one in the small park

to witness the lone boy running

in circles around the base of a bronze statue.

I could not read the carved name

of the statesman who loomed above,

one hand on his cold hip,

but as the boy ran, head down,

he would point a finger at the statue

and pull an imaginary trigger

imitating the sounds of rapid gunfire.

Evening thickened, the mercury sank,

but the boy kept running in the circle

of his footprints in the snow

shooting blindly into the air.

History will never find a way to end,

I thought, as I left the park by the north gate

and walked slowly home

returning to the station of my desk

where the sheets of paper I wrote on

were like pieces of glass

through which I could see

hundreds of dark birds circling in the sky below.

was what they called you in high school

if you tripped on a shoelace in the hall

and all your books went flying.

Or if you walked into an open locker door,

you would be known as Einstein,

who imagined riding a streetcar into infinity.

Later, genius became someone

who could take a sliver of chalk and squire pi

a hundred places out beyond the decimal point,

or a man painting on his back on a scaffold,

or drawing a waterwheel in a margin,

or spinning out a little night music.

But earlier this week on a wooded path,

I thought the swans afloat on the reservoir

were the true geniuses,

the ones who had figured out how to fly,

how to be both beautiful and brutal,

and how to mate for life.

Twenty-four geniuses in all,

for I numbered them as Yeats had done,

deployed upon the calm, crystalline surface—

forty-eight if we count their white reflections,

or an even fifty if you want to throw in me

and the dog running up ahead,

who were at least smart enough to be out

that day—she sniffing the ground,

me with my head up in the bright morning air.

My poetry instruction book,

which I bought at an outdoor stall along the river,

contains many rules

about what to avoid and what to follow.

More than two people in a poem

is a crowd, is one.

Mention what clothes you are wearing

as you compose, is another.

Avoid the word
vortex
,

the word
velvety
, and the word
cicada
.

When at a loss for an ending,

have some brown hens standing in the rain.

Never admit that you revise.

And—always keep your poem in one season.

I try to be mindful,

but in these last days of summer

whenever I look up from my page

and see a burn-mark of yellow leaves,

I think of the icy winds

that will soon be knifing through my jacket.

As I drove north along a country road

on a bright spring morning

I caught the look of a man on the roadside

who was carrying an enormous scythe on his shoulder.

He was not wearing a long black cloak

with a hood to conceal his skull—

rather a torn white tee-shirt

and a pair of loose khaki trousers.

But still, as I flew past him,

he turned and met my glance

as if I had an appointment in Samarra,

not just the usual lunch at the Raccoon Lodge.

There was no sign I could give him

in that instant—no casual wave,

or thumbs-up, no two-fingered V

that would ease the jolt of fear

whose voltage ran from my ankles

to my scalp—just the glimpse,

the split-second lock of the pupils

like catching the eye of a stranger on a passing train.

And there was nothing to do

but keep driving, turn off the radio,

and notice how white the houses were,

how red the barns, and green the sloping fields.

A morning after a week of rain

and the sun shot down through the branches

into the tall, bare windows.

The brindled cat rolled over on his back,

and I could hear you in the kitchen

grinding coffee beans into a powder.

Everything seemed especially vivid

because I knew we were all going to die,

first the cat, then you, then me,

then somewhat later the liquefied sun

was the order I was envisioning.

But then again, you never really know.

The cat had a fiercely healthy look,

his coat so bristling and electric

I wondered what you had been feeding him

and what you had been feeding me

as I turned a corner

and beheld you out there on the sunny deck

lost in exercise, running in place,

knees lifted high, skin glistening—

and that toothy, immortal-looking smile of yours.

Yes, that’s Orion over there,

the three studs of the belt

clearly lined up just off the horizon.

And if you turn around you can see

Gemini, very visible tonight,

the twins looking off into space as usual.

That cluster a little higher in the sky

is Cassiopeia sitting in her astral chair

if I’m not mistaken.

And directly overhead,

isn’t that Virginia Woolf

slipping along the River Ouse

in her inflatable canoe?

See the wide-brimmed hat and there,

the outline of the paddle, raised and dripping stars?

There were four of us in the car

early that summer evening,

short-hopping from one place to another,

thrown together by a light toss of circumstance.

I was in the backseat

directly behind the driver who was talking

about one thing and another

while his wife smiled quietly at the windshield.

I was happy to be paying attention

to the rows of tall hedges

and the gravel driveways we were passing

and then the yellow signs on the roadside stores.

It was only when he began to belittle you

that I found myself shifting my focus

to the back of his head,

a head that was large and expansively bald.

As he continued talking

and the car continued along the highway,

I began to divide his head into sections

by means of dotted lines,

the kind you see on the diagram of a steer.

Only here, I was not interested in short loin,

rump, shank, or sirloin tip,

but curious about what region of his cranium

housed the hard nugget of his malice.

Tom, my friend, you would have enjoyed the sight—

the car turning this way and that,

the sunlight low in the trees,

the man going on about your many failings,

and me sitting quietly behind him

wearing my white butcher’s apron

and my small, regulation butcher’s hat.

Usually you appear at the front door

when you hear my steps on the gravel,

but today the door was closed,

not a wisp of pale smoke from the chimney.

I peered into a window

but there was nothing but a table with a comb,

some yellow flowers in a glass of water

and dark shadows in the corners of the room.

I stood for a while under the big tree

and listened to the wind and the birds,

your wind and your birds,

your dark green woods beyond the clearing.

This is not what it is like to be you,

I realized as a few of your magnificent clouds

flew over the rooftop.

It is just me thinking about being you.

And before I headed back down the hill,

I walked in a circle around your house,

making an invisible line

which you would have to cross before dark.

It is difficult to describe what we felt

after we paid the admission,

entered the aluminum dome,

and stood there with our mouths open

before the machine itself,

what we had only read about in the papers.

Huge and glistening it was

but bolted down and giving nothing away.

What did it mean?

we all openly wondered,

and did another machine exist somewhere else—

an even mightier one—

that was designed to be its exact opposite?

These were not new questions,

but we asked them earnestly and repeatedly.

Later, when we were home again—

a family of six having tea—

we raised these questions once more,

knowing that this made us part

of a great historical discussion

that included science

as well as literature and the weather

not to mention the lodger downstairs,

who, someone said,

had been seen earlier leaving the house

with a suitcase and a tightly furled umbrella.

I don’t think this next poem

needs any introduction—

it’s best to let the work speak for itself.

Maybe I should just mention

that whenever I use the word
five
,

I’m referring to that group of Russian composers

who came to be known as “The Five,”

Balakirev, Moussorgsky, Borodin—that crowd.

Oh—and Hypsicles was a Greek astronomer.

He did something with the circle.

That’s about it, but for the record,

“Grimké” is Angelina Emily Grimké, the abolitionist.

“Imroz” is that little island near the Dardanelles.

“Monad”—well, you all know what a monad is.

There could be a little problem

with
mastaba
, which is one of those Egyptian

above-ground sepulchers, sort of brick and limestone.

And you’re all familiar with helminthology?

It’s the science of worms.

Oh, and you will recall that Phoebe Mozee

is the real name of Annie Oakley.

Other than that, everything should be obvious.

Wagga Wagga is in New South Wales.

Rhyolite is that soft volcanic rock.

What else?

Yes,
meranti
is a type of timber, in tropical Asia I think,

and Rahway is just Rahway, New Jersey.

The rest of the poem should be clear.

I’ll just read it and let it speak for itself.

It’s about the time I went picking wild strawberries.

It’s called “Picking Wild Strawberries.”