Flow Chart: A Poem (17 page)

knew what it was doing, and burgeoned suddenly, before one had any inkling of it,

drawing alarmed gasps of admiration from the besotted throng. Anyway, it was life,

one had to agree, but all the same could have been better written, with more attention

to niceties of style and fewer obscure references, though the concept,

always, was beyond reproach.

Wrapped in shawls, was it? And beyond the wharf where sometimes a rope of water

twisted though not for long, the password leading into danger

was “crotchet”—none of us was too sure of what it meant. We knew the reception

we’d get with it, though—a pattern of smiles opening down along the body,

gentle acquiescence to our most childish demands. We came there to be pampered

once in a while, and weren’t disappointed. But the lips of the fish, speaking

out of fog, told us another story, which we were bound to recall afterwards

when fires blazed and groups, both sitting and standing, collected around them.

There was this well you looked down into and saw shadows

of bodies caught in trees or washed up on the beach, but the townspeople

never acknowledged anything was amiss: they’d look fixedly at you

if you hinted otherwise, and walk swiftly away muttering something about pearls

or children down there, and how long it takes to really mature anyhow

and who is to be the judge of that? Years later you’d run into one of them at a party,

recall what it was, and there’d be only that odd, dank furor of attention,

a glimmer, and then the time frame would change.

In some way the woman knew she was the pivot here, yet it was enough just

being adorable in the sun. A memory of a wish would pass over, but it was a bird-shadow,

giving way to frank sunlight the next moment, wholesome in its steady decline

as all things that seek a way out must be—fresh as radishes or Lucerne.

It is time I explained certain tenets of the land

to you, but you see we can never revel in passing back and forth across it:

the understanding has got to be dumb so that others

will think there is a settlement here, and condone development and repairs,

until one day it will be just another paved-over place without sensors:

there is no cause for alarm in this, nor for complacency either, yet it must give way.

Negatively, the posthorn striates the morning gloom since all things have a beginning

in something, and it falls back on itself, to material shores, clusters

of formal and market gardens, and there there ought to be an end to it

while the firm old peasant stands, head bowed, cap in hand, but the shrill voices

of children run past him into the near wilderness, and all is scattered again.

My fear is like a small house: you can come visit me

but it will not go away, or will itself into an education; the bonds are loosed,

the pattern lost, and who is to say if I made it up

or someone who was here before and departed, leaving no trace

of his passing, no flicker of ashes in the grate? Or by that time

the note has changed; hereditary enemies greet each other

like long-lost friends; snows melt; the incomprehensible messages

of tree-frogs explicate each other; perspectives, by shifting, have subtly changed

the profiles that stand inside them, and we may not be put to the test

until further legal angles have been explored and resolved, a long way

from here, at some distant point in eternity. Then it will be time

to live off one’s resources, but for now one must do battle

with the elements, and stereotypes, and not expect to be called on the carpet

of others’ anxious dreams of what is best for us. Go back inside;

it’s still chilly out here; the fruit is unripe, and no one knows what time it is.

Pity the seer who gets it right, for he only abideth long,

but at the end is shut out or becomes the toy of others of like condition,

persistent animator. Do, and as I say, so shall the city even

take up the cry and track that one to his lair which is nowhere,

not even eight miles away. The drive, the lunch,

cost more than we knew then, bleary mountain ranges mobilized

against the flight of capital, yet it was hard to see how they could cost more even at home

and remain the same, nurse of the arcades to warn the soldiers of potential defeat,

for they came on, blinded by water. The day arrives for him to begin

to grow, but others

in the habitat are puzzled. Wasn’t it just such a gentleman, once,

who made the transition from scarecrow to sergeant at arms without anyone’s

being the wiser? Has he returned now to sup, yes you too get on with it as you must;

a place is made for him at the table, ere conversation is stilled and a heavy black hand

float above on the wall—no! for if it was my error it was a smallish one, he too then beside

us at the deck water pours into. For the one and only is a flower

of the mountaintop and cannot imagine the wrong we have done. They handed us over to it

and we were alone.

Soon all the animals acclaimed the victor, still in bed with pilgrims, drunk

with the wine of defeat, and easygoing, like the hero he never had the wisdom

to set out to be. And the line of supplicants led down to some graceless bushes

on fire, for virtue wears many masks. And when it came time to ask him

for the antidote, the dolmens appeared robed in white, and backlit,

and they thought it was an optical illusion. But it was a joke as old as the centipede

at the base of the morass. And seven questioners came, but they too fell to gazing

at the hearty snack he had left untouched, and were troubled. Then before you knew it

urchins ran screaming away, it had all been a prank! But some, I believe, were convinced,

and to this day swear that a beast had come out of that lair and looked around

and wandered apathetically away, seeing no reason to stay

on and become a weightlifter or
ouvreuse
, but the rest saw it for what it

was, a charade in which they had no part, and began backtracking. And great viaducts crashed

of their own accord; supertankers were upended; the cotillion was cancelled

in favor of life-saving exercises, but nobody knew how many, or where the implicit tone

or structure was leading. And they turned away stiff-necked. So we were able

to buy a few provisions from the locals, and that is how we got here, and why

we can’t stay but a minute, but will see you

on the other side, after the rain, God willing.

And so revived, forgotten, into the long day

angling its shadows at a wider denouement

each time. What would it think of us, if it could think:

mere signers of petitions, names in a long list? Are we tractable

or blotted into the day’s fabric like new boys’ shouts, the careless exhaust?

Will our pain matter too, and if so, when?

For one pesky minute the wilderness stuck out its tongue

and that was all. Too schooled in its ways to feel adrift for long, I sat

naked and disconsolate at a corner of a crevice, hat in hand, fishing,

for who can tell what God intends for us next? And if a little girl can call

and run, her dog twirl, why not be able to slide a leg over the board

barrier that disconnects us from all that is really happening, that hive

of activity as you think of it? From funky, overexposed moments to plain truths, it is

all there, actually, which isn’t to say you desire it yet.

Once the teeth have smiled and the lights been doused yet again, though, it’s like

stones caring, and you think, what if that big one up there fell on my head?

Life, read my life, would be over, the jig up, so what’s the point

even of moving off somewhere else? Something else could always trigger it.

But I don’t want to back off, partly because it isn’t

my nature. I think I’ll wait behind this old counter, maybe a noise

will remind me a thing isn’t right and I’ll get

in the groove again. Besides, the wind is a punisher. Tonight

all the old ghosts are back on the radio. How sad that some people have to be unhappy

to keep the rest of us barely alive, breathing, I think. I was

in my dressing room and didn’t hear it. It must have gone through the house like a bird’s swoop

yet I am innocent, my clothes, the ones I’ve hardly worn, barely on.

Now the official announcement, probably. These dustcatchers …Look, if you’re going to swear

you may as well leave, you can come with me, I’m leaving this place.

I’ve had it. Twenty centuries is too much. Just drifting, like a leaf, is more

than I bargained for, at the beginning when the tin was new, the smoke clean, and

a bramble’s red could scorch your heart, leaving you alone, and now it’s too late

for pie and others. All’s stranded. The pergola in the plaza beckons

still but it’s the smile

of a latecomer, all candy and cigarettes, no more insulation for the cheers and puffery

we assumed would be forthcoming until he sets down his tray and it was empty

except for a dirty napkin and an orange stick; whose business are you playing

with now, in front of the old microphone? Painted

a bit more lugubriously now, true, but the busboys, the brunch crowd want danger; zero in

on sloth; what’s a poor old fright to do? Suicide? No, I don’t think you…

It was then I discovered the pavements were made of the same flagstones found underseas

except there they were arranged more brightly in schools; here, clusters

are the thing. School is for kids. I think I’ll go, Miss MacGregor, honest

I will, this time or bust? You have cleared out my lounge…

There is no place to talk, no amphitheater

under which we can put our heads, deducing all-too-violent theorems, yet

I quite like it, one is active. Besides, didn’t I hear you say our daddy was once picked up

here by the secret police, and shaved heads are no longer the thing inside the gates,

and the stand of birch is there, but it is all, there is nothing left over

to eat a sandwich next to? If he had tried too soon, if the sun…But plus or minus

is unimportant; beware of negative thoughts. The ewe and the prunes are mine

anyway; insistence on finer points is the stuff highwaymen’s dreams are made on, until

the lost chord; it sounded so brittle back there. Come to my desk, we’ll talk it out

and by George the next time it will come round, in a dress, and we’ll all thank our

premonitions and the power of staying up alone

in a rain-lashed stadium with the TV on. So much power, at such a distance. But it glows.

All along I had known what buttons to press, but don’t

you see, I had to experiment, not that my life depended on it,

but as a corrective to taking the train to find out where it wanted to go.

Then when I did that anyway, I was not so much charmed as horrified

by the construction put upon it by even some quite close friends,

some of whom accused me of being the “leopard man” who had been terrorizing

the community by making howl-like sounds at night, out of earshot

of the dance floor. Others, recognizing my disinterest, nonetheless accused

me of playing mind-games that only the skilled

should ever attempt. My reply, then as always, was that ignorance

of the law, far from being no excuse, is the law, and we’ll see who rakes in

the chips come Judgment Day. I can see why someone who didn’t know me

might be kind of appalled at this flip attitude, but was unprepared for the chorus

of condemnatory shrieks from the entourage, as though
they
hadn’t been through

much of it themselves, and could cast the first stone. Once upon a time,

however, I was new to it and felt the land catching up to me

as on the outskirts of a town where one is seeking a night’s lodging

unprepared for whatever consequences may befall. I spent a week once

in someone’s house in a small town in Pennsylvania, without ever

learning whose it was, or addressing anyone by name. Another time, in Maine,

I found myself face to face with a wolf at sunset. So you see, my

rationale is that I’ve taken my lumps as well as enjoyed the good times

now and then, and don’t see what difference it makes to old soldiers,

of which I’m proud to count myself one. On at least one occasion

when I felt I hadn’t slaked the lime sufficiently, so to speak, it all seemed

to be going from bad to worse. I had my companions, and my kit,

and was ready to pack it in as soon as morning arrived, glad

to escape with my skin intact. But then a curious thing happens:

an old guy comes up to you and tells you, reading your mind, what a magnificent

job you’ve done, chipping away at the noble experiment, and then, abruptly,

you change your plans, backtrack, cancel the rest of the trip

that was going to promise so much good health and diversion for you; you suddenly

see yourself as others see you, and it’s not such a pretty sight either, but at

least you know now, and can do something to repair the damage, perhaps by

looking deeper into the mirror, more thoroughly

to evaluate the pros and cons of your success and smilingly refuse all

offers of assistance, which would be the wrong kind anyway, no doubt, and set out

on your own at the eleventh hour, into the vast yawn or cusp that sits

always next door. And when we have succeeded, not know what to do with it

except break it into shards that get more ravishing as you keep pounding them. See,