I was halfway through the thick book
When I saw: It’s just an introduction! Then by intuition or analogy, By faith mixed with induction, I realized there’s a library, And books of law and right and wrong And corners and nooks for the shy And great tables for the headstrong. But then there are the books upstairs, On the shelves accessible by ladder, That explain to every serene heart The sweet nothings that really matter. The philosopher loves the ordered Gardens at Versailles. As for The gardener, he loves each branch, The leaves on every sycamore.
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Look at it all together, there are
A thousand miles of snow and field Of thin, leafless trees up north, A million voles and owls, concealed, And all that together seem to make A pattern. Or do they really? At least The pattern that we think we see, The fields in our own minds released. On the other hand, focus On each vole, its every flea, Its hole, its family, its seeds, Its every joy or agony. The frightful vulnerability Of children randomly born to mad Parents—some percent will Survive—or the desert nomad Feeling that the sky and sand Are blessed for him, and that his way Has been ordained both emerge From the same ocean and its spray. There is no chair. It is merely a pulse, A wavicle. All there is Is the all. The chair or molecule Is merely the apparent fizz. God only sees the all. I guess There is no chair. The all He sees Inhabits every chair, even if It’s just a shadow on the breeze. Do you think you are (or were) a robot?
Or that the train was destined to enter The station? Today you are the student, Somewhere you have been the mentor, Somewhere the grid of trains is set In motion. But that you only see As a vague and foggy motion, a shadow, A smell of electricity. The universe is a holograph
(That’s different from a hologram.) “Gather us together from all the ends Of the earth.” Here comes a clam. All of its legs are controlled by its brain And they scuttle together. That gives it grace. Sometimes in the smoky bar Where everyone thinks that he’s an ace. You find a shiny dime, and Your thousand dollars are complete. In the library, you don’t see the book You want. You see it, but the heat Blurs your vision. You open it, But it appears dim, hard to see. But you have that shiny dime And dream a shiny ABC. In the maelstrom, you may find
The most abject flotsam. Even the shark Turns belly-up and is dragged along, Bizarre shapes of something, the spark Of some bioluminescence In the dark, some cold mind, An eye, the vision of an alien plain Becomes the field of humankind. (You wear your praying mantis mask
And look in the praying mantis’s eye To see if she will eat you. Do you Appear to her as gal or guy? (Asks Lacan.) Alternatively, The mountain has trees; the air shimmers; Lavender clings to the slopes; the towns Below are lined with tzimmers. How much the silver mine can learn From men who write or sing or speak Of silver veins. Lean in to listen (Don’t be chilled by fits of pique). When the DNA coiled deep Within the cell was sound, it made A human brain, which when inspired Rose beyond the barricade. My tank was drained, and I looked around,
I only saw another sibling, Who looked like me, except I was No longer me; I was scribbling, I’d forgotten how to sign My name. I was an image in A mirror, and there were a thousand Mirrors, every man with a grin Is a king, I looked and saw A dust devil filled with scraps Of magazines and album covers, I lost my topographic maps, Where was the mountain, was There even such a thing? Attach A cam to a mountain and trust, Yearn to be like them, to match Their yearning. Do not collapse when You see the spread of invasive plants Rolling across Massachusetts, creating A surface scent of false romance. The ship slips from its moorings, the sailor
Wants to go back home. The rain Spatters the earth until it seeps Mist. The light shines through the pane. Out in the park, the strong man does pushups, A woman is feeding the squirrels, the birds, She buys a bum a square meal, He mumbles a few thank you words But that hunted look he has is gone, He says he’ll find his own way home, The sunlight pulses on his eyes, He’s been to Karnataka, also Rome, The sailor dreams of Acre, at night When his bunk is shaking, “Come, tired Sailor, the wind is strong, in my shops The bread has been baked and the pots have been fired.” If you forget the forest, the lake,
You are one shade paler. Imagine You returned to high school, how Disconsolate you would grow. Chagrin Doesn’t begin to tell it. You have Forgotten, haven’t you? Sometime There’s a weed you have to look real hard To see, you might think some number’s prime When it’s not. That’s why we have This river of fire. Once in a while We have to disappear. Try To come out, this time, without guile. Words seep down. To you, to me,
To them. Words come home, they have The power to tremble glass. It’s scary For everyone. The cows calve, The rain falls on dust. The golden Suncup, the fairy duster, the Apache Plume, the desert bloom, the might, The kind words—your throat is still scratchy-- The calm, cool morning. And above The copper devil’s claw, the blue Blazes, the air pulses, even If you fall asleep, still, you See that blue. You can start to talk, Even to those who clearly are Not you. “Come to me, you With your back to me, playing guitar.” |
Yaacov David Shulman
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