There He Was, Claude Rains

​There he was, Claude Rains, with Margot,
I thought I’d seen that scene before
And come to the end of the movie,
You know the one, where she’s heartsore,

And he is suave and lies gives up lies,
Then lies again. It is summer time
And here is Hunter Mountain and
Its stones, and the same hot climb.

Imagine driving all the way 
To Tennessee, and when you get there,
You find yourself back in Chicago. Your shoes
Have been placed, toe-in, in the Frigidaire.

That’s all right, it wasn’t for nothing,
We met the Three Furies, we got to know them,
And out there where the field is darkest
Are two trumpets. We’re supposed to blow them,

It’s the only way to cord your muscles
In your old age, that and bending
Over a crinkled page of Talmud
(Or of Borges?), and comprehending

That the Kumrat Valley is not the pass
Before the ultimate mountain, there’s no
Ultimate mountain. And when we’re tired,
We tumble back to the cold and the snow

And trees that died before they bore fruit,
Burnt black, and a stone hut
With the same dirty floor, a hearth but no heat,
No way to get the old door shut,

Because we didn’t come for the shale
Or the sky or the mountain, we came to go,
A topography that is not still, 
A covered bridge and blazing snow.