It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.
It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.
At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?
Now it is almost over.
Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.
It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.
Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.
It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.
Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.
Things seem strong.
Houses, trees, trucks—a chair, even.
A table.
You don’t expect one to break.
No, it takes a hammer to break one,
a war, a saw, an earthquake.
Troy after Troy after Troy seemed strong
to those living around and in them.
Nine Troys were strong,
each trembling under the other.
When the ground floods
and the fire ants leave their strong city,
they link legs and form a raft, and float, and live,
and begin again elsewhere.
Strong, your life’s wish
to continue linking arms with life’s eye blink, life’s tear well,
life’s hammering of copper sheets and planing of Port Orford cedar,
life’s joke of the knock-knock.
Knock, knock. Who’s there? I am.
I am who?
That first and last question.
Who once dressed in footed pajamas,
who once was smothered in kisses.
Who seemed so strong
I could not imagine your mouth would ever come to stop asking.
Note from Christy: A monostich, according to Wikipedia, is “a poem which consists of a single line. (It) has been described as ‘a startling fragment that has its own integrity’ [2] and ‘if a monostich has an argument, it is necessarily more subtle.’ [3]”
THE CATHEDRAL IS
slated for demolition.
***
I HAD THOUGHT THINGS WERE GOING ALONG WELL
But I was mistaken.
***
OUT OVER THE BAY THE RATTLE OF FIRECRACKERS
And, in the adjacent waters, calm.
***
WE WERE ON THE TERRACE DRINKING GIN AND TONICS
When the squall hit.
***
All four poems are from Ashbery’s As We Know (1979)
From Christy: I confess, I’ve never really “got” or “understood” Ashbery’s poetry; his monolithes and haiku are more up my alley than his longer pieces. But I like what Megan O’Rourke said, as quoted by The Guardian’s article above: Writing for Slate, the critic and poet Meghan O’Rourke advised readers “not to try to understand the poems but to try to take pleasure from their arrangement, the way you listen to music”. Perhaps I’ll take her advice and try again some time. And if I’m still confused–which I’m sure to be–I’ll take solace in the following: Interviewed by the Associated Press in 2008, Ashbery joked that if he could turn his name into a verb, “to Ashbery”, it would mean “to confuse the hell out of people”.
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is
* Thank you to everyone who has helped those affected by Hurricane Harvey. If you would like to help, I shared several links at the bottom of our last post, “Hurricane” by Mary Oliver.
It didn’t behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn’t stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn’t
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.
Please consider supporting those affected — and those helping those affected — by Hurricane Harvey. I’ve included several links: to J.J. Watts’s YouCaring page, to the SPCA of Texas, to two NPR articles (one on the many animal rescues that have taken place, and one on the many ways you can help), and more:
Soul Horse is coordinating efforts to rescue horses and livestock, as well as hay transport. I fell in love with Randi Collier’s facebook page and all of the photos of local cowboys taking on the “hard” or “impossible” rescues. Specific needs and how to donate (mostly need $ to cover fuel and transportation).
Words ... for the Time Being 