I See Fire

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or a grave like any other paints rothko in the black

each man must realize that it can all disappear very quickly: the cat, the woman, the job, the front tire, the bed, the walls, the room; all our necessities including love, rest on foundations of sand - and any given cause, no matter how unrelated: the death of a boy in Hong Kong or a blizzard in Omaha ... can serve as your undoing. all your chinaware crashing to the kitchen floor, your girl will enter and you'll be standing, drunk, in the center of it and she'll ask: my god, what's the matter? and you'll answer: I don't know, I don't know ...

If someone would enter now and take these lovers--for they are lovers--in his arms and rock them together like a mother with child in each arm, this man with so much desire, this woman with none, then it would not be this night. They know it and wait, he staring into the light, she into the empty glass. In the darkness of this world, men pull on heavy canvas gloves, dip into rubber coats, and enter the fires. The rats frozen under the conveyors turn to let their eyes fill with dawn. A strange star is born one more time

The dusk descends The people all disappear                        into doorways The sidewalks like flat escalators                   roll away into the night Trees,fountains,statues,                the cafe and the church itself      melt into total darkness Still somewhere              a bell tolls                         the mad idea        of a Christian society

itself, to disbelieve visions, to disbelieve?

And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse       Not shaking the grass 

1 why not merely the despaired of occasion of wordshed is it not better abort than be barren the hours after you are gone are so leaden they will always start dragging too soon the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want bringing up the bones the old loves sockets filled once with eyes like yours all always is it better too soon than never the black want splashing their faces saying again nine days never floated the loved nor nine months nor nine lives 2 saying again if you do not teach me I shall not learn saying again there is a last even of last times last times of begging last times of loving of knowing not knowing pretending a last even of last times of saying if you do not love me I shall not be loved if I do not love you I shall not love the churn of stale words in the heart again love love love thud of the old plunger pestling the unalterable whey of words terrified again of not loving of loving and not you of being loved and not by you of knowing not knowing pretending pretending I and all the others that will love you if they love you unless they love you

As silent as a mirror is believed Realities plunge in silence by ... I am not ready for repentance; Nor to snatch regrets. For the moth Bends no more than the still Imploring flame. And tremorous In the white falling flakes Kisses are,— The only worth all granting. It is to be learned— This cleaving and this burning, But only by the one who Spends out himself again. Twice and twice (Again the smoking souvenir, Bleeding eidolon!) and yet again. Until the bright logic is won Unwhispering as a mirror Is believed. Then, drop by caustic drop, a perfect cry Shall string some constant harmony,— Relentless caper for all those who step The legend of their youth into the noon.

  I An old man sits In the shadow of a pine tree In China. He sees larkspur, Blue and white, At the edge of the shadow, Move in the wind. His beard moves in the wind. The pine tree moves in the wind. Thus water flows Over weeds. II The night is of the colour Of a woman's arm: Night, the female, Obscure, Fragrant and supple, Conceals herself. A pool shines, Like a bracelet Shaken in a dance. III I measure myself Against a tall tree. I find that I am much taller, For I reach right up to the sun, With my eye; And I reach to the shore of the sea With my ear. Nevertheless, I dislike The way ants crawl In and out of my shadow. IV When my dream was near the moon, The white folds of its gown Filled with yellow light. The soles of its feet Grew red. Its hair filled With certain blue crystallizations From stars, Not far off. V Not all the knives of the lamp-posts, Nor the chisels of the long streets, Nor the mallets of the domes And high towers, Can carve What one star can carve, Shining through the grape-leaves. VI Rationalists, wearing square hats, Think, in square rooms, Looking at the floor, Looking at the ceiling. They confine themselves To right-angled triangles. If they tried rhomboids, Cones, waving lines, ellipses -- As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon -- Rationalists would wear sombreros.

‘Circles of Dante and in that dirt roofed cave each family marked off its yard of space; no light except their coal fires laid in buckets, no draft of air except their smoke, no water, no hole to hide the excrement.  I walked on, afraid of stumbling upon the helpless bodies, afraid of circling.  I soon forgot the fascist or German deserters I was hunting -- screaming children, old men, all women, coughing and groaning. Then hit my head on the low dirt, and reached out to keep from falling or hurting anyone; and what I touched was not the filthy floor: a woman's hand, returning my quick grasp, her finger tracing the lifeline on my palm.’

I pick up the skirt, I pick up the sparkling beads in black, this thing that moved once around flesh, and I call God a liar, I say anything that moved like that or knew my name could never die in the common verity of dying, and I pick up her lovely dress, all her loveliness gone, and I speak to all the gods, Jewish gods, Christ-gods, chips of blinking things, idols, pills, bread, fathoms, risks, knowledgeable surrender, rats in the gravy of two gone quite mad without a chance, hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance, I lean upon this, I lean on all of this and I know her dress upon my arm but they will not give her back to me.

The saris go by me from the embassies. Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. They look back at the leopard like the leopard. And I. . . . This print of mine, that has kept its color Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null Navy I wear to work, and wear from work, and so To my bed, so to my grave, with no Complaints, no comment: neither from my chief, The Deputy Chief Assistant, nor his chief— Only I complain. . . . this serviceable Body that no sunlight dyes, no hand suffuses But, dome-shadowed, withering among columns, Wavy beneath fountains—small, far-off, shining In the eyes of animals, these beings trapped As I am trapped but not, themselves, the trap, Aging, but without knowledge of their age, Kept safe here, knowing not of death, for death— Oh, bars of my own body, open, open! The world goes by my cage and never sees me. And there come not to me, as come to these, The wild beasts, sparrows pecking the llamas' grain, Pigeons settling on the bears' bread, buzzards Tearing the meat the flies have clouded. . . . Vulture, When you come for the white rat that the foxes left, Take off the red helmet of your head, the black Wings that have shadowed me, and step to me as a man: The wild brother at whose feet the white wolves fawn, To whose hand of power the great lioness Stalks, purring. . . . You know what I was, You see what I am: change me, change me!

He lay a long time listening to the others breathing in their sleep while he contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within...

Still sober, César Vallejo comes home and finds a black ribbon around the apartment building covering the front door. He puts down his cane, removes his greasy fedora, and begins to untangle the mess. His neighbors line up behind him wondering what's going on. A middle-aged woman carrying a loaf of fresh bread asks him to step aside so she can enter, ascend the two steep flights to her apartment, and begin the daily task of preparing lunch for her Monsieur. Vallejo pretends he hears nothing or perhaps he truly hears nothing so absorbed is he in this odd task consuming his late morning. Did I forget to mention that no one else can see the black ribbon or understand why his fingers seem so intent on unraveling what is not there? Remember when you were only six and on especially hot days you would descend the shaky steps to the cellar hoping at first that someone, perhaps your mother, would gradually become aware of your absence and feel a sudden seizure of anxiety or terror. Of course no one noticed. Mother sat for hours beside the phone waiting, and now and then gazed at summer sunlight blazing through the parlor curtains while below, cool and alone, seated on the damp concrete you watched the same sunlight filter through the rising dust from the two high windows. Beside the furnace a spider worked brilliantly downward from the burned-out, overhead bulb with a purpose you at that age could still comprehend. 1937 would last only six more months. It was a Thursday. Rain was promised but never arrived. The brown spider worked with or without hope, though when the dusty sunlight caught in the web you beheld a design so perfect it remained in your memory as a model of meaning. César Vallejo untangled the black ribbon no one else saw and climbed to his attic apartment and gazed out at the sullen rooftops stretching southward toward Spain where his heart died. I know this. I've walked by the same building year after year in late evening when the swallows were settling noiselessly in the few sparse trees beside the unused canal. I've come when the winter snow blinded the distant brooding sky. I've come just after dawn, I've come in spring, in autumn, in rain, and he was never there.

You remember the name was Jensen. She seemed old always alone inside, face pasted gray to the window, and mail never came. Two blocks down, the Grubskis went insane. George played rotten trombone Easter when they flew the flag. Wild roses remind you the roads were gravel and vacant lots the rule. Poverty was real, wallet and spirit, and each day slow as church. You remember threadbare church groups on the corner, howling their faith at stars, and the violent Holy Rollers renting that barn for their annual violent sing and the barn burned down when you came back from war. Knowing the people you knew then are dead, you try to believe these roads paved are improved, the neighbors, moved in while you were away, good-looking, their dogs well fed. You still have need to remember lots empty and fern. Lawns well trimmed remind you of the train your wife took one day forever, some far empty town, the odd name you never recall. The time: 6:23. The day: October 9. The year remains a blur. You blame this neighborhood for your failure. In some vague way, the Grubskis degraded you beyond repair. And you know you must play again and again Mrs. Jensen pale at her window, must hear the foul music over the good slide of traffic. You loved them well and they remain, still with nothing to do, no money and no will. Loved them, and the gray that was their disease you carry for extra food in case you're stranded in some odd empty town and need hungry lovers for friends, and need feel you are welcome in the secret club they have formed.