Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser

by Janet Kaufman

A voice saying : She went in a queen,

  she died and came out,

  goddess.

  All our faces in their colors

  staring at the

  arch of this world.

  The breast smiles : Do not

  think you are invulnerable!

  The breast smiles : Do not

  think you are immortal!

  AFTERWARDS

  We are the antlers of that white animal

  That great white animal

  Asleep under the sea

  He forgets and dreams so deep he does not

  Know his whiteness in the sea-black

  Among the plants of night.

  His antlers have legs and arms. Our heads

  together being joined

  Journey tonight, dreamed in his ocean.

  Where we lie afterwards, smoke of our dreams

  Goes coiling up, a plant in the dark room.

  You were a young boy, you sang in the Polish woods

  Limping away away. I in this city, held

  In a dream of children. Some mythic animal

  Rises now, flies up, white from the sea-floor.

  In all our death, the glow behind his eyes

  Speaks under all knowing : our lives burn.

  FLYING TO HANOI

  I thought I was going to the poets, but I am

  going to the children.

  I thought I was going to the children, but I am

  going to the women.

  I thought I was going to the women, but I am going

  to the fighters.

  I thought I was going to the fighters, but I am going

  to the men and women who are inventing peace.

  I thought I was going to the inventors of peace,

  but I am going to the poets.

  My life is flying to your life.

  IT IS THERE

  Yes, it is there, the city full of music,

  Flute music, sounds of children, voices of poets,

  The unknown bird in his long call. The bells of peace.

  Essential peace, it sounds across the water

  In the long parks where the lovers are walking,

  Along the lake with its island and pagoda,

  And a boy learning to fish. His father threads the line.

  Essential peace, it sounds and it stills. Cockcrow.

  It is there, the human place.

  On what does it depend, this music, the children's games?

  A long tradition of rest? Meditation? What peace is so profound

  That it can reach all habitants, all children,

  The eyes at worship, the shattered in hospitals?

  All voyagers?

  Meditation, yes; but within a tension

  Of long resistance to all invasion, all seduction of hate.

  Generations of holding to resistance; and within this resistance

  Fluid change that can respond, that can show the children

  A long future of finding, of responsibility; change within

  Change and tension of sharing consciousness

  Village to city, city to village, person to person entire

  With unchanging cockcrow and unchanging endurance

  Under the

  skies of war.

  THE RUNNING OF THE GRUNION

  for Denise Levertov and Mitchell Goodman

  1

  Launching themselves

  beating silver

  on that precise

  moment of tide & moon.

  Exact in act

  outer limit

  stranded on high sand.

  With an arched back he

  digs their bed

  she under him

  releases he

  fertilizes and

  with back arched

  covers (sand)

  the gleam spawn.

  On the lit beach

  the hunt begins:

  silver buckets.

  People run down

  for the huge catch.

  Pulsing on sand

  countless silver.

  Highest wave

  stretches

  among the hunt.

  A few of the fish

  are washed to sea.

  The spawn enclosed

  in high sand

  rhythms of hot & cool;

  a full moon later

  the wave foams over;

  young grunion

  wash to ocean.

  Eleven later,

  mature, silver,

  they return.

  People with pails.

  2

  Sand nailed down

  by beating silver

  nailed

  by live nails

  Sand is not crucified

  only people

  only animals

  3

  These creatures

  cruciform.

  To make life.

  In the act of life

  murder

  people with pails

  4

  Silver

  on silver

  birth

  and

  murder

  Not birth

  conception

  5

  Seawave

  moon

  seasand

  at the moment of life

  They throw themselves

  million silver

  upon making

  Whether or not

  people with pails

  SACRED LAKE

  some flushed-earth-color pueblo

  holding the long-light sunset

  shadows go into this ground

  the mountain lifting the lake

  in an orante gesture

  like the men

  in their white shirt-sleeves

  in the basement of the Planetarium

  the mailman the policeman the highschool-teacher

  these winter evenings making their own telescopes

  they hold them up to test them the only way

  against a ray of light in a gesture of offering.

  This long wide gorge and mesa make the gesture

  holding each man up against sunset light

  and holding Blue Lake up.

  3 Northern Poems

  SONGS OF THE BARREN GROUNDS

  Eskimo Songs translated by Paul Radin and Muriel Rukeyser

  1 THE OLD DAYS

  Song-calling,

  Breathing deep, my heart laboring,

  Calling the song.

  Hearing the news:

  Faraway villages in their

  Terrible fishing seasons,

  Breathing deep and

  Calling the song;

  Come down, song.

  Now I forget

  The laboring breast,

  I remember the old days:

  My strength, butchering

  Caribou bulls,

  Calling the song—

  I call the song.

  Three bulls butchered

  While the sun climbed morning—

  I call the song

  Breathing deep

  —Aya ayee—

  Calling the song.

  2 INLAND, AWAY

  Inland, away

  Grieving I know I

  Shall not leave again

  This bench, this place.

  Wanderwishing troubles me:

  Going inland, going away.

  My thoughts keep playing with a thing that seems

  Animal flesh

  And yet I know I

  Shall not leave again

  This bench, this place.

  Feeling the old wish to go

  Inland, away.

  Here I am, I—

  Never again to go out with the rest.

  I was the one who shot them down, both:

  The widespread antlers, old caribou,

  And the young one too.

  Once

  When heaven-twilight

  Lay over the land—

  —Aya
, yee, ya.—

  All this, unforgotten,

  All my fantasy,

  That hunting, and my fortunes,

  That caribou and calf,

  While all the earth

  Whitened with snow.

  Inlandaway.

  Inlandaway.

  3 I'M HERE AGAIN

  I'm here again—

  What's the matter? Want to say something?

  Something I heard told around:

  I'm here to tell,

  I'm here to tell,

  I'm here to tell

  How you and your

  Uncle's

  Younger sister

  Went to bed.

  Just at the coming of the great springtime.

  I'm here to tell,

  I'm here to tell,

  I'm here to tell,

  You sure have been fucking, you two.

  What do you say now? How about it?

  “Open your legs now, nice and wide!”

  When you got there, hard,

  How was she?

  I'm here again.

  Here I am.

  4 NOT MUCH GOOD

  I'm not much good at any of this.

  Is the song too long, is the song too long?

  He wanted his sister, he did he did—

  That's what they said that people said.

  Well you rascal, you rascal you.

  Think I'd sing a pack of lies,

  Lies about a fellow who never

  Made a pass at his little sister?

  Well you rascal, you rascal you—

  Know what they said, they said you did?

  Came sneaking in to your little sister,

  Sneaked in to screw your little sister.

  Know what she asked you?

  “Well, what you doing?”

  Pretty silly, you looked—

  Sneaking in, to screw his sister!

  ….To show him up

  I'm singing this song.

  5 MY BREATH

  A song I sing, strong I sing.

  Helpless as my own child, ever since last fall.

  My house and my wife, I wish they were gone.

  With me, she's with a worthless man;

  Her man should be strong as winter ice.

  I am bedridden and

  I wish she were gone.

  Do we know ourselves?

  Beasts of the hunt! Can I remember one?

  Faintly remembering the polar bear,

  White back high, head lowered, charging,

  Sure he was the one male there,

  Full speed at me.

  Had me down again and again—

  He didn't lie over me, he went away.

  Hadn't expected another male there

  At the edge of the ice-floe

  He knew who he was, he rested.

  I can never forget the fjord-seal

  On the sea ice; I killed it early

  When my comrades, my land-sharers

  Were just waking.

  Reaching the breathing-hole,

  I discovered it,

  And then I was standing over the hole—

  I hadn't scratched the ice, the firm ice,

  And the bear hooked under—

  It heard me, that good seal, that cunning seal.

  And just tasting my disappointment if I lost it

  I caught it with my harpoon head!

  My house and wife are here.

  I have no oil for her lamp and spring has come,

  Dawn gives way to dawn; when will I be well?

  My house; my wife, by neighbors

  Clothed, by charity

  Eating meat.

  Not my providing; when will I be well?

  Do we know ourselves?

  Little you know of yourself,

  Dawn giving way to dawn.

  Orpingalik

  I RECOGNIZE THIS SONG

  I recognize this little song—

  It's a fellow being.

  Sure, I should be ashamed

  Of the child I carried,

  I've heard

  The neighbors talking—

  Sure, I should be ashamed

  Because his mother

  Wasn't as pure

  As the pure blue sky;

  I got what was coming;

  Gossip will teach him

  And finish his schooling.

  Sure, I should be ashamed

  The child I love won't ever take care of me.

  When others go hunting

  Out on the flat ice

  And far behind, people

  Stand looking at them

  A person feels envy!

  I've just remembered

  Once in wintertime

  At Cross-Eye Island, breaking camp,

  The weather was—Down there

  Footsteps creaked faintly in the snow,

  Sinking. I followed close, like a tame animal.

  Oh, that's the way to be.

  But when the message came

  Of murder done by my son

  I staggered. I could not keep my foothold.

  THE BLACK ONES, THE GREAT ONES

  After the black ones!

  Racing the great ones!

  Over the plain-flowers

  With all my strength.

  Running breakneck

  Forever after

  Horizon-animals.

  Obsessed! They're growing

  Out of the ground!

  The giants! I shot them,

  The great ones, the black ones,

  Faraway

  In the summer-hunting.

  TROUT FISHING

  Well, I'm back again

  To this song—

  Back again, standing over

  My old fishing-place.

  And I'm not one who's good at going back,

  A hook waiting for trout.

  Upstream and up the stream.

  There aren't any trout around here

  Unless you wait.

  I keep saying There aren't many trout this year.

  There are those I eat and those I don't wait for

  Because I give up so soon.

  Upstream and up the stream;

  Well, and it's glorious

  On snowy ice-surfaces

  Walking and walking.

  I can't even go errands—

  I, a falling-down old man.

  Everything else is fine….

  I cannot even make my difficult song,

  For easy birdsong is not given to me,

  Even though I turn to it again,

  And I'm not one who's good at going back.

  O difficult things! And I want everything.

  Ikinilik

  HOW LOVELY IT IS

  How lovely it is to

  Put a little song together.

  Many of mine fail, yes they do.

  How lovely it all is,

  But me, I seldom burn with luck,

  Hunting across the ice, alas.

  How lovely it all is

  To wish and bring it through.

  But again and again

  My wishes slip away!

  How very hard, how very hard it all is, yes, alas.

  Ikinilik

  THE WORD-FISHER

  I know what I want in my words

  But it will not turn into song

  And it's not worth the listening!

  To make my song

  Really good listening,

  That's pretty hard—

  But listen : Some clumsy song…

  Is in the making…

  And is made!

  STROKING SONGS

  A GIRL FOR A BOY—STROKING SONG

  It's still my little big “big brother,” isn't it?

  The one I wanted to make new, isn't it?

  The one I didn't do such a good job on, isn't it?

  I'm going to have to prime my tool again,

  There'll have to be work done in the bag.

  I didn't do a good job, th
at's what the man says now.

  THE BABY ON THE MOUNTAIN—STROKING SONG

  Up against the mountain-side

  The little early-born—

  No stopping-place, no hiding-place

  Pushing it out, pushing it out.—

  White skin, furless skin,

  Great skin of harbor seal,

  Great skin, hanging soft,

  Great skin hanging free.

  Roughened by the east wind

  Pushing pushing,

  I'm sorry, it's only

  The southern winds.

  This is the way we

  This is the way we open it,

  This is the way we

  Make it hard.

  This is the way we

  Stroke the baby,

  Stroking the baby's

  Parts.

  This is the way of the baby's groin,

  This is the way the baby'll marry,

  A real man with a fine one,

  A real man with a darling one.

  Stroking, stroking, stroke the baby.

  THE WIPING MOSS FROM THE RUINS

  Running to me—

  My wiping moss—

  Breakneck from the ruined house.

  Well, a nipple full of milk

  And a fine pot-stone, yes,

  Welcome as the light of spring,

  Welcome as a seal in spring!

  Well, the milk of the nipple, listen,

  Listen : hear them shout

  Where is that milk?

  All the way up from Ipsetaleq.

  Then what, what, what's the matter?

  Pinch you, pinch you, pinch your crotch.

  Falling all over yourself, darling.

  STROKING SONGS, CHILDHOOD SONGS

  BEING BORN

  She was unloaded and delivered to us, glory be!

  Unloaded from her mother, the little one, delivered,

  And we all say Glory Be!

  SHOOTING STAR

  You star up there,

  Starer up there,

  Your fingers up there

  Not holding very tight,

  Not catching—not tight—

  And falling downwards,

  Downwards and falling falling

  Downward down the night.

  4

  BREAKING OPEN

  I come into the room The room stands waiting

  river books flowers you are far away

  black river a language just forgotten

  traveling blaze of light dreams of endurance

  racing into this moment outstretched faces

  and you are far away

  The stars cross over

  fire-flood extremes of singing

  filth and corrupted promises my river

  A white triangle of need

  my reflected face

  laced with a black triangle of need

  Naked among the silent of my own time