As We Know

by John Ashbery

  But your story isn’t getting boring,

  On the contrary, the slowing-down speeds up the

  Afterthought. We are perverse spelling and punctuation.

  It could not be confirmed

  That the recent violent storms were a part of the pattern

  Of civil calamity that had overtaken the outpost.

  Perhaps they were fatal but parallel,

  Wounds inflicted on a corpse, footnotes

  To the desert, the explosion

  That a quiet, mediocre career is. We read

  Through some Haydn quartet movements last night

  But this morning my hand and heart are heavy, heavy alack.

  The day before yesterday it seemed to me

  That my cherished sorrow was about to depart,

  And yesterday morning too. And now, fatality

  Has overtaken it. The end

  Has been quiet, and no one has told the rabbits

  And dying bees. Finally some warmth

  From the death floated downstream to us,

  Saving a few moments of mildness

  Among the by-now unmanageably thick grease-crayon

  Outline that coagulates like a ball of soot in the air

  Watched by hemophiliac princes, like an orange.

  And as mushrooms spring up

  After great rains have purged the heavens

  Of their terrible delight, so the weight of event

  And counterevent conspired to shift the focus

  Of the scenery away from the action:

  It was always wartime Britain, or some other place

  Dictated by the circumstances, never

  The road leading over the hill

  To yet another home. Rudeness, shabbiness—

  We could have put up with more than a little

  Of these in the hope of getting some bed-rest,

  But a measured calm, maddening in

  Its insularity, always prevailed at the window,

  Priming the hour with anguish, and yet

  It was never any later, there was never anything

  More to do, everybody kept telling you

  To relax until you were ready to scream,

  And now this patient night has infused,

  In whose folds only one soul is awake, in the whole wide world.

  Feeling no need to look at the world through rose-colored glasses,

  To get by on “cuteness,”

  To create large new forms and people them with space,

  You thwart any directions, right or wrong.

  The séduction de l’âme will not take place.

  The long rains in November, November

  Of long rains, silent woods,

  Open like a compass to receive the anomaly,

  Press it back into the damp earth,

  The shadow of a whisper on someone’s lips.

  You can neither define

  Nor erase it, and, seen by torchlight,

  Being cloaked with the shrill

  Savage drapery of non-being, it

  Stands out in the firelight.

  It is more than anything was meant to be.

  Yet somehow mournful, as though

  The three-dimensional effect had been achieved

  At the cost of a crisp vagueness

  That raised one twig slightly higher than the

  Morass of leafless branches that supported it,

  And now, eager, fatigued, it had sunk back

  Below the generally satisfying

  Contours of the rest. It had eaten

  The food you gave it, and kept to itself

  Mainly, in a corner of the pen.

  You never spoke to it except in the kindest

  Tones, and it replied sadly,

  If somewhat politely, and how much, now

  You wish you had kept a record of those exchanges!

  One thing is sure: nothing

  Can replace it; as fatally

  As it was given to you, so now

  It has been removed from you, for your comfort,

  And nothing stands in its place.

  It is not a question of emptiness, only

  Of a place the others never seem to venture,

  A sunken Parnassus.

  There is a slight change, a chance rather

  Of its coming to life at the reunion,

  Amid the automatic greetings, summonses

  From a brazen tongue:

  “And so you thought this

  Was where he brought you, the

  Updated silhouette, late sunlight

  Developed on the tallest slope, to the assignation

  Rumored so often, to a corral

  Shaped like a snowflake, and love

  Blurring each of the points. Yet you

  Stand fast and cannot see

  Where it is leading. And the seducer remains at home.”

  Yet whereto, with damaged wing

  Assay th’empyrean? Scalloped horizon

  Of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land? O land

  Of recently boiling water, witches’

  Misgivings, ships

  Pulling away from piers,

  Already slipping deep into the norm

  Of blue worsted seas? Yet that is just what I did.

  There are always those who think you ought to

  Turn back from dull autumn sunsets like whey in the breeze that escorts

  Us up inclined planes whose appearance, dull too

  At first, is experienced

  As if bathed in magic, when its density,

  “A flash of lightning, seen in passing and very faintly,”

  Stuns the apprehending faculties

  With the perfection of its desire

  Like the scream of the rising moon.

  It is best to abide with minstrels, then,

  To play at least one game

  Seriously. The old-timers will

  Let you take over the old lease.

  One of them will be in you.

  If there were concerts on the water there

  We could turn back. Tar floated upriver

  In the teeth of the gulls’ outlandish manifestations;

  The banks pocked with flowers whose names

  I used to know,

  Before poetic license took over and abolished everything.

  People shade their eyes and wave

  From the strand: to us or someone behind us?

  Just as everything seemed about to go wrong

  The music began; later on, the missing

  Refreshments would be found and served,

  The road turn caramel just as the first stars

  Were putting in a timid appearance, like snowdrops.

  And somehow you found the strength

  To be carried irresistibly away from all this.

  But in the scrapbooks and postcard albums

  Of the land, you are remembered,

  Although you do not figure there,

  And because a train once passed near where

  You spent a night, a tall, translucent

  Monument like a spike has been erected to your memory,

  Only do not go there. One can live

  In the land like a spy without ever

  Trespassing on the mortal, forgotten frontier.

  In the psalms of the invisible chorus

  There is a germ of you that lives like a coal

  Amid the hostile indifference of the land

  That merely forgets you. Your hand

  Is at the heart of its weavings and nestlings.

  You are its guarantee.

  At that moment, fatality

  Or some woman resembling her, angel,

  Goddess, whatever: “the Beautiful Lady”

  Arrives to announce the Brass Age—

  “You are being asked to believe

  No more in the subtle possibilities of silver,

  Which, like the tintinnabulation of an ethereal

  Silver chime, marking an unknown ho
ur

  From a remote, dismal room, no longer

  Promises harvests, only the translucent melancholy

  Of the skies which follow in their wake,

  Pale, greenish blue, with magnificent

  Clouds like overloaded schooners, that dip

  To rise again, higher, and seem

  Endlessly on the move, until they round—

  What? Is there some cape, some destination,

  Some port of debarkation in all this?

  There is only the slow but febrile motion

  Of sky and cloud, a toast, a promise,

  A new diary, until one gets too close

  And becomes oneself part of the meaningless

  Rolling and lurching, so hard to read

  Or hear, and never closer

  To the end or to the beginning: the mimesis

  Of death, without the finality—is

  There anything in this for you?

  Sad, browning flowers, tokens

  Of the wind’s remembering you, damp, rotting

  Nostalgia under a head of twigs or at the end

  Of some log spangled with brand-new, ice-green lichens,

  Dead pine-needles, worthy

  Objects of contemplation if you wish, but there is

  Less comfort but more interest in the drab

  Clear moment that enshrines us

  Now, in this place. No one

  Could mistake this for morning, or afternoon,

  Or the specious perfection of twilight, yet

  It is within us, and the substance

  Of your latest interventions. Therefore, begone!”

  The voice

  Straddled the stone canyon like vapors.

  In the distance one could see oneself, drawn

  On the air like one of Millet’s “Gleaners,” extracting

  This or that from the vulgar stubble, with the roistering

  Of harvesters long extinct, dead for the ear, and in the middle

  Distance, one’s new approximation of oneself:

  A seated figure, neither imperious nor querulous,

  No longer invoking the riddle of the skies, of distance,

  Nor yet content with the propinquity

  Of strangers and admirers, all rapt,

  In attitudes of fascination at your feet, waiting

  For the story to begin.

  All right. Let’s see—How about “The outlook wasn’t brilliant

  For the Mudville nine that day”? No,

  That kind of stuff is too old-hat. Today

  More than ever readers are looking for

  Something upbeat, to sweep them off their feet.

  Something candid but also sophisticated

  With an unusual slant. A class act

  That doesn’t look like a class act

  Is more like ...

  It goes without saying

  That I enjoy

  You as you are,

  The pleasant taste of you.

  You are with me as the seasons

  Circle with us around the sun

  That dates back to the seventeenth century,

  We circling with them,

  United with ourselves and directly linked

  To them, changing as they change,

  Only their changes are always the same, and we,

  We are always a little different with each change.

  But in the end our changes make us into something,

  Bend us into some shape maybe

  No one we would recognize,

  And it is ours, anyway, beyond understanding

  Or even beyond our perception:

  We may never perceive the thing we have become.

  But that’s all right—we have to be it

  Even as we are ourselves. Anyway,

  That’s the way I like you and the way

  Things are going to be increasingly,

  With the seasons a mirror of our indeterminate

  Activities, so that they do end

  In burgeoning leaves and buds and then

  In bare twigs against a Pater-painted

  Sky of gray, expecting snow ...

  How can we know ourselves through

  These excrescences of time that take

  Their cues elsewhere? Whom

  Should I refer you to, if I am not

  To be of you? But you

  Will continue in your own way, will finish

  Your novel, and have a life

  Full of happy, active surprises, curious

  Twists and developments of character:

  A charm is fixed above you

  And everything you do, but you

  Must never make too much of it, nor

  Take it for granted, either. Anyway, as

  I said, I like you this way, understood

  If under-appreciated, and finally

  My features come to rest, locked

  In the gold-filled chain of your expressions,

  The one I was always setting out to be—

  Remember? And now it is so.

  Yet—whether it wasn’t all just a little,

  Well, silly, or whether on the other hand this

  Wasn’t a welcome sign of something

  Human at last, like a bird

  After you’ve been sailing on and on for days:

  How could we tell

  The serene and majestic side of nature

  From the other one, the mocking and swearing

  And smoke billowing out of the ground?

  Because they are so closely and explicitly

  Intertwined that good

  Oftentimes seems merely the necessary

  Attractive side of evil, which in turn

  Can be viewed as the less appealing but more

  Human side of good, something at least

  Which can be appreciated?

  But poetry is making things in the past;

  The past tense transcends and excuses these

  Grimy arguments which fog over as soon as

  You begin to contemplate them. Poetry

  Has already happened. And the agony

  Of looking steadily at something isn’t

  Really there at all, it’s something you

  Once read about; its narrative thrust

  Carries it far beyond what it thought it was

  All het up about; its charm, no longer

  A diversionary tactic, is something like

  Grace, in the long run, which is what poetry is.

  Musing on these things he turned off the

  Great high street which is like a too-busy

  Harbor full of boats knocking against each

  Other, a blatantly cacophonous if stirring

  Symphony, with all its most

  Staggeringly beautiful aspects jammed against

  The lowest motives and inspirations that ever

  Infected the human spirit, into a

  Small courtyard continued by an alley as

  Though a sudden hush or drop in the temperature

  Suddenly fell across him, like steep

  Building-shadows, and he wondered

  What it had all been leading up to. Up there

  Wisps of smoke raced away from grimy

  Chimney pots as though pursued by demons;

  Down here all was yellowing silence and

  Melancholy though not without a secret

  Feeling of satisfaction at having escaped

  The rat race, if only for a time, to plunge

  Into profitless meditations, as threadbare

  As the old mohair coat he had worn from

  Earliest times, and which no one

  Had ever seen him doff, no matter

  What the prevailing meteorological conditions were.

  These were now the fabric

  Of his existence, and fabric was precisely

  What he felt that existence to be: something old

  And useful, useful and useless at the same time.

&n
bsp; I was waiting for a taxi.

  It seemed there were fewer

  Of us now, and suddenly a

  Whole lot fewer. I was afraid

  I might be the only one.

  Then I spotted a young man

  With a guitar over his leg

  And next to him, a young girl

  Seated on the pavement, sitting

  Merely. Not even

  Lost in thought she seemed, but

  Accepting the waiting for it

  Or whatever else might be in the channel

  Of time we were being ferried across.

  Her face was totally devoid of expression

  Yet wore a somehow kind look, so I was glad

  Of it in the deepening fever of the day.

  No sign

  Did she make of interest to her companion

  Who ever and anon did searchingly

  Regard her face, as though to ascertain

  That the signs he wished to read there

  Were indeed not there, that there was nothing

  In her aspect to cause him to change

  And from time to time

  Would stare at his guitar, as though

  Rapt in concentration of what it would be like

  To play something on it, yet

  No stealthy movement of his hand

  Was e’er discerned, no fandango or urgent

  Serenade compelled his trusting back

  To arch in expectation of an air

  Which might have refreshed us all, given

  The gloom of that moment, made us think

  Of past scenes of cheerfulness, and remember

  That they could easily happen again, unless

  The mechanism had jammed, and we

  Were to be tenants forever of a time

  With little to hold the interest, and no

  Promise of relief in movement.

  And afterwards it was as though decay

  Or senility of time had set in.

  The scene changed, of course, and nothing

  Was, again, as once it had been.

  And therefore I do not see how I

  Shall ever be able to acquire again

  My old love of study, for it seems to me

  That even when this infirmity of time

  Has passed, the knowledge

  Will always remain with me that there is one

  Thing more delightful than study, and that once

  I experienced it. And though it was not joy

  But rather something more like the concept of joy,

  I was able to experience it like a fruit

  One peels, then eats. It’s no secret

  That I have learned the things that are

  Truly impossible, and left alone much

  That might have been of profit, and use.

  One destroys so much merely by pausing

  To get one’s bearings, and afterwards

  The scent is lost. To use it

  I must forget the clouds and turn to my book,

  Whose shifting characters, like desert sand