by John Ashbery
Betray my own fatigue, and loss
Of time, that ever, with nervous, accurate fingers
Cross-hatches the shade in the corner
Of the piazza where I stand, and leave
The lighted areas scarcely perforated, almost
Pristine. Lovers in parked cars
Undulated like the sensibility that refrigerates
Me at those times: and who
Could pick up the pieces, over and over?
Yes, it was a fine gift that you sent
Me, your book, wherein I could read
The very syllables of your soul, as dark-arched
And true as any word
You ever grunted, and whose truant
Punctuation resumed again the thread
Of what is outside, outdoors, and brought
It all ingeniously around to the beginning again
As a fountain swipes and never misses
The basin’s fluted edge. But how in
Heck can I get it operating again? Only
Yesterday it was in perfect working order
And now the thing has broken down again.
Autumn rains rust it. And their motion
Attacks my credulity also, and all seems lost.
Yet fences were not ever built to last:
A year or two and all is blown away
And no trace can be found.
As a last blessing
Bestow this piece of shrewd, regular knowledge
On me who hungers so much for something
To calm his appetite, not food necessarily—
The pattern behind the iris that lights up
Your almost benevolent eyelash: turn
All this anxious scrutiny into some positive
Chunk to counteract the freedom
Of too much speculation. Tell me
What is on your mind, and do not explain it away.
“The egrets are beginning their annual migration.
From the banks of the Hag River a desolate
Convoy issues, like a directional pointing hand.
There is a limit to what the wilderness
Can accomplish on its own, and meanwhile,
Back in civilization, you don’t seem to be
Doing too well either: those flying
Bits of newspaper and plastic bags scarce
Bode better for him who sits and picks at
The secret, when suddenly
The meaning knocks him down, a light bulb
Appears in a balloon above his head: it had nothing
To do with what the others were thinking, what
Energies they poured into the mould of their
Collective statement. It was only
As a refugee from all this that living
Were possible if at all, but it cast no shadow,
No reflection in the mirror, and was nervous
And waifed, so strong was the shuttle
Of accurate presentiment plying directly
Between it and the discarded past. Playing
A game is the only way to see it through, and have it
Finally integral, but the matter is that
This is somewhere else: its rails
Run deep into the leafy wilderness, sink
And disappear under moss and slime
Long before the end is reached. It’s a crime,
And meanwhile your velvet portrait presides,
Benevolent as Queen Anne, over the scene
Below, and at no point
Do reality and your joyous truth coincide.”
So sang one who was in prison, and the erosion
Process duly left its mark
On the wall:
Only a wan, tainted shadow leaned
Down from the place where it had been.
The eroding goes on constantly in the brain
Where its music is softest, a lullaby
On the edge of a precipice where the whole movement
Of the night can be seen:
How it begins, undresses, and disappears
In hollows before the level is seen to rise.
And then we are in a full, static music,
Violent and spongy as bronze, but
There is no need, no chance to examine
The accidents of the surface that stretches away
Forever, toward the ultramarine gates
Of the horizon of this tidal basin, and beyond,
Pouring silently into the vast concern
Of heaven, in which the greatest explanation
Is but a drop in the bucket of eternity;
Mon rêve.
But why, in that case,
Whispered the petitioner, pushing her
Magenta lips close to the thick wire mesh
That separated them, rubbing
Her gloved hand athwart it as though
Devoured now by curiosity, can God
Let the eroding happen at all, since it is all,
As you say, horizontal, without
Beginning or end, and seamless
At the horizon where it bends
Into a past which has already begun? In
Truth, then, if we are particles of anything
They must belong to our conception
Of our destiny, and be as complete as that.
It’s like we were children again: the bicycle
Sighs and the stars pecking at the sky
Are unconstrained in spite of the distance:
The blanket buries us in a joyous tumult
Of indifference when night is
Blackest
So that we grow up again as we were taught to do
Before that. With the increase of joy
The sorrow is precipitated out, and life takes on
An uncanny resemblance to the photograph of me
That everybody said was terrible, only now it is real
And cannot be photographed.
It was nice of you to love me
But I must be thinking about getting back
Over the mountain
That divides day from night:
Visions more and more restless
All now sunk in black of Egypt.
The enduring obloquy of a gaze struck
The new year, cracking it open
At the point where people and animals, each busy
With his own thoughts, wandered away
In unnamed directions. If there is a fire,
I thought, why single out the glares
Impaling those least near it
In such a way as to reflect them back
On its solid edifice? But here
In a tissue of starlight, each is alone and valid.
You can stand up to breathe
And the garment falling around you is history,
Someone’s, anyway, some perfectly accessible,
Reasonable assessment of the recent past, which
With its pattern dips into the shadow of the folds
To re-emerge and be striking on the crest
Of them somewhere, and thus serves
Twice over, as plan and decoration,
A garden plunged in sun seen through a fixed lattice
Of regrets and doubts, pinned there
For a variety of good reasons, alive, stupid
As a sail stunned in a vast haze,
Perfect for you. And you rise
Imperfect and beautiful as a second, a continent
Whose near coast alone can be seen, but
Which makes up for that in the strength of the confusion
Building behind it, and is at rest.
And I’ll tell you why:
The elaborate indifference of some people, of some person
Far out on the curve
Is always rescued by another person
And this will be some forgotten day three years ago
At today’s prices. The tensions, overlaid,
Superimposed, produ
ce an effect of “character”
And quizzical harmony, like the outdoors.
But on death’s dark river,
On the demon’s charcoal-colored heaths
Where the luscious light never falls, but fluffy
Cinders are falling everywhere, the persons
Gesture hurriedly at each other from a distance.
Surely this is no time to play dumb, or dead, but
A directive has not been issued.
At the plant they know no more about it than you do
Here, and in the dump behind
They are singing of something else, trilling surely
But no one any longer can make any sense of it.
It is as though you had paid the bills
But the sun keeps writhing: “For this
I gave apples unto the tawny couch-grass, kept ledgers
In my time, as you do in yours?
That a badger with a trumpet on a far tussock
May rake in the calls, and none of it
Ever gets distributed to the poor, which I had stipulated
As being part of the deal? And who are we poor workers?
Not much surely, but we were
Just getting over the shock of dispossession
When this happened, and now this on top of it.
Who is any the wiser? What are we to make of
What now appears to be our lot, though we did nothing
To deserve it? Our efforts were in some way
Directed at a greater good, though we never forgot
Our own interests, as long as they harmed no one.
And now we are cast out like a stone. Surely
The sun knows something I do not know
Although I am the sun.”
And slowly
The results are brought in, and are found disappointing
As broken blue birds’-eggs in a nest among rushes
And we fall away like fish from the Grand Banks
Into the inky, tepid depths beyond. It is said
That this is our development, but no one believes
It is, but no one has any authority to proceed further.
And we keep chewing on darkness like a rind
For what comfort it can give in the crevices
Between us, like those between your eyes
When you speak sideways to me, and I cannot
Hear you, though farther out there are those
Who hear you and are encouraged, and their effort
Brightens on the side of the mountain.
“I haven’t seen him since I’ve been here”—and I,
All liking and no indifference, transfixed
By the macaronic, like a florist, weary and slippy-eyed,
Athwart blooms, compose, out of what the day provides,
Mindful of teasing and subtle pressures put,
Yet careful to seize the pen first. “What
Have you been up to?” Well, this time has been very good
For my working, the work is progressing, and so
I assume it’s been good for you too, whose work
Is also doubtless coming along, indeed, I know so
From the sudden aging visible in both of us, tired
And cozy around the eyes, as the work prepares to take off.
Anyway, I am the author. I want to
Talk to you for a while, teach you
About some things of mine, some things
I’ve put away, more still that I remember
With a tinge of sadness, even
Regret around the sunset hour, that puts these
Things away, jettisons ’em, pulls the plug
On ’em, the carpet out from under their feet:
Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes
Wanly soliciting passersby, but without much
Hope of interest. Nevertheless, the
Things I want to visit with you about
Are important to me. I’ve kept them so long!
Zephyrs are one. How
Idly they played around me, around
My wrists, even in the bygone time!
And pictures—
Pictures of capes and peninsulas
With big clouds moving down on them,
Pressing with a frightening weight—
And shipwrecks barely seen (sometimes
Not seen at all) through the snow
In the foreground, and howling, ravenous gales
In the background. Almost all landscapes
Are generous, well proportioned, hence
Welcome. We feel we have more in common with a
Landscape, however shifty and ill-conceived,
Than with a still-life: those oranges
And apples, and dishes, what have they to do
With us? Plenty, but it’s a relief
To turn away from them. Portraits, on the other
Hand, are a different matter—they have no
Bearing on the human shape, their humanitarian
Concerns are foreign to us, who dream
And know not we are humane, though, as seen
By others, we are. But this is about people.
Right. That’s why landscapes are more
Familiar, more what it’s all about—we can see
Into them and come out on the other side. With
People we just see another boring side of ourselves,
One we may not know too well, but on the other
Hand why should we be interested in it? Better
The coffee pot and sewing basket of a still-life—
It’s more human, if you want, I mean something
A human is more likely to be interested in
Than pictures of human beings, no matter how well drawn
And sympathetic-looking. However, as the author
Of this, I want to buy a certain picture,
A still-life in fact, from a man who has one
And need the permission of the man
In order to do so. Unless I can acquire it
I can never feel the point of any of this. Oh,
I can see it intellectually, all right, but to really
Feel it, experience it, I have to have the picture.
That’s all. I’d hate to give it up.
To be consigned to this world
Of life, a sea-world
Which forms, shapes,
Faces probably decorate—
It is all as you had suspected
All along, my dear.
They proliferate slowly, build,
Then clog, and in weathering
Become a foundation of sorts
For what is afterwards to be erected
On this plot of unfinal ecstasies—
Benign, in sum. They don’t just go away, either.
But like a hollow tower
Let in some sun, and keep the wind
Far hence; whatever can destroy
Us loses, but it’s pretty hard to say
How far we have come, how much accomplished
And whether there’s a lot more to be said:
But for stretches at a time of life the outlined
Masks and scabbards which are our vague
Impression of what is probably going on
All around us, keep us distracted,
From playing and working too hard.
And yet life is not really for the squeamish either.
The hyacinths are dying
At the end of a broad blue day
Whose words somehow have not touched you.
Mad to sacrifice next to them
In late life, you were “just looking”
Instead when the uneasy feeling that a jewel
Might someday be around crossed you
But I can’t figure out
What ever happened. You treasured it,
I contain you, and there are a few clouds
Down near the baseboard of the room that prevent
Us from ever continuing our conversation
About the terrible lake that exists behind us.
Piss and destruction
Are the order of the day, the office blues,
The Monday morning smiling through tears
That never come.
Partly because you always expect the impossible,
But also because here, on the level of personal
Life, it becomes easier to say, nay, think
The transversals that haven’t stopped
Defining our locus, have indeed only begun
To, you are invited, and cannot refuse,
To share this wall
Of painted wooden tulips, the wooden clouds
In the sky behind it, to feel the intensity
As it is there. Good news travels fast
But what about the news you forgot
To tell until now, so we can’t tell
All that much about it? Well, it joins us.
The ground is soaked with tears.
The tears of centuries are being wiped away.
The tower is beaded with sweat that
Has smiled down on our effort
For so long.
The lovers saunter away.
It is a mild day in May.
With music and birdsong alway
And the hope of love in the way
The sleeve detaches itself from the body
As the two bodies do from the throng of gay
Lovers on the prowl that do move and sway
In the game of sunrise they play
For stakes no higher than the gray
Ridge of loam that protects the way
Around the graveyard that sexton worm may
Take to the mound Death likes to stay
Near so as to be able to slay
The lovers who humbly come to pray
Him to pardon them yet his stay
Of execution includes none and they lay
Hope aside and soon disappear.
Yet none is in disrepair
And soon, no longer in fear
Of the flowers their arrears
Vanish and each talks gaily of his fear
That is in the past whose ear
Has been pierced by the flowers and the air
Is now contagious to him
He walks by the sea wall
With a mate or lover and all
The waves stand on tiptoe around the ball
Of land where they all are.
Thus, by giving up much,
The lovers have lost less than
The average man.
No bird of paradise flies up
With an explosive cry at his touch,
The lover’s, yet all
Are made whole in the circle that rounds
Him, filled the whole time with sweet sounds.
It is not the disrepair of these lives
Where we may find the key to all that gives
Eloquence and truth to our passing thoughts,
And shapes them as a shipwright shapes
