As We Know

by John Ashbery

And briefly, but the memory

  Of its signification does not go away.

  Instead of forgetting, we become nicer.

  After which it is time to play.

  The Yellow River (the river,

  Not the novel by I. P. Daly) has suffered a

  Decline in popularity, though it

  Passes through one of the world’s most

  Populous regions. Think about it.

  On the heights, jammed with pagodas

  And temples, the light

  Is starting to recede, the popularity

  That no one wants. But in the flat

  Depths of the gorges, the river is waning

  On. Now no one comes

  To disturb the murk, and the profoundest

  Tributaries are silent with the smell

  Of being alone. How it

  Dances alone, in winter shine

  Or autumn filth. It is become

  Ingrown, and with this

  Passes out of our existence, as we enter

  A new chapter, confused and possibly excited,

  Yet a new one, all the same.

  III

  But I want him here.

  Something is changed without him,

  Something we will go on understanding

  Until he returns to us.

  The sunset is no reflection

  Of its not knowing—even its knowing

  Can be known but is not

  A reflection.

  Sometimes when we see another person

  Walking down a street or

  Standing to one side, we feel

  We ought to go up and speak to that person

  Because they expected to die.

  But we do not, or seldom, speak to strangers.

  It is forbidden

  To have much to do with strangers.

  We can lie, and get along in short periods

  That way, we can go out of our house

  To see what is there, but we can

  Turn around and go back and not speak

  To the others who were there

  No matter who they were.

  We could feel ashamed, on some days

  That it was all brought before

  And we in it,

  That we have not known an edict, and that

  Person knows it too. We are seldom

  Invited by friends, and even less by strangers.

  That is the problem of having too many friends:

  We forget most of them, and just

  When we need them most, they are gone.

  We have no friends at any given

  Moment, or they are gone away.

  However, we do have friends when we need them.

  They are almost always around, the shore

  Has them. The lake recedes

  Toward the close, pale horizon like a bench.

  We were not asked any more

  And now we feel we have given up on them.

  They will never rely on us

  Even if we were to go down, all the way down,

  To them. They might not like us any more.

  But the sunset sees its reflection, and

  In the curve

  Is cured. People, not all, come back

  To us in pairs or threes. And so

  Are festive, the light in the face

  And all people shoo

  You, they are back on the place

  Of the temple, and nothing seems rustic any more.

  They have their own perfume though

  And it keeps growing through the mist.

  The trees—excuse me—keep smiling—are grown

  In the comprehensive materials

  That swim alternately over and under

  Never appreciating any more

  Never stopping to think

  Or ask why things are this way

  And not the way you thought they

  Were going to be

  which would have been nicer.

  The light of some forgotten hell

  Leaves them in a new state of mind, begging

  The question of growth,

  Of additional dampers.

  The prettiness urges

  Far into the body, deep

  Into the coffin of reactions, splitting light

  Into two unequal portions. One

  For me, the other for my things

  Like my memories and the changes I’d

  Want to introduce each time I’d come to a

  Particular one but would turn over instead,

  Disappointed with the other way it’d

  Turn out shoveling no matter what

  Into the boiler to keep that engine going

  And it would all reduce to this or that other

  Blackened memory, always the same, always

  Healthy in spite of it. O who

  Can judge their memories lest they have

  Already been sized up by them?

  But it is April now,

  An air of commerce in things, and I should

  Forget the past and think about

  The flutes and premises of the future, and whether

  A satisfactory sex life was one of the things

  Included in the agenda or somebody forgot it

  Again—just like them—

  And the life of art

  Matters a lot now too, is seen

  To be perhaps the most important of all, slightly

  Overtopping that other, and joy

  Is after all predestined. Isn’t it? I mean,

  Otherwise, what the fuck are we doing

  Here, worrying about it, having it all collapse

  On our heads trying to dig our way out

  Of this sand pit? No,

  It’s got to be preordained, in some way, by

  Someone, otherwise we wouldn’t like it,

  Recognize it as it flies, and sit down casually

  Again, knowing that, as the truth knows

  A true story when it hears one, so we, wandering

  Along the lake again shall hear blossoms

  And imagine radiant blue flamingoes against the sacred sky.

  As for those others, citizens

  Of the great night, freaks, weirdos,

  Commies and pimps: once it was all hers,

  The Queen of Diamonds,

  As they called her. Her real name

  Was Rosine Esterhazy. That’s what she thought.

  Then the war was postponed.

  The boyfriends flooded the fields.

  She thought it was some protection

  Nor was the great night considered especially

  Dangerous.

  The flower fields thriving

  On craft items which can be made

  At night. And for a few years, there is peace.

  We can use this time for changing, shifting

  Back to be a better way

  Into ourselves. These years have become

  A masquerade. Fine! We’ll use that too,

  Drinking toasts to perfect strangers.

  When the winter is over, and the sodden spring

  That goes on even longer, a pitcher of water

  Drawn deep from the well is to be

  The reward and the end of just about everything,

  And joy invades all this. Makes it

  Hard to write about.

  Just a few letters lately, in fact,

  Choruses of praise from outsiders, and I keep

  Dropping my diary different places, forgetting

  What I was talking about, letting it combine

  With the loam and humus, and maybe a quick

  Star-shape of a flower is produced. If not,

  Each of us still has all our work to be done

  In the joy of working so that the even greater joy

  Of the hammock may be tasted later on, and so much

  Of the padding may be appreciated then for what it is,

  Just stuffing, of the kind that is needed


  Everywhere, that keeps the Mozart symphonies

  Apart and gradually leads us, each of us,

  Back to the fragment of sense which is the place

  We started out from. Isn’t it strange

  That this was home all along, and none of us

  Knew it? What could our voyages

  Have been like, that we forgot them so soon?

  What galleons, what freighters were made to appear

  And as sullenly to vanish in the thick foam bearing

  Down from the horizon? What kind of a school

  Is this, that they teach you these things,

  And neglect whatever was important, that we were made to feel

  Around for and so lost our names

  And our dogs and were coming back, back

  Into the commotion under the waterwheels

  So that everything is spinning now, bears

  Very little resemblance to what was supposed to be the entrance to the port, but is now

  Whittled away to almost nothing?

  But I wouldn’t want you to think I

  Cared for anything rather than go home

  In the rain to the crafty islet

  With the gasoline under the cellar

  Roof. Yet betimes

  In the morning stuck with the

  Magic of turning into everything

  Insane amid chimes he breathes and preaches,

  Envy of all but himself Silent,

  The parishioners file out, leaving the last man

  On the quasi-tropical islet; he is left

  As if alone again. No one cares

  For its train—what greasy pebbles and rocks

  It slithered over occupy

  No one’s attention any more and much

  More is in store for the hyenas coupling

  In the wallpaper and much less will have been

  Noted down about this once he returns,

  If ever. We clarify everything,

  Throw it away and then the ranch comes

  To devour our after-need, and what

  Is left is of the kind no one uses.

  Some certified nut

  Will try to tell you it’s poetry,

  (It’s extraordinary, it makes a great deal of sense)

  But watch out or he’ll start with some

  New notion or other and switch to both

  Leaving you wiser and not emptier though

  Standing on the edge of a hill.

  We have to worry

  About systems and devices, there is no

  Energy here no spleen either.

  We have to take over the sewer plans—

  Otherwise the coursing clear water, planes

  Upon planes of it, will have its day

  And disappear. Same goes for business:

  Holed up in some office skyscraper it’s

  Often busy to predict the future for business plans

  But try doing it from down

  In the street and see how far it gets you! You

  Really have to sequester yourself to see

  How far you have come but I’m

  Not going to talk about that.

  I’m fairly well pleased

  With the way you and I have come around the hill

  Ignoring and then anointing its edge even if

  We felt it keenly in the backwind.

  You were a secretary at first until it

  Came time to believe you and then the black man

  Replaced your headlights with fuel

  You seemed to grow from no place. And now,

  Calmed down, like a Corinthian column

  You grow and grow, scaling the high plinths

  Of the sky.

  Others, the tenor, the doctor,

  Want us to walk about on it to see how we feel

  About it before they attempt anything, yet

  In whose house are we? Must we not sit

  Quietly, for we would not do this at home?

  A splattering of trumpets against the very high

  Pockmarked wall and a forgetting of spiny

  Palm trees and it is over for us all,

  Not just us, and yet on the inside it was

  Doomed to happen again, over and over, like a

  Wave on a beach, that thinks it’s had this

  Tremendous idea, coming to crash on the beach

  Like that, and it’s true, it has, yet

  Others have gone before, and still others will

  Follow, and far from undermining the spiciness

  Of this individual act, this knowledge plants

  A seed of eternal endeavor for fear of

  Happening just once, and goes on this way,

  And yet the originality should not deter

  Our vision from the drain

  That absorbs, night and day, all our equations,

  Makes us brittle, emancipated, not men in a word.

  Dying of fright

  In the violet night you come to understand how it

  Looked to the ancestors and what there was about it

  That moved them and are come no closer

  To the divine riddle which is aging,

  So beautiful in the eternal honey of the sun

  And spurs us on to a higher pitch

  Of elocution that the company

  Will not buy, and so back to our grandstand

  Seat with the feeling of having mended

  The contrary principles with the catgut

  Of abstract sleek ideas that come only once in

  The night to be born and are gone forever after

  Leaving their trace after the stitches have

  Been removed but who is to say they are

  Traces of what really went on and not

  Today’s palimpsest? For what

  Is remarkable about our chronic reverie (a watch

  That is always too slow or too fast)

  Is the lively sense of accomplishment that haloes it

  From afar. There is no need

  To approach closely, it will be done from here

  And work out better, you’ll see.

  So the giant slabs of material

  Came to be, and precious little else, and

  No information about them but that was all right

  For the present century. Later on

  We’d see how it might be in some other

  Epoch, but for the time being it was neither

  Your nor the population’s concern, and may

  Have glittered as it declined but for now

  It would have to do, as any magic

  Is the right kind at the right time.

  There is no soothsaying

  Yet it happens in rows, windrows

  You call them in your far country.

  But you are leaving:

  Some months ago I got an offer

  From Columbia Tape Club, Terre

  Haute, Ind., where I could buy one

  Tape and get another free. I accept-

  Ed the deal, paid for one tape and

  Chose a free one. But since I’ve been

  Repeatedly billed for my free tape.

  I’ve written them several times but

  Can’t straighten it out—would you

  Try?

  Sleeping in the Corners of Our Lives

  So the days went by and the nickname caught on.

  It became a curiosity, but it wasn’t curious.

  Afternoon leaves blew against the stale brick

  Surface. Just an old castle. Enjoy it

  While you’re here. And in looking for a more convenient way

  To save one’s soul, one is led up to it like a season,

  And in looking all around, and about, its tome

  Becomes legible in the interstices. A great biography

  That is also a good autobiography, at the station;

  A honeycomb of pages with listings

  Of the tried and true, that radiates

 
Out into what is there, that averages up as wind,

  And settles back into a tepid, modest

  Chamber with its mouse-gray furniture, its redundant pictures.

  This is tall sleeping

  To prepare you for the soup and the ruins

  In giving the very special songs of the first meaning,

  The ones incorporating the changes.

  Silhouette

  Of how that current ran in, and turned

  In the climate of the indecent moment

  And became an act,

  I may not tell. The road

  Ran down there and was afterwards there

  So that no further borrowing

  Of criticism or the desire to add pleasure

  Was ever seen that way again.

  In the blank mouths

  Of your oppressors, however, much

  Was seen to provoke. And the way

  Though discontinuous, and intermittent, sometimes

  Not heard of for years at a time, did,

  Nonetheless, move up, although, to his surprise

  It was inside the house,

  And always getting narrower.

  There is no telling to what lengths,

  What mannerisms and fictitious subterranean

  Flowerings next to the cement he might have

  Been driven. But it all turned out another way.

  So cozy, so ornery, tempted always,

  Yet not thinking in his 1964 Ford

  Of the price of anything, the grapes, and her tantalizing touch

  So near that the fish in the aquarium

  Hung close to the glass, suspended, yet he never knew her

  Except behind the curtain. The catastrophe

  Buried in the stair carpet stayed there

  And never corrupted anybody.

  And one day he grew up, and the horizon

  Stammered politely. The sky was like muslin.

  And still in the old house no one ever answered the bell.

  Many Wagons Ago

  At first it was as though you had passed,

  But then no, I said, he is still here,

  Forehead refreshed. A light is kindled. And

  Another. But no I said

  Nothing in this wide berth of lights like weeds

  Stays to listen. Doubled up, fun is inside,

  The lair a surface compact with the night.

  It needs only one intervention,

  A stitch, two, three, and then you see

  How it is all false equation planted with

  Enchanting blue shrubbery on each terrace

  That night produces, and they are backing up.

  How easily we could spell if we could follow,

  Like thread looped through the eye of a needle,

  The grooves of light. It resists. But we stay behind, among them,

  The injured, the adored.

  As We Know

  All that we see is penetrated by it—