Bradbury, Ray - SSC 18

by When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed (v1. 1)

  I the sword and wound of sword.

  If this be true, then let the sword fall free from hand.

  I embrace myself.

  I laugh until I weep

  And weep until I smile

  Then the two of us, murderer and murdered,

  Guilty and he who is without guile

  Go off to Far Centauri

  To leave off losings, and take on winnings,

  Erase all mortal ends, give birth to only new beginnings,

  In a billion years of morning and a billion years of sleep.

  THIS TIME OF KITES

  The day burns bright;

  The morning, clear,

  Has made its way to noon;

  And all that seems most special and most dear

  Is held encircled by the flaring sun itself.

  This weather is for kites

  Or earthborne people who

  Upon a hill string up their souls

  And send them flying in the glare

  That brings quick tears to eyes

  And warmth to hearts

  Which, knowing autumn,

  Feel the season change

  As birds fly north again

  Against the tide of time and time’s unreason.

  This weather is for children

  Or children-men who, melted by the sun,

  Find need for toys;

  Who stand like boys bedazzled by a sum,

  Who thrive on chalking life on hopscotch walks,

  Stand here, leap there, run fast, stand very still,

  But this now most of all: Be Much Alive.

  So in this time of kites,

  Autumnal springs, toys, men dwarved small again

  In the hot rain

  Of sunlight,

  Take this string,

  Let go with me, let fly the colored paper

  On November’s wind made March,

  And ask with me what color we have flown:

  Does Love put up such flags?

  And if so, are they white?

  Or colored like a hearth gone drowsed and sleepy warm

  Deep into night?

  Does lust fly high or low?

  Some one of us must know;

  In chorus, paired, or giving answer

  Simple and alone,

  Each calling out the color of the kite

  Which flies so high on this clear day ?

  Must name his own.

  IF YOU WILL WAIT JUST LONG ENOUGH,

  ALL GOES

  If you will wait just long enough, all goes;

  Young woman, if you wait, I’ll step away.

  O God, it may well take a dozen years,

  But finally my tears will dry, my passion wander off

  To dust itself in ancient dreams,

  My straight loins wither to dried plum,

  My words go dumb, adroit excuses for rare matinees

  Put unused tickets under pillows,

  If you wait long enough, dear one, yes, if you wait

  My gait and pace will surely slow.

  These are the penalties of age:

  That sweet rage dies, that shouts tide down to whispers

  And that whispers still themselves in flesh,

  That the cogs of love-mad beast no longer even try to mesh,

  That suddenly long morning sleeps and naps in afternoon

  Are much preferred to wrestling and to luncheon gymnast feats,

  That nibbled sweets of thigh no longer seem

  The center of the day. They simply idiot-maunder off away

  Leaving one stunned to wonder and to doubt.

  Why shout of jealousy, why envy of another’s size?

  What prize was that which lay beneath one’s chest?

  Why wrest such sweetmeats, why that young girl’s cries?

  Why melt her eyes and yours with happy tears,

  Why sighs and cheers and lamentations over endless brawls,

  Why squalls and calms, then fiercer storms of must,

  Why gusts of meat-machismo, mask-bravado, super-male?

  Why flail and torment, doubt: to seed or not to seed?

  Why endless need cupped close in need in nest of need?

  Sweet Christ, what was it all about?

  And was it Aristotle who awoke one morn,

  Looked down and gave a shout of glad release

  And ran to show the servants so they all might see,

  The pendant thing hung cold and not aroused,

  So down the chamber aisles he cried:

  “I’m free! O God, at last, I’m free!”

  Well, what a shame.

  Or, also, knowing lust, who can blame him?

  Yet, oh, it’s hard to think that one day all the gods

  Will truly pack, depart and leave Olympus in the rain,

  That falling down erosions will slide flesh

  To ruin in the dusk-lit sea,

  As even high gods sink and founder in the soul

  And vanish out of sight,

  So nights fill now with only dreams,

  Remembrance of a time when stallions pissed the air

  And brought the mares encircled to their thrust,

  When lust was every breath you gave or took,

  When earthquakes shook your flanks,

  And thrived her blooded subterrane with this and this

  and this!

  Again, again, again!

  No more.

  Whatwas all that?

  Now you, young woman,

  Lovely one curled there, cat-feet tucked under;

  Your rare June earth sweet-welcoming this wry

  November’s snow,

  You, now, you!

  What, what, oh, God, oh, what—

  (Help me remember!) please!

  What’s your name…?

  FOR A DAUGHTER, TRAVELING

  The child goes far in worlds within a world,

  The girl goes far in green within a green,

  That English land where all her blood was born

  And rivers run to sea in summers washed by rain and sun.

  My light and flesh look out her eye aware

  And live I in another time and splendid place;

  My face somewhat looks lost.

  And hidden from within her face,

  And mingled there, my awe and ingasped worshipping

  Do travel far because of her…

  I visit there with grace,

  I know the crossroads of all time,

  I wander where the weather is both cold and warm.

  To wake at nights near Blenheim where the storm

  Is like old battles and artilleries drowned deep

  In leafage from another year;

  I gather flowers by serenities of stream

  And touch old stones gone green with velveteens of moss,

  Soft edge to granite toothings of an ancient dream.

  I stay, I go, one flesh is here, the other wanders there,

  My older self kept spelled by California airs

  My younger, garden-lost in Britain’s maze,

  But what a joy such days of lostness be!

  How wondrous to be lovely-puzzled endlessly!

  The sum and thought is good: that even when I stay I go,

  Gone quiet here, my other self

  Stands even much more silent still,

  That one more mystery of myself,

  That girl run round the wide circumference of earth

  Dares take a step, a step, another step,

  And then, behold!

  All that was gray at sunset

  Mints itself to gold;

  All that was cold

  Is for a moment, on the hearth of evening, kindled warm.

  This self, stayed here, calls out a prayer

  And asks a promise from the world:

  To keep my other lost and wandering self from harm.

  OLD MARS, THEN BE A HEARTH TO US

  Why, damn it all,

  You once werefull of life
!

  It dripped and fell from off your ruddy edges into Space!

  Long years before our time

  When dreaming tribes of men lurched in dim caves

  And burnt their paws at fires newly made,

  They eyed your blazing shape far up the sky

  October nights and wondered what you were.

  The Greeks, they wondered too,

  And so along the line to men who grouped

  With Galileo or some-such

  Confirmed or dis-established you.

  While authors, later on, competed to outfit your latitudes

  And longitudes with peoples some bleached fair

  And others green,

  And some with gills, by God, and others saffron gone astride

  Rare beasts with spider legs;

  Some hatched from eggs because dear Mr. Burroughs wrote it so!

  While others snatched quadruple swords,

  One for each arm and hand.

  Great gods in multiples, oh what a land you were,

  Yes, what a land! We all of us, as boys, stretched minds in orchestras of need,

  First one, and then another and another

  So, signaling, we hoped that you might mother us,

  Pull us like teeth, yank soul from body,

  Spirit raw from bloody dreaming flesh

  Across the void to land us safe in dust

  To run in childish tides among blue hills!

  Such thrills were common and from such common stuff

  We made up armies of romancers who, full-grown,

  Built metal thus to underpin the dreams

  And so as astronauts strode forth on fire

  And found a moon much less than halfway up to you.

  For now, inadequate, ‘twill do, oh, yes, ‘twill do.

  While we save up our spit to make another try

  On some day soon this side of century’s end,

  Put landfall down and self-destruct the dream

  That caused us to commence.

  Some few days hence we will set out, the boys-grown-men

  And shuttle us forever back and forth again

  Between your far red beacon light

  And green and blue and white and mortal Earth.

  Our mirth will answer all,

  Our laughter in the face of, Nothing’s smile

  Will ring across the abyss mile on light-year mile.

  Old Mars, then be a hearth to us some little space

  Before we leave your nest to start again a race

  That we must win completely or be lost,

  And, winning, gain Forever, so not count the cost.

  Three billion lights extinguished if one light but stays?

  One last light, yes, to touch the fuse and detonate

  Three billion unborn men to life, to fire forth

  Three billion years of everlasting joys and endless days.

  Old Mars, can you help out with this?

  Why, can boys piss?

  And write their destinies across the skies?

  Their names in sand as well as stars?

  Oh, yes!

  …and cross the t’s.

  …and dot the i’s.

  THE THING THAT GOES BY NIGHT:

  THE SELF THAT LAZES SUN

  Night shades a side of me

  Which leans unto the North

  And calls upon a polar wind to hair my spine

  And fills my lungs with dread

  That part of me, half-dead,

  A left-hand sort of thing gone claw

  Is creep and crawler on my bed;

  By night I feel my spider hand cup blood

  And move of its own itching pride

  To throttle up my soul.

  Then I have need of sun and my warmed Southern self,

  My right hand called from noon

  To wrestle with the dark,

  To tromp the spidered clutch,

  Let loose my soul in brighter gasps of climes

  More yellow and more perfect

  Than a Savior’s exhalations.

  So noon and midnight’s self cell up in one wild flesh

  And own me, each in its own time,

  Or turnabout and own me in an instant fused

  Where black and white twins mix to make a perfect paint

  To color out my mask and make a curious sight

  Within a mirror’s gaze prolong themselves

  Half nights, half days.

  What man is that? I ask,

  Which singer of what song?

  And image answers back:

  The Thing That Goes By Night:

  The Self That Lazes Sun.

  Both answers wrong.

  GROON

  What is the Groon?

  My young dog said.

  What is the Groon;

  Is it live, is it dead?

  Did it fall from the Moon,

  Has it arms, legs, or head?

  Does it walk,

  Or shamble and amble or stalk?

  Does it grumble or mumble or whisper like snow?

  Is it dust, is it fluff?

  Is it snuff

  For a ghost that will sneeze itself inside-out,

  Then, outside-in, turnabout!?

  Can it walk on the wall?

  Will it rise, stay, or fall?

  Does it moan, groan, and grieve?

  What tracks does it leave

  When it walks in the dust

  And makes prints by the light,

  By the moldy old light of the Moon?

  What’s the Groon?

  Is it he, she, or it?

  Does it sprawl, crawl, or sit?

  Is it shaped like a craw or a claw or a hoof?

  Does it tread like a toad in the road

  Or mingle on the shingle-high path

  Of our roof?

  There, aloof, does it tap in the night

  And go down out of sight in the rain-funnel spout?

  Is it strange going in,

  But even more strange coming out?

  Has it shadows to spare?

  Is it rare?

  Does it croon for a loved one, oh,

  Much like itself

  Put away on a shelf

  In a grave or a tomb

  Where it shuttles a loom,

  Spins new shapes for itself

  Made of moon-moss and lint,

  Sparked with Indian flint

  Struck from Indian graves

  Where old Indian braves

  Put their bones up on stilts

  Where their mummy-dust silts

  Join the corn-stalks in dance;

  And the wind off the hills

  Chills wild smokes torn from rooves

  And the dust churned from hooves

  Of ghost horses stormed by

  In the middle of night—

  What a sight! what a sight!

  Isthis, then, the Groon?

  &nbap;

  Is it old as the Sphinx?

  Is it dreadful, methinks?

  Is it Dire, is it Awe?

  Does it stick in your craw?

  Is it smoke or mere chaff?

  Do you whimper or laugh

  At this skin of a snake left to blow on the road?

  Is it cool-iced hoptoad or deep midnight frog

  That goesSplash! if you jump?

  Does it… bump… ‘neath your bed

  Near the head or the toe?

  When it’s there,is it there?

  When it’s gone, where’s it go?

  What’s the Croon?

  Tell me soon…

  For the Moon’s growing older,

  And the wind’s growing colder,

  And the Croon? It grows larger and bolder!

  And darker and stranger!

  Mysoul is in danger!

  For there creep its hands

  Twitched from shadowy lands,

  Reaching out now to touch

  And to hold and to… clutch!

 
&nsp;

  Quick, sunlight, bring Noon!

  Fight shadows, fight Moon!

  Give me morning, bright sun!

  Then my battle is won.

  For the Groon cannot fight

  What is Sun, what is Light!

  It will wither away

  With the dawn, with the day!

  But… !

  … come back… next midnight

  With its scare… and its fright..

  Once again we will croon:

  What’s the Groon!

  What’s… the… Groon…?

  THAT WOMAN ON THE LAWN

  Sometimes, gone late at night,

  I would awake and hear

  My mother in another year and place

  Out walking on the lawn so late

  It must have been near dawn yet dark it was

  The only light then in the gesture of the stars

  Which wheeled around in motionings so soft

  They took your breath to see; and there upon the grass

  Like ghost with dew-washed feet she was

  A maid again, alone, quite singular, so young.

  I wept to see her there so strange,

  So unrelate to me, so special to herself,

  So untouched by the world, so evanescent, free,

  With something wild come up in cheeks

  And red to lips, and flashing in the eyes;

  It frightened me.

  Why should she wander out without permit,

  Permission saying go or do not go

  From us or any other…?

  Was she, or My God, wasn’t she our mother?

  How dare she walk, a virgin, fresh once more

  Within a night that hid her face,

  How dare displace us in her thoughts and will?!

  And sometimes even still, late nights,

  I think I hear her soft tread on the sill

  And wake to see her cross the lawn

  Gone wild with wishing, dreaming, wanting

  And crouched down there until dawn,

  Washing her hair with wind,

  Paying no mind to the cold,

  Waiting for some bold strange man

  To rise up like the sun

  And strike her beauteous-blind!

  And weeping I call out to her;

  Oh, young girl there,

  Oh, sweet girl in the dawn!

  I do not mind, no, no.

  I do not mind.

  FROM AN ANCIENT LOCOMOTIVE

  PASSING THROUGH LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT

  Far Rockaway…

  It seems a state of mind

  And not a place.

  Is it the Country of the Blind or merely

  One more face lost in a fog upon a stretch of sand

  That, near the sea, squanders itself in rock