Faithful and Virtuous Night
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Parable
An Adventure
The Past
Faithful and Virtuous Night
Theory of Memory
A Sharply Worded Silence
Visitors from Abroad
Aboriginal Landscape
Utopia
Cornwall
Afterword
Midnight
The Sword in the Stone
Forbidden Music
The Open Window
The Melancholy Assistant
A Foreshortened Journey
Approach of the Horizon
The White Series
The Horse and Rider
A Work of Fiction
The Story of a Day
A Summer Garden
The Couple in the Park
Also by Louise Glück
Copyright
PARABLE
First divesting ourselves of worldly goods, as St. Francis teaches,
in order that our souls not be distracted
by gain and loss, and in order also
that our bodies be free to move
easily at the mountain passes, we had then to discuss
whither or where we might travel, with the second question being
should we have a purpose, against which
many of us argued fiercely that such purpose
corresponded to worldly goods, meaning a limitation or constriction,
whereas others said it was by this word we were consecrated
pilgrims rather than wanderers: in our minds, the word translated as
a dream, a something-sought, so that by concentrating we might see it
glimmering among the stones, and not
pass blindly by; each
further issue we debated equally fully, the arguments going back and forth,
so that we grew, some said, less flexible and more resigned,
like soldiers in a useless war. And snow fell upon us, and wind blew,
which in time abated—where the snow had been, many flowers appeared,
and where the stars had shone, the sun rose over the tree line
so that we had shadows again; many times this happened.
Also rain, also flooding sometimes, also avalanches, in which
some of us were lost, and periodically we would seem
to have achieved an agreement, our canteens
hoisted upon our shoulders; but always that moment passed, so
(after many years) we were still at that first stage, still
preparing to begin a journey, but we were changed nevertheless;
we could see this in one another; we had changed although
we never moved, and one said, ah, behold how we have aged, traveling
from day to night only, neither forward nor sideward, and this seemed
in a strange way miraculous. And those who believed we should have a purpose
believed this was the purpose, and those who felt we must remain free
in order to encounter truth felt it had been revealed.
AN ADVENTURE
1.
It came to me one night as I was falling asleep
that I had finished with those amorous adventures
to which I had long been a slave. Finished with love?
my heart murmured. To which I responded that many profound discoveries
awaited us, hoping, at the same time, I would not be asked
to name them. For I could not name them. But the belief that they existed—
surely this counted for something?
2.
The next night brought the same thought,
this time concerning poetry, and in the nights that followed
various other passions and sensations were, in the same way,
set aside forever, and each night my heart
protested its future, like a small child being deprived of a favorite toy.
But these farewells, I said, are the way of things.
And once more I alluded to the vast territory
opening to us with each valediction. And with that phrase I became
a glorious knight riding into the setting sun, and my heart
became the steed underneath me.
3.
I was, you will understand, entering the kingdom of death,
though why this landscape was so conventional
I could not say. Here, too, the days were very long
while the years were very short. The sun sank over the far mountain.
The stars shone, the moon waxed and waned. Soon
faces from the past appeared to me:
my mother and father, my infant sister; they had not, it seemed,
finished what they had to say, though now
I could hear them because my heart was still.
4.
At this point, I attained the precipice
but the trail did not, I saw, descend on the other side;
rather, having flattened out, it continued at this altitude
as far as the eye could see, though gradually
the mountain that supported it completely dissolved
so that I found myself riding steadily through the air—
All around, the dead were cheering me on, the joy of finding them
obliterated by the task of responding to them—
5.
As we had all been flesh together,
now we were mist.
As we had been before objects with shadows,
now we were substance without form, like evaporated chemicals.
Neigh, neigh, said my heart,
or perhaps nay, nay—it was hard to know.
6.
Here the vision ended. I was in my bed, the morning sun
contentedly rising, the feather comforter
mounded in white drifts over my lower body.
You had been with me—
there was a dent in the second pillowcase.
We had escaped from death—
or was this the view from the precipice?
THE PAST
Small light in the sky appearing
suddenly between
two pine boughs, their fine needles
now etched onto the radiant surface
and above this
high, feathery heaven—
Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine,
most intense when the wind blows through it
and the sound it makes equally strange,
like the sound of the wind in a movie—
Shadows moving. The ropes
making the sound they make. What you hear now
will be the sound of the nightingale, chordata,
the male bird courting the female—
The ropes shift. The hammock
sways in the wind, tied
firmly between two pine trees.
Smell the air. That is the smell of the white pine.
It is my mother’s voice you hear
or is it only the sound the trees make
when the air passes through them
because what sound would it make,
passing through nothing?
FAITHFUL AND VIRTUOUS NIGHT
My story begins very simply: I could speak and I was happy.
Or: I
could speak, thus I was happy.
Or: I was happy, thus speaking.
I was like a bright light passing through a dark room.
If it is so difficult to begin, imagine what it will be to end—
On my bed, sheets printed with colored sailboats
conveying, simultaneously, visions of adventure (in the form of exploration)
and sensations of gentle rocking, as of a cradle.
Spring, and the curtains flutter.
Breezes enter the room, bringing the first insects.
A sound of buzzing like the sound of prayers.
Constituent
memories of a large memory.
Points of clarity in a mist, intermittently visible,
like a lighthouse whose one task
is to emit a signal.
But what really is the point of the lighthouse?
This is north, it says.
Not: I am your safe harbor.
Much to his annoyance, I shared this room with my older brother.
To punish me for existing, he kept me awake, reading
adventure stories by the yellow nightlight.
The habits of long ago: my brother on his side of the bed,
subdued but voluntarily so,
his bright head bent over his hands, his face obscured—
At the time of which I’m speaking,
my brother was reading a book he called
the faithful and virtuous night.
Was this the night in which he read, in which I lay awake?
No—it was a night long ago, a lake of darkness in which
a stone appeared, and on the stone
a sword growing.
Impressions came and went in my head,
a faint buzz, like the insects.
When not observing my brother, I lay in the small bed we shared
staring at the ceiling—never
my favorite part of the room. It reminded me
of what I couldn’t see, the sky obviously, but more painfully
my parents sitting on the white clouds in their white travel outfits.
And yet I too was traveling,
in this case imperceptibly
from that night to the next morning,
and I too had a special outfit:
striped pyjamas.
Picture if you will a day in spring.
A harmless day: my birthday.
Downstairs, three gifts on the breakfast table.
In one box, pressed handkerchiefs with a monogram.
In the second box, colored pencils arranged
in three rows, like a school photograph.
In the last box, a book called My First Reader.
My aunt folded the printed wrapping paper;
the ribbons were rolled into neat balls.
My brother handed me a bar of chocolate
wrapped in silver paper.
Then, suddenly, I was alone.
Perhaps the occupation of a very young child
is to observe and listen:
In that sense, everyone was occupied—
I listened to the various sounds of the birds we fed,
the tribes of insects hatching, the small ones
creeping along the windowsill, and overhead
my aunt’s sewing machine drilling
holes in a pile of dresses—
Restless, are you restless?
Are you waiting for day to end, for your brother to return to his book?
For night to return, faithful, virtuous,
repairing, briefly, the schism between
you and your parents?
This did not, of course, happen immediately.
Meanwhile, there was my birthday;
somehow the luminous outset became
the interminable middle.
Mild for late April. Puffy
clouds overhead, floating among the apple trees.
I picked up My First Reader, which appeared to be
a story about two children—I could not read the words.
On page three, a dog appeared.
On page five, there was a ball—one of the children
threw it higher than seemed possible, whereupon
the dog floated into the sky to join the ball.
That seemed to be the story.
I turned the pages. When I was finished
I resumed turning, so the story took on a circular shape,
like the zodiac. It made me dizzy. The yellow ball
seemed promiscuous, equally
at home in the child’s hand and the dog’s mouth—
Hands underneath me, lifting me.
They could have been anyone’s hands,
a man’s, a woman’s.
Tears falling on my exposed skin. Whose tears?
Or were we out in the rain, waiting for the car to come?
The day had become unstable.
Fissures appeared in the broad blue, or,
more precisely, sudden black clouds
imposed themselves on the azure background.
Somewhere, in the far backward reaches of time,
my mother and father
were embarking on their last journey,
my mother fondly kissing the new baby, my father
throwing my brother into the air.
I sat by the window, alternating
my first lesson in reading with
watching time pass, my introduction to
philosophy and religion.
Perhaps I slept. When I woke
the sky had changed. A light rain was falling,
making everything very fresh and new—
I continued staring
at the dog’s frantic reunions
with the yellow ball, an object
soon to be replaced
by another object, perhaps a soft toy—
And then suddenly evening had come.
I heard my brother’s voice
calling to say he was home.
How old he seemed, older than this morning.
He set his books beside the umbrella stand
and went to wash his face.
The cuffs of his school uniform
dangled below his knees.
You have no idea how shocking it is
to a small child when
something continuous stops.
The sounds, in this case, of the sewing room,
like a drill, but very far away—
Vanished. Silence was everywhere.
And then, in the silence, footsteps.
And then we were all together, my aunt and my brother.
Then tea was set out.
At my place, a slice of ginger cake
and at the center of the slice,
one candle, to be lit later.
How quiet you are, my aunt said.
It was true—
sounds weren’t coming out of my mouth. And yet
they were in my head, expressed, possibly,
as something less exact, thought perhaps,
though at the time they still seemed like sounds to me.
Something was there where there had been nothing.
Or should I say, nothing was there
but it had been defiled by questions—
Questions circled my head; they had a quality
of being organized in some way, like planets—
Outside, night was falling. Was this
that lost night, star-covered, moonlight-spattered,
like some chemical preserving
everything immersed in it?
My aunt had lit the candle.
Darkness overswept the land
and on the sea the night floated
strapped to a slab of wood—
If I could speak, what would I have said?
I think I would have said
goodbye, because in some sense
it was goodbye—
Well, what could I do? I wasn’t
a baby anymore.
I found the darkness comforting.
I could see, dimly, the blue and yellow
sailboats on the pillowcase.
I was alone with my brother;
we lay in the dark, breathing together,
the deepest intimacy.
It had occurred to me that all human beings are divided
into those who wish to move forward
and those who wish to go back.
Or you could say, those who wish to keep moving
and those who want to be stopped in their tracks
as by the blazing sword.
My brother took my hand.
Soon it too would be floating away
though perhaps, in my brother’s mind,
it would survive by becoming imaginary—
Having finally begun, how does one stop?
I suppose I can simply wait to be interrupted
as in my parents’ case by a large tree—
the barge, so to speak, will have passed
for the last time between the mountains.
Something, they say, like falling asleep,
which I proceeded to do.
The next day, I could speak again.
My aunt was overjoyed—
it seemed my happiness had been
passed on to her, but then
she needed it more, she had two children to raise.
I was content with my brooding.
I spent my days with the colored pencils
(I soon used up the darker colors)
though what I saw, as I told my aunt,
was less a factual account of the world
than a vision of its transformation
subsequent to passage through the void of myself.
Something, I said, like the world in spring.
When not preoccupied with the world
I drew pictures of my mother
for which my aunt posed,
holding, at my request,
a twig from a sycamore.
As to the mystery of my silence:
I remained puzzled
less by my soul’s retreat than
by its return, since it returned empty-handed—
How deep it goes, this soul,
like a child in a department store,
seeking its mother—
Perhaps it is like a diver
with only enough air in his tank
to explore the depths for a few minutes or so—
then the lungs send him back.
But something, I was sure, opposed the lungs,
possibly a death wish—
(I use the word soul as a compromise).
Of course, in a certain sense I was not empty-handed:
I had my colored pencils.
In another sense, that is my point: