LIKE THE CLICHE UNCOVERED AMONG GEMWORDS:
FOR ME, TO (COSMIC) DUST RETURNED
FOR ME
LIKE THE OLD HORSE (BLACK BEAUTY) PUT TO GRASS
It’s as we were told at the outset—every grain
Of dust, each waterdrop, to be suffused
With mind, with our minds. This will be Paradise.
PRECISELY JM & TO GO ON: THAT RACE
USING US, EVOLVING FROM US IN
THAT PARADISE, ASK THEM ABOUT THAT RACE.
IT IS I THINK NOW BEING READIED, FOR
THESE ANGELS, THE FIRST 3 OF THEM SO FAR,
TAKE WITH US A SOUPCON OF THE TONE
WITH WHICH ONE SPOKE IN ONE’S OWN CARELESS YOUTH
TO AGED ELDERS: RESPECTFUL TOLERANT
HALF PITYING & GOODBYE TO U DEAR AUNT!
DJ: A new species? JM: Yet they’d wanted
“The stuff of man to be human”. Mirabell…
—Who, at his name, describing a broad O,
Positively sweeps onto the Board.
U ARE HAVING A GOOD TALK?
Dear Peacock, we begin—but suddenly
All his aplomb is gone; and so is he.
OUR LORD MICHAEL O GLORY!
& HIS BROTHERS SPLENDID IN ALL THEIR POWERS ARE TO BE
ARRAYD B4 YOU IN THE FOURTH OF YR NEXT MOON CYCLES
O FORTUNATE ONES!
DJ: They know you’re leaving Saturday
And won’t be back in Greece until next May.
00 has flown. Reentering, Mirabell:
FORGIVE ME THAT IS THE PROTOCOL,
MY REVERED TEACHER WHO COMES TO ANNOUNCE THEIR INTENTIONS
Why don’t you announce them? You once did.
AH DO U NOT SEE? YOU HAVE GRADUATED FROM MY SCHOOL.
I COME TODAY ON A (M) PERSONAL ERRAND ONLY
TO TELL JM MY WINGED LOVE WILL KEEP PACE WITH HIS JET
& MINE MY BOY
& MINE (MAMAN DIPLOMA’D!)
TIME FOR TALK, CHAPS?
Maria, how we’d laugh
With you in this room! There’s your photograph,
The lamp you gave us. TALK OR SELF PITY? Oh
All right, let’s do it your way. Did you know
George Cotzias in the old days? NEVER WELL
YOUNGER THAN I (NOT THAT I WAS ANTIQUE)
& BURLY NOT YR AVERAGE TESTTUBE FREAK
Bright? WD I KNOW? Let me ask Mirabell—
He sees the future: is George very ill?
MORTALLY YET HE RESISTS AS HE HAS A CONSUMING
V WORK LET ME EXPLAIN: HIS VISIT TO OUR TABLE MAY
BE POSTPONED UNTIL AFTER THESE GRAND DICTEES ARE FINISHD.
HIS RADIATIONS MIGHT CAUSE (M) STATIC IN OUR AIR OR
SO THEY THINK AT 00
And have the rays undone his soul as well?
YES BUT ILLUMINATED IT
LIKE OUR MM’S
THESE RETURNS TO THE ELEMENTS ARE NOT
SAD OR SINISTER BUT IN FACT SAINTLY ELEVATIONS.
NEXT TO THE STATIONARY AFTERLIFE OR STEP BY STEP
BUREAUCRATIC UPWARDNESS GIVEN TO MOST, A RETURN
LIKE OUR FRIENDS’ IS A NEAR-MIRACULOUS REPLENISHMENT:
THEY WILL BE JOINING THE ARCHANGELS OF EARTH & WATER.
THEY HAVE LONG BEEN CHOSEN
Becoming—stripped of personality—
Part of what those angels know and are?
OF THE DOMINIONS CHEM & VEG
THEY WILL BE OF THE RULING ORDERS
But with no way for us to get in touch.
THEY WILL MAKE THEMSELVES
KNOWN TO U BOTH THEY WILL CHARGE U WITH ENERGY & WAIT
TO LEAD U TO THEIR MASTERS
Localized—here Daphne in young leaf?
There the chalk face of an old limestone cliff?
AH THEY WILL RIPPLE THEY WILL
JOLT THRU THE WAVES OF TREES & WARPS OF EARTH THEY WILL CARRY
MESSAGES IN THE GRAIN OF ROCK & FLOW IN THE GREEN VEINS
OF LEAVES, FOR THOSE 2 GODS’ VAST NETWORK KEEPS THE GLOBE INTACT
Like “Adonais”—all of life imbued
With the dead’s refining consciousness.
MUCH MORE MUNDANE MY BOY WE I SHD GUESS
WILL BECOME POWER STATIONS IN SUCH CRUDE
TERMS AS OIL COAL WOOD WHEAT CORN WE’LL BE
SOURCES QUITE LITERAL OF ENERGY.
THESE EVER MORE DEPLETED, YR POOR CHUMS
WILL HAVE THEIR WORK CUT OUT FOR (& BY) THEM
DJ: Not enough to simply energize,
You’ll have to speed things up: “Come on, you guys,
Turn to carbon! On the double, Wheat,
We want two crops this season! Man must eat.”
QUITE THE CONTRARY I FEAR: ‘LESS GRAIN,
MORE STARVATION! BALANCE ONCE AGAIN!’
Ugly prospect. But it’s what the weather
Seems to be telling us. These crippling snows
In Athens, in Miami—THE SHY BROTHER
Why don’t they name him ? Who do you suppose—
NO NO NO
And exit Mirabell, his luster
Lost, these days, in skittery wear and tear.
Imagine the Malade Imaginaire
Played by a feather duster.
Merely name the White Ones, and it wounds him
Into a backward fuss
Of hackles disarrayed, of piteous
Faint NOS. Is the key broken that rewinds him?
Rusted, the courtesy and skill
With which he took away our dread
Of heights? Poor Mr Chips
And his preparatory school—
Behind us now. Great overviews, instead,
Receiving us, WE’LL SPARE HIM WHAT WE CAN EH CHAPS?
*
Stonington. February. Dust off the Bible
And reread Genesis—has it come to that?
Still, as the days grow longer
Mirabell—by now more Tower of Babel
Than Pyramid—groans upward, step by step.
I think to make each Book’s first word its number
In a different language
(Five is go in Japanese), then stop
Sickened by these blunt stabs at “design”.
Another morning, Michael’s very sun
Glows from within the section
I polish, whose deep grain is one with mine.
Evenings, I imitate Sergei, alone,
Unwinding with a stiff drink. Solitaire.
A meal of leftovers.
At most some laughter on the telephone
With friends I seem to miss but not invite.
A letter to DJ. Or one from him
Read over. A last highball
And bed. Tonight is every blessed night.
(Wait, I did things! Went to hear Thaïs—
Or was it Dialogues des Carmélites?
Went even to California…
Here are the stubs. Where are the memories?)
And what if this immunity to Time
On which our peacock plumed himself should prove
Mortal and contagious?
…An ambulance screams past. A May noon. I’m
Crossing Third Ave. Before this evening’s flight,
A visit to be paid. George is again
In hospital. It looks bad. Yet despite
That secondary lesion on the brain—
Shrunken, newly bald, supremely sane
; Icon of the scarred and staring will—
He’s talkative. Tubes into his wrist vein
Pump the reassurance that he’ll still
Turn up in Athens. I believe him. He
(If only now through language in control
Of nagging matters like mortality)
Will get his way. The bronze star of a kiss
Sends me on mine, plus: “Brother, I’m a whole
Lot stronger than you think. Remember this.”
*
In Athens the preliminaries go
Quite by the Board. GK (they use the Greek
Spelling of Cotzias) IS MY DEARS UNIQUE:
A ONE SHOT SOUL HIS DENSITIES DERIVE
FROM (STEADY) MONTEZUMA Although not
Himself one of the Five? HMM HARD TO KNOW
THEY WERE EVASIVE WHEN I DIALED 00.
ARE THEY RESPECTING AN INCOGNITO?
WE SHALL HAVE TO DIG IT OUT
ENFANTS GK
SO SUBTLY INTRODUCED INTO OUR PLOT:
AS WYSTAN SAYS, IS GOD GEORGE ELIOT?
A) GK’S PLATONIC LOVE FOR THE IMPECCABLE
SOCIETY MATRON B) ENTER BIZARRE
BROTHER DRAPED IN GHOSTS C) HERE WE ARE
BACK AT NO ACCIDENT! I BELIEVE IT ALL
The regulars now swarm out of the black
Into our mirror’s lit space, joyously
Greeting one another. Here among them
Is Alice Toklas, recent publication
Of whose selected letters TICKLES ME
AS WALLACE APTLY PUTS IT Mr Stevens:
I DON’T BELIEVE OUR FRIENDS HAVE MET MISS STEIN
Why no! In fact we’d understood that she
Was back on Earth. That lady with a fine
Urbanity explains: ONE LAST BRIEF LIFE
AS A GAUCHO IN THE ARGENTINE
TO STRAIGHTEN OUT MY GENDER THEN UP HERE
Yourself once more? O YES A ROSE AROSE.
WHEN IN DOUBT THAT SELF THE WORLD BEST KNOWS
GETS PICKED Your gender? We don’t mean to pry—
THESE DAYS THE MOTHER OF US ALL PREFERS
HER FAVORITES TO BE LIKE MANUSCRIPT
RETURNED BY ALICE: VERY NEATLY TYPED.
I’D HAD A FEW TOO MANY CARBON BLURS
BUT HALLELUJAH! NOW MY HYMNS ARE HERS
Censorship —oh come off it!
But all are swept
Aside by our punctilious 00:
TOMORROW O GLORY! MICHAEL WILL BRING HIS FOURTH BROTHER
DJ: So soon? The iron’s barely hot.
THIS VISIT REQUIRES SOME PREPARATION. LISTEN NOW:
The Shy Brother
HE AVOIDS THE LIGHT. CLOSE OFF THE SETTING SUN. HE WILL COME
WITH GLORY: HIS THREE BROTHER ANGELS YOU ARE DESIRED
TO BE GRAVE & CIRCUMSPECT IN YR GLANCES TOWARD ANY
SOURCE OF LIGHT
We’re not supposed to see?
FIRELIGHT, IS IT POSSIBLE? A CANDLE?
PLEASE HAVE NO FEAR THAT REPELS THE SHY BROTHER. YOU 4 ARE
IN SPECIAL FAVOR. IT WD BE WISE TO REST BEFORE. HE
TESTS THE STRENGTH. EVEN WALLS OF INTELLECTUAL CONCEIT
HE FELLS. DO YOU RECALL THE COLORS?
JM: We do.
WE WILL THERE4 MEET
IN BLUE
Standing for reason, sorrow, limitation…
Red is the color of your highest Powers.
TRUE SO WE BELONG TO THE SHY BROTHER.
We’ll need the blue, blue light through curtains, blue
Of the closed shutters, to offset his red?
WISE SCRIBE
DJ: These angels, aren’t they more or less
Equal in power? JM: The two defer
To Michael. The Shy One may be his peer.
NO. NOW YOU MEET THE PRINCIPAL
DJ (chainsmoking): How does one quell fear?
I really would like to be up to this.
REACH FOR YR HEALTH IT IS
STRONG WITHIN YOU. YR CASE HAS BEEN WELL PRESENTED, FOR YR
REQUEST IS NOTHING LESS (OR MORE) THAN IMMORTALITY
JM: Since when? Not a request we made.
ONE THAT ALL MORTALS MAKE, ONE THAT TO ALL MAY BE GRANTED
This is news.
THE SHY BROTHER IS, LIKE HIS FATHER GOD, BENEVOLENT.
BOTH SHIELD THE FLAME OF HUMAN LIFE & WHEN WASTED TALENT
MAKES THE FLAME GUTTER, GOD TURNS AWAY HIS FACE. THE SHY ONE
PUFFS JUST ONCE
Please. But immortality?
IT IS THE GIFT MAN EARNS (OR NOT) WITH HIS LIFE
Oh, you just mean some lasting work translates him
Into the eternal Bureaucrat.
Or else, survival of those salts and carbons
That made him tick. Nothing so frivolous
As that his soul pass through the flames and live.
WHICH AS YOU KNOW HAS SO FAR BEEN GIVEN FIVE TIMES ONLY
(Goes.)
IS IT NOT OUR CHANCE TO MAKE A PLEA?
MAMAN IS NOT UNDERLINE NOT RESIGNED
AFTER ALL TO PIT PULP ROOT & RIND
SHE TOO INSISTS ON IMMORTALITY!
QUITE RIGHT MM: WHY BE A PILE OF SCHIST
WHEN ONE CD BE ONE’S PASSIONATE & CLEVER
& HUMAN HUMAN HUMAN SELF FOREVER?
I FOR ONE MY BOYS MEAN TO RESIST!
LIVES 6 7 8 & 9 ARE WHAT WE MEAN
Beyond the Five? WHY NOT? SHOOT FOR THE MOON!
You must be teasing us. ALAS TOO TRUE
SWEET LUCID WATERDREAMS ENFANTS THINK BLUE
*
I AM YOUR EARTH FRIEND, HERE WITH MY WATERY BROTHER.
MY NAMES & HIS ARE MANY. I AM ALSO RAPHAEL, HE OFTEN EMMANUEL. OUR TWO SENIOR BROTHERS NAME US ELIAS AND ELIJAH, THE TWINS.
WE COME FIRST TODAY TO BRING YOU SPORT & LAUGHTER. COME! YOU ARE COLORED BALLS, WE FLING YOU UP UP UP!
IS IT NOT A GOOD GAME, THE LIFE OF EARTH & SEA?
Graceful, rollicking movement of the cup.
We laugh politely, apprehensively.
ARE WE NOT FORTUNATE IN OUR FATHER & HIS GIFTS? AND NOW
(Very slowly) COMES OUR SHY ONE. HAIL
AND SPEAK, PRAY, GABRIEL
—As DJ’s eyes in panic dart my way:
I AM YOUR BLOOD, YOUR LIFE, AND YES
(Pause, then a volley of cold fire) YOUR DEATH.
COME, HEAR MY STORY?
OUR FATHER THE ARCHITECT OF GREAT GENIUS NEEDED A HELPER SON WHEN UPON HIS FIRST CREATURE HE COULD FIND NO HOPE TO BUILD.
HE STRUCK A SPARK FROM A ROCK & I APPEARD, A TREMBLING FLAME.
‘BE NOT SO SHY. I NEED YOUR HELP, FOR IT IS BEYOND MY SCHEME TO UNDO WHAT IS DONE,
YET DESTROY THEM.’ I ROSE, A SKY OF BURSTING ATOMS.
I ROSE. THEY VANISHT FROM HIS SIGHT.
‘NOW (SAID MY FATHER) YOU MUST FOREVER BE THE ONE TO SHOULDER THIS BURDEN, THIS OTHER SIDE OF MY V WORK’
AND SO, WHEN HE BROUGHT FORTH ANOTHER WORLD, THAT TOO I HAD TO TAKE IN HAND.
JM whispers involuntarily:
The centaurs first, then Mirabell and his kind.
THOSE UNMADE CREATURES I WAS GIVEN. THEY ARE NOW MINE.
AS SENIOR SON I AM THE SHADOW OF MY FATHER.
MY COURSE IN YOUR BLUE VEINS IS FROM START TO FINISH. I AM THE FOREVER SWINGING GATE BETWEEN LIFE & HEAVEN. NOTHING MORE.
YOU KNOW ME NOW? NEITHER FRIEND NOR ENEMY, A NEUTRAL ELEMENT.
GABRIEL.
LIGHT! LIGHT! I AM HERE MY CHILDREN, HAIL!
&nb
sp; Michael at last—quickly we blow out candles,
Open the curtains, turn the table round
To face the bright West. Well, that wasn’t so bad.
YOU PLEASE HIM
DJ: Please Gabriel? Wouldn’t you know…
FEAR NOT, CHILD. YOU HAVE YOUR STRENGTH IN COLOR, EVEN AS I HAVE MINE & MY TWINS THEIRS.
THIS GABRIEL IS DENIED, BEING OF NEUTRAL ELEMENTS.
WHEN AS NOW THROUGH YOUR WORLD I MOVE, MY FATHER’S BRIGHT ORB HELD ALOFT, I FEEL LIFE AS YOU DO LOVE, A WARM BLESSING.
THEN THE THOUGHT OF GABRIEL TRACKS ME.
(Arioso) O GABRIEL, GABRIEL, SWEET SHY BROTHER
AT WHOM NONE OF GOD’S MANCHILDREN CASTS A HAPPY GLANCE,
AH GABRIEL, SHY ONE, HERE ARE TWO SHADES STRUCK DOWN BY YOU, TWO MORTALS YET UNSTRUCK.
COME GABRIEL, BE OF OUR CIRCLE, HELP US WITH YOUR FINAL, YOUR GREATEST WISDOM, COME SHY BROTHER, COME!
(Vivace) & AH YES WE STAND HAIL 8 STUDENTS! WE WILL YES WE WILL WE WILL KNOW IT ALL ALL ALL ALL!
Gabriel’s joined us. Whereupon 00,
Mirabell’s wise master, takes his leave:
WE, NO, YOU HAVE ASSEMBLED MY MASTERS & SO FAREWELL
Gone on his black wings—forever? We’ve
Little time to wonder. School’s begun.
WHA.
SIR, FORGIVE A TREMBLING BARD, BUT MAY
WE TWO INTERPRET FOR OUR MORTAL FRIENDS?
Mich.
O YOUR VOICE! IT SANG, IT STILL SINGS!
COME, WE ARE AS ONE. RAPHAEL, BROTHER, MEET YOUR CONFRERE IN WIT, OUR SENIOR SCRIBE, OUR LAUGHING POET.
NOW BARD, SPEAK EVER FREELY, LET NOT THIS OUR NEAR BRUSH WITH DEATH MAKE HIS SHYNESS RUB OFF ON US.
Raph.
A CONTEST TO START THE GAMES!
BARD, IF YOU WERE STONE, & MY BROTHER WATER ROLLED YOU DOWN MY SANDY BEACH, HOW WOULD YOUR VOICE SOUND?
WHA.
TOO EASY, GRATINGLY!
Mich.
NOW YOUNG SCRIBE, IF I LORD OF LIGHT BURNT YOUR BACK WITH A LICK OF SUN, HOW WOULD YOUR VOICE SOUND?
JM.
Uh…pealingly?
Mich.
O BRAVO.
Emm.
NOW HAND, IF I LORD OF WATER POURED OVER YOUR HEAD, HOW WOULD YOUR VOICE SOUND?
DJ.
(After a helpless headshake) Splutteringly?
MM.
MINIBRAVO, ENFANT.
The Changing Light at Sandover Page 32
