All of Us: The Collected Poems

  The news film on TV of three alley cats

  and a rhesus monkey with electrodes implanted

  in their skulls; the time he stopped to photograph

  a buffalo near where the Little Big Horn

  joined the Big Horn; his new graphite rod

  with the Limited Lifetime Warranty;

  the polyps the doctor’d found on his bowel;

  the Bukowski line that flew

  through his mind from time to time:

  We’d all like to pass by in a 1995 Cadillac.

  His head a hive of arcane activity.

  Even during the time it took his car

  to slide around on the highway and point him

  back in the direction he’d come from.

  The direction of home, and relative security.

  The engine was dead. The immense stillness

  descended once more. He took off his woolen cap

  and wiped his forehead. But after a moment’s

  consideration, started his car, turned around

  and continued on into town.

  More carefully, yes. But thinking all the while

  along the same lines as before. Old ice, new snow.

  Cats. A monkey. Fishing. Wild buffalo.

  The sheer poetry in musing on Cadillacs

  that haven’t been built yet. The chastening effect

  of the doctor’s fingers.

  Simple

  A break in the clouds. The blue

  outline of the mountains.

  Dark yellow of the fields.

  Black river. What am I doing here,

  lonely and filled with remorse?

  I go on casually eating from the bowl

  of raspberries. If I were dead,

  I remind myself, I wouldn’t

  be eating them. It’s not so simple.

  It is that simple.

  The Scratch

  I woke up with a spot of blood

  over my eye. A scratch

  halfway across my forehead. But

  I’m sleeping alone these days.

  Why on earth would a man raise his hand

  against himself, even in sleep?

  It’s this and similar questions

  I’m trying to answer this morning.

  As I study my face in the window.

  Mother

  My mother calls to wish me a Merry Christmas.

  And to tell me if this snow keeps on

  she intends to kill herself. I want to say

  I’m not myself this morning, please

  give me a break. I may have to borrow a psychiatrist

  again. The one who always asks me the most fertile

  of questions, “But what are you really feeling?”

  Instead, I tell her one of our skylights

  has a leak. While I’m talking, the snow is

  melting onto the couch. I say I’ve switched to All-Bran

  so there’s no need to worry any longer

  about me getting cancer, and her money coming to an end.

  She hears me out. Then informs me

  she’s leaving this goddamn place. Somehow. The only time

  she wants to see it, or me again, is from her coffin.

  Suddenly, I ask if she remembers the time Dad

  was dead drunk and bobbed the tail of the Labrador pup.

  I go on like this for a while, talking about

  those days. She listens, waiting her turn.

  It continues to snow. It snows and snows

  as I hang on the phone. The trees and rooftops

  are covered with it. How can I talk about this?

  How can I possibly explain what I’m feeling?

  The Child

  Seeing the child again.

  Not having seen him

  for six months. His face

  seems broader than last time.

  Heavier. Almost coarse.

  More like his father’s now.

  Devoid of mirth. The eyes

  narrowed and without

  expression. Don’t expect

  gentleness or pity

  from this child, now or ever.

  There’s something rough,

  even cruel, in the grasp

  of his small hand.

  I turn him loose.

  His shoes scuff against

  each other as he makes for the door.

  As it opens. As he gives his cry.

  The Fields

  The worms crawl in,

  the worms crawl out.

  The worms play pinochle

  in your snout.

  — CHILDHOOD DITTY

  I was nearsighted and had to get up close

  so I could see it in the first place: the earth

  that’d been torn with a disk or plow.

  But I could smell it, and I didn’t like it.

  To me it was gruesome, suggesting death

  and the grave. I was running once and fell

  and came up with a mouthful. That

  was enough to make me want to keep my distance

  from fields just after they’d been sliced open

  to expose whatever lay teeming underneath.

  And I never cared anything for gardens, either.

  Those over-ripe flowers in summer bloom.

  Or spuds lying just under the surface

  with only part of their faces showing.

  Those places I shied away from, too. Even today

  I can do without a garden. But something’s changed.

  There’s nothing I like better now than to walk into

  a freshly turned field and kneel and let the soft dirt

  slide through my fingers. I’m lucky to live

  close to the fields I’m talking about.

  I’ve even made friends with some of the farmers.

  The same men who used to strike me

  as unfriendly and sinister.

  So what if the worms come sooner or later?

  And what’s it matter if the winter snow piles up

  higher than fences, then melts and drains away

  deep into the earth to water what’s left of us?

  It’s okay. Quite a lot was accomplished here, after all.

  I gambled and lost, sure. Then gambled some more,

  and won. My eyesight is failing. But if I move

  up close and look carefully, I can see all kinds of life

  in the earth. Not just worms, but beetles, ants, ladybugs.

  Things like that. I’m gladdened, not concerned with the sight.

  It’s nice to walk out into a field any day

  that I want and not feel afraid. I love to reach

  down and bring a handful of dirt right up under my nose.

  And I can push with my feet and feel the earth give

  under my shoes. I can stand there quietly

  under the great balanced sky, motionless.

  With this impulse to take off my shoes.

  But just an impulse. More important,

  this not moving. And then

  Amazing! to walk that opened field —

  and keep walking.

  After Reading Two Towns in Provence

  FOR M. F. K. FISHER

  I went out for a minute and

  left your book on the table.

  Something came up. Next morning,

  at a quarter to six,

  dawn began. Men had already

  gone into the fields to work.

  Windrows of leaves lay

  alongside the track.

  Reminding me of fall.

  I turned to the first page

  and began to read.

  I spent the entire morning

  in your company, in Aix,

  in the South of France.

  When I looked up,

  it was twelve o’clock.

  And they all said I’d never find a place

  for myself in this life!

  Said I’d never be happy,

  not
in this world, or the next.

  That’s how much they knew.

  Those dopes.

  Evening

  I fished alone that languid autumn evening.

  Fished as darkness kept coming on.

  Experiencing exceptional loss and then

  exceptional joy when I brought a silver salmon

  to the boat, and dipped a net under the fish.

  Secret heart! When I looked into the moving water

  and up at the dark outline of the mountains

  behind the town, nothing hinted then

  I would suffer so this longing

  to be back once more, before I die.

  Far from everything, and far from myself.

  The Rest

  Clouds hang loosely over this mountain range

  behind my house. In a while, the light

  will go and the wind come up

  to scatter these clouds, or some others,

  across the sky.

  I drop to my knees,

  roll the big salmon onto its side

  on the wet grass, and begin to use

  the knife I was born with. Soon

  I’ll be at the table in the living room,

  trying to raise the dead. The moon

  and the dark water my companions.

  My hands are silvery with scales.

  Fingers mingling with the dark blood.

  Finally, I cut loose the massive head.

  I bury what needs burying

  and keep the rest. Take one last look

  at the high blue light. Turn

  toward my house. My night.

  Slippers

  The four of us sitting around that afternoon.

  Caroline telling her dream. How she woke up

  barking this one night. And found her little dog,

  Teddy, beside the bed, watching.

  The man who was her husband at the time

  watched too as she told of the dream.

  Listened carefully. Even smiled. But

  there was something in his eyes. A way

  of looking, and a look. We’ve all had it…

  Already he was in love with a woman

  named Jane, though this is no judgment

  on him, or Jane, or anyone else. Everyone went on

  to tell a dream. I didn’t have any.

  I looked at your feet, tucked up on the sofa,

  in slippers. All I could think to say,

  but didn’t, was how those slippers were still warm

  one night when I picked them up

  where you’d left them. I put them beside the bed.

  But a quilt fell and covered them

  during the night. Next morning, you looked

  everywhere for them. Then called downstairs,

  “I found my slippers!” This is a small thing,

  I know, and between us. Nevertheless,

  it has moment. Those lost slippers. And

  that cry of delight.

  It’s okay that this happened

  a year or more ago. It could’ve been

  yesterday, or the day before. What difference?

  Delight, and a cry.

  Asia

  It’s good to live near the water.

  Ships pass so close to land

  a man could reach out

  and break a branch from one of the willow trees

  that grow here. Horses run wild

  down by the water, along the beach.

  If the men on board wanted, they could

  fashion a lariat and throw it

  and bring one of the horses on deck.

  Something to keep them company

  for the long journey East.

  From my balcony I can read the faces

  of the men as they stare at the horses,

  the trees, and two-story houses.

  I know what they’re thinking

  when they see a man waving from a balcony,

  his red car in the drive below.

  They look at him and consider themselves

  lucky. What a mysterious piece

  of good fortune, they think, that’s brought

  them all this way to the deck of a ship

  bound for Asia. Those years of doing odd jobs,

  or working in warehouses, or longshoring,

  or simply hanging out on the docks,

  are forgotten about. Those things happened

  to other, younger men,

  if they happened at all.

  The men on board

  raise their arms and wave back.

  Then stand still, gripping the rail,

  as the ship glides past. The horses

  move from under the trees and into the sun.

  They stand like statues of horses.

  Watching the ship as it passes.

  Waves breaking against the ship.

  Against the beach. And in the mind

  of the horses, where

  it is always Asia.

  The Gift

  FOR TESS

  Snow began falling late last night. Wet flakes

  dropping past windows, snow covering

  the skylights. We watched for a time, surprised

  and happy. Glad to be here, and nowhere else.

  I loaded up the wood stove. Adjusted the flue.

  We went to bed, where I closed my eyes at once.

  But for some reason, before falling asleep,

  I recalled the scene at the airport

  in Buenos Aires the evening we left.

  How still and deserted the place seemed!

  Dead quiet except the sound of our engines

  as we backed away from the gate and

  taxied slowly down the runway in a light snow.

  The windows in the terminal building dark.

  No one in evidence, not even a ground crew. “It’s as if

  the whole place is in mourning,” you said.

  I opened my eyes. Your breathing said

  you were fast asleep. I covered you with an arm

  and went on from Argentina to recall a place

  I lived in once in Palo Alto. No snow in Palo Alto.

  But I had a room and two windows looking onto the

  Bayshore Freeway.

  The refrigerator stood next to the bed.

  When I became dehydrated in the middle of the night,

  all I had to do to slake that thirst was reach out

  and open the door. The light inside showed the way

  to a bottle of cold water. A hot plate

  sat in the bathroom close to the sink.

  When I shaved, the pan of water bubbled

  on the coil next to the jar of coffee granules.

  I sat on the bed one morning, dressed, clean-shaven,

  drinking coffee, putting off what I’d decided to do. Finally

  dialed Jim Houston’s number in Santa Cruz.

  And asked for 75 dollars. He said he didn’t have it.

  His wife had gone to Mexico for a week.

  He simply didn’t have it. He was coming up short

  this month. “It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”

  And I did. We talked a little

  more, then hung up. He didn’t have it.

  I finished the coffee, more or less, just as the plane

  lifted off the runway into the sunset.

  I turned in the seat for one last look

  at the lights of Buenos Aires. Then closed my eyes

  for the long trip back.

  This morning there’s snow everywhere. We remark on it.

  You tell me you didn’t sleep well. I say

  I didn’t either. You had a terrible night. “Me too.”

  We’re extraordinarily calm and tender with each other

  as if sensing the other’s rickety state of mind.

  As if we knew what the other was feeling. We don’t,

  of course. We never do. No matter.

  It’s the tenderness I care abo
ut. That’s the gift

  this morning that moves and holds me.

  Same as every morning.

  A New Path to the Waterfall

  GIFT

  A day so happy.

  Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.

  Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.

  There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.

  I knew no one worth my envying him.

  Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.

  To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.

  In my body I felt no pain.

  When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

  — CZESLAW MILOSZ

  I

  Wet Picture

  Those beautiful days

  when the city resembles a die, a fan and a bird song

  or a scallop shell on the seashore

  — goodbye, goodbye, pretty girls,

  we met today

  and will not ever meet again.

  The beautiful Sundays

  when the city resembles a football, a card and an ocarina

  or a swinging bell

  — in the sunny street

  the shadows of passers-by were kissing

  and people walked away, total strangers.

  Those beautiful evenings

  when the city resembles a rose, a chessboard, a violin

  or a crying girl

  — we played dominoes,

  black-dotted dominoes with the thin girls in the bar,

  watching their knees

  which were emaciated

  like two skulls with the silk crowns of their garters

  in the desperate kingdom of love.

  — JAROSLAV SEIFERT

  (translated by Ewald Osers)

  Thermopylae

  Back at the hotel, watching her loosen, then comb out

  her russet hair in front of the window, she deep in private

  thought,

  her eyes somewhere else, I am reminded for some reason of

  those

  Lacedaemonians Herodotus wrote about, whose duty

  it was to hold the Gates against the Persian army. And who

  did. For four days. First, though, under the disbelieving

  eyes of Xerxes himself, the Greek soldiers sprawled as if

  uncaring, outside their timber-hewn walls, arms stacked,