Page 2 of All We Saw: Poems


  the earth

  I knew you were listening

  perhaps

  you heard

  life can become so still

  the IV drip

  before it falls

  earth of the body

  where a life grows

  the stillness between silence

  and muteness

  the moment desire forcibly

  is renamed

  grief

  the precise space between

  those two words

  you loved like a conspirator against everything

  that has power to defeat us

  you led me from the cemetery

  your grip was firm

  grief is firm

  in the cemetery I understood

  we keep what belongs to us

  V

  TO WRITE

  because the dead can read

  because she thought everyone came home

  to find their family taken

  because the one closest to her cannot speak

  because he drew love into him from each body he entered

  because they are keeping her from him

  because the last time they met he misunderstood her

  absolutely

  because a finger can hold a place in a book

  because a book rests in a lap

  because words are secrets passed one to another on a train

  the same train where letters were crammed between slats

  to be found by strangers

  because they recognize each other over huge distances

  because a true word, everywhere, is samizdat

  because everything political is personal and not

  the other way around

  because forgiveness is not about the past but the future

  and needs another word

  because the true witness of your soul

  is sometimes one you’ve scorned

  because it is possible to be married to someone who died

  many years before we were born

  because he painted the intimate objects of their life together

  not from observation but from memory; though surrounded

  by the teacups, the flowers, the garden, he retreated

  to his small room to paint, each object transformed

  by love

  because words are mirrors that set fire to paper

  because every day she risked her life for him

  because he remembered this too late

  because he was mistaken

  because he was certain

  because certainty and doubt consume each other like dogs

  in a parable

  because of a Sunday morning in London

  because of a cemetery in Wales

  because of a mountain and a river

  because he imagined himself an orphan

  because an infant cannot carry herself

  because of drawings on fax paper

  because she sends her SMS with broken thumbs

  and an empty battery

  because to be heard we do not need a pencil and we do

  not even need a tongue and we do not even need a body

  because the one who holds the pen, even if it’s too dark to

  see the page and even if the ink is his own blood, is free

  because an action can never be erased by a word

  because we set down what we cannot bear to remember

  because we cannot take back what we sang

  because the dead can read

  A SOUL SPREADS ACROSS THE SKY

  Did you know they sent me

  from you?

  said I must not stay

  instead of letting you sleep in my arms

  they put me in the back seat,

  somnambulist,

  sack of grain

  I listened to them

  as if they knew best

  they knew nothing

  about the heat between souls

  the height of the snow-starched mountain

  the tongue that sings and

  the tongue that holds its words

  for the sake of another

  had they bound my hands and feet,

  had they pressed a gun to my skull,

  I would have fought

  but they spoke softly

  as if they knew and believed

  as if I were nothing,

  a poet taken from her bed

  never heard from again

  they think men weep and women cry

  they forget how to cleave to love

  while the blade cleaves your palm –

  that is how a man holds on to his country

  and how a woman holds on to everything

  they say: fool

  let go. but it’s not the wound

  that matters, it’s the soul,

  the soul that must be heard

  not the wound

  they turn away

  with everything but their eyes

  a year later

  I sat at a table across from you

  you thought I was crying

  but I was weeping

  I spoke in code, replacing one sadness

  with another, as if sadness

  could stand in for the soul

  every poem is a shade tree

  between us we can say

  always

  THERE WAS A DISTANT SOUND

  was it the sea turning around

  was it a soul seeking shelter

  in the longing of another

  was it the breaking of a vow

  was it a bird leaving the branch

  was it a blessed second chance

  was it an arm across a shoulder

  was it the moon across the water

  was it you my dear lost father

  was it a shadow across the snow

  was it the whiteness of a page

  was it a word that will not fade

  was it sunlight across a bed

  was it darkness calling for morning

  was it a silent understanding

  was it the sky growing colder

  was it a heart making room

  for the one who has not come

  was it love inside a lie

  was it a child growing older

  was it your dreaming breath against my skin

  was it the tiny line that shows the path

  between the first date and the last

  I DREAMED AGAIN

  I dreamed again you were alive, and woke

  certain it was your voice

  love is whisky, it is milk,

  it is water don’t ever, you said in the dream,

  think I’ve gone

  I woke a little more, a moment or two,

  then remembered. Memory makes it so. Keeps you

  under the trees.

  So I did not turn on the lamp

  but lay until I felt again your warmth with mine

  heard your voice in my hair

  I lay there a long time,

  forgetting

  BEFORE US

  will we travel

  to the city where

  so much happened

  before us where once

  you asked me and I

  couldn’t will we go

  to a place where the past

  is new tell me

  this winter morning

  where that past is hiding

  YOU MEET THE GAZE OF A FLOWER

  you meet the gaze of a flower

  130 million years old

  across the table

  the same hours for you both remaining

  stem dividing the water

  into light scent-soaked

  the flower is giving you

  instruction

  patiently you listen a son

  a falcon reading a hare

  hundreds of miles away in the mountain pasture

  you meet the gaze of a flower

&nbs
p; like a woman’s face

  you rest your head

  in her lap

  ASK ALOUD

  To taste the salt of the stars

  in the sea. To love another

  more than oneself. To know this

  is to know everything.

  Do you see how the dusk and rain

  are one?

  Do our bodies come to nothing?

  Not how we fall in love,

  but how we fail in love.

  Ask aloud what comes of us.

  My love, do you understand me?

  Not surmise. Sunrise.

  Ask aloud what comes of us.

  VI

  ALL WE SAW

  the ocean turned our eyes grey

  with looking

  what did we think

  we’d find beyond

  that endless looking

  what did we believe

  would climb over the horizon

  in its endless answering

  you understand everything

  and place your hand there

  hand black from the wood fire

  hand-black on my skin

  heavy oars swivel in their locks

  so known by the waves you were

  invisible camouflaged

  by immensity

  you peered from your hiding place

  not hidden at all

  the fog ringing

  from the first moment you had only

  we had only to

  bend our heads as if reading

  the same book open between us

  shelter of hills

  grey uneven ground of the sea

  grey uneven ground

  of the sky

  from an incalculable height

  from the first moment

  we were at rest

  the way light falls

  and where

  you are

  is where you have

  always been,

  looking to the edge of paper that torn edge

  of sea

  draw your breath

  on paper

  the reflex before sleep

  that wakes us again

  dear

  one

  the evening meal

  music filling the house

  no words

  the house sings for us speaks for us

  to reach out your hand

  that answering grasp

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  at the edge of the sea a cairn

  Beverly Berger

  1942–2013

  Mark Strand

  1934–2014

  Ellen Seligman

  19*4–2016

  Leonard Cohen

  1934–2016

  John Berger

  1926–2017

  Claire Wilks

  1933–2017

  Rosalind Michaels

  1922–2017

  The drawing of poppies is by John Berger, and the aquatint and etching “Sea with Islands, 1998” is by Mark Strand, one of a series of four. These images were gifts, chosen from many drawings made and given, and my grateful thanks to Yves Berger and Jessica Strand for permission to use here.

  An earlier version of “Sea of Lanterns” appeared as a limited-edition artist’s book with photographs by Ewa Zebrowksi.

  An earlier version of “All We Saw” appeared as a broadside with photographs by Ewa Zebrowski.

  An earlier version of “Somewhere Night Is Falling” appeared in The Day of the Mountain: A Book of Sketchbook Drawings by Timothy Neat.

  “You Meet the Gaze of a Flower” makes reference to the 130-million-year-old flower – the approximate age of flowering plants.

  My very special thanks to Anita Chong, Sam Solecki, Deborah Garrison, Alexandra Pringle, Jim Polk, Heather Sangster, Janet Hansen, Kelly Hill, Andy Vatiliotou, Jeremy Elder. And to Simon McBurney, Janis Freedman Bellow, Rachel Rosenberg, and, as always, Rebecca and Evan.

  First published in Great Britain 2017

  This electronic edition published in 2017 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  © Anne Michaels, 2017

  Anne Michaels has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

  John Berger’s ‘Poppies’ is reproduced courtesy of Yves Berger

  Mark Strand’s ‘Sea with Islands, 1998’ is reproduced courtesy Harlan & Weaver, Inc., New York

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  eISBN 978 1 4088 8092 0

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  Anne Michaels, All We Saw: Poems

 


 

 
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