Elastic Sparrows

Elastic sparrows
Verging on a branch, a
Galaxy of
Mulberries, squirrel-gods
Jouncing the red-eyed constellations.


Scholar of terrible plastic solitude
I carry a bag full of brown
Feathers
And rectilinear daydreams. Observe
How the plump pigeon pokes its beak


Into a puddle-filled pothole.
The mudslick of March has
Officially
Begun, per order of the Deputy
Sheriff of Prestidigitation.


I have prepared an operation
Which will turn pennies into
Pocket-watches. "I must get
To my repast directly," spake
The temperate ant beneath the driest


Of grassblades.


The tasteless power of rainclouds
Cramps the heart and makes the brain convince itself
That surviving a damp late Saturday afternoon
Involves pushing and shoving adamantine moods
Into a mousehole of a closet.


The syntax of churches
Like needles in the white mist, classified
Ventilation, anti-corrosive rituals.


She was wearing a pair of lunettes
And a red question was posing itself
Between her brisk stature
And the solemn texture of the sidewalk-colored sky.


1990

Sickness and Health

New stirrings lie ahead
For the last great apostle of rugged individualism.
Sixty-five years in captivity
Slide by, having engaged themselves in writing
Poems about the imprisoned seagull, the clockwork
Sea. The grim stamp of validation rises
Like a daisy-colored moon
Over the lackluster heath, over
The mechanical pond where plastic ducks fulgurate,
Quack and flutter, brushing
The surrounding air
With minimal, bombastic strokes.
Validation, revenge, clear-eyed
Retribution: these are the simple things
Which clutter our dreams.


What do you hear, what do you say?
I think I shall do nothing
For the rest of my life but listen
To your breath
And breathe your airs and glances, your
Subtle magic, your style. Suppose I asked you
To have a heart, would you
Think it a rude request?


No one speaks. The river
Continues to sleep. The ocean sleeps.
The poet puts down his pen
After sixty-five years of dismally
Blissful captivity
And coughs like mad, and coughs like nobody's business.


1990

Libertarianism, anyone?

I like much of what Libertarians (and lowercase-l libertarians) stand for: peace; liberty in certain personal choices (the legalization of marijuana wouldn't trouble me); economic "conservatism" of a kind that is often more sincere than that which is proposed by the GOP.  But there are a couple of things that keep me from joining their number "officially."  The demeanor of many libertarians seems infected with a kind of unattractive ideological absolutism, a sort of "those who are not with us are against us" mentality. Not good.  Also, to be frank, the economics concern me a bit.  Without a doubt, bureaucracies can be cut, and some even eliminated--but I do believe in a "safety net" for the elderly and the vulnerable among us.  On the moral issues, there's a kind of agnosticism I find troubling--but at least a libertarian government wouldn't be funding Planned Parenthood, or coercing Catholic institutions to pay for contraception.


Libertarians are honest, though, and they're thought-provoking.  And I gave them a vote 16 years ago.  And as for voting Libertarian this November, I wouldn't rule it out. But to become a card-carrying member of the party?  For now, dear friends, in the words of Samuel Goldwyn, "Include me out."

"We force the spring"

This ceremony is held in the depth of winter,

but by the words we speak

and the faces we show the world,

we force the spring.

President Bill Clinton

January 20, 1993

Spring can't be forced, not even by
     the January thaw--
no tulip blooms by state decree;
     robins obey no law.


The libertarian butterfly
     disdains the plebiscite,
and roses grow, steady and slow--
     you can't compel delight!

The Poet's Voice

Along with the alteration of the design of the poem have come, as I have said, substantial changes in the poem's diction and its subject matter. Much was gained by these changes, but certain things were lost. There was, in the tone of the old poems, a certainty, an authority which was implied and fortified through its elevated diction. Of course I am not talking about poetic diction! I am talking about a diction and a tone that was other than the daily, the usual, the ordinary. In and of itself, apart from the content of the poem, this tone suggested to the reader that something of import was on the page--was contained within the occasion of the poem. Since, as I see it, the work of the poem is to transcend the ordinary instance, to establish itself on a second, metaphysical level, this tone was important, and useful. It served, in the old poem, as a steeple serves a church; even in the distance it says: Here is holy ground. Here is something different from everyday.


Mary Oliver, in "The Poet's Voice," from Blue Pastures (Harvest/Harcourt, 1995), this excerpt p. 105; entire essay pp. 95-115

Storm

Oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
as King Lear called you,
splitting trees in half,
knocking down power lines,
striking rooftops, sparking blazes,
terrifying fretful elders,
amazing the eyes of the young,
lo! the chaos you've unleashed
this pluvious afternoon!
making avenues impassible,
making bus-travel impossible,
causing general mayhem,
cleaving the oaks as a child
might snap a toothpick.


Not yet knowing the full scope
of your sudden destructive wrath,
I sat in the Stopped Clock
as you did your worst,
waiting out the storm
with lager and with chit-chat
about the news of the world,
the follies of politicians, 
the scandals of celebrities,
the quirks of the not-so-famous.


You did not quite manage to
"strike flat the thick rotundity
o' the world," but you did
cut down many a noble arbor,
and bring your steeple-drenching floods.
Worse than last August's hurricane
in my estimation, more fierce,
yet in this ferocity, one can perceive
the nobility of an untamed lion,
of the mad king on the heath.

Caryll Houselander

I had an incredible day at the Lunatic Asylum yesterday.  Met several Queens--female ones--one, the "Queen of the Whole Earth" whose hand I was allowed to kiss and who conferred many titles upon me!   Half, more than half, of the lunatics are practically sane, except on one point, and some even go out to work every day.  I've seldom, if ever, been present at anything so moving as the prayers in the tiny Catholic chapel in the evening, organized entirely by the patients, the prayers of their own choosing and said aloud: and what a mystery and what an example--an ex-Trappist monk, a young girl, an old lady bent double nearly, but in spite of it and in spite of being insane, beautiful, and a handful of others--all people who had started out in life intent on a high vocation, and given it indeed--utter abnegation, put away in a lunatic asylum.  And this is the point--they reached out in their prayers to the whole world.  As I knelt among them, listening at first and in the end joining in unconsciously with them, I grew more and more amazed at their petitions:


"For Russia"
"For the suffering people of Europe"
"For the sick"
"For prisoners"
"For the conversion of the world"
"For purity of heart in the world"
"For purity of heart here"--


and then, to me the most moving petition of all, "That we here in this little chapel dedicated to Your divine Heart may have perfect abandonment to Your dear will."


[...]


But no, it was simply an almost unbelievable showing of the heart of the Mystical Body of Christ, literally bleeding before God with the wounds of the world!


From The Letters of Caryll Houselander: Her Spiritual Legacy, ed. Maisie Ward (Sheed & Ward, 1965), pp. 91-92 (letter to Henry Tayler)