I grew up with a woodstove
instead of a TV. I know all
the theme songs of oak.
If I could unlearn
the names of the birds,
how much freer their flight!
In a dream, I run
through my half-remembered high school
to catch a bus.
Initiation
Early to Mr. Moore, and with him to Sir Peter Ball, who proffers my uncle Robert much civility in letting him continue in the grounds which he had hired of Hetley who is now dead.
Thence home, where all things in a hurry for dinner, a strange cook being come in the room of Slater, who could not come.
There dined here my uncle Wight and my aunt, my father and mother, and my brother Tom, Dr. Fairbrother and Mr. Mills, the parson, and his wife, who is a neighbour’s daughter of my uncle Robert’s, and knows my Aunt Wight and all her and my friends there; and so we had excellent company to-day.
After dinner I was sent for to Sir G. Carteret’s, where he was, and I found the Comptroller, who are upon writing a letter to the Commissioners of Parliament in some things a rougher stile than our last, because they seem to speak high to us.
So the Comptroller and I thence to a tavern hard by, and there did agree upon drawing up some letters to be sent to all the pursers and Clerks of the Cheques to make up their accounts. Then home; where I found the parson and his wife gone. And by and by the rest of the company, very well pleased, and I too; it being the last dinner I intend to make a great while, it having now cost me almost 15l. in three dinners within this fortnight. In the evening comes Sir W. Pen, pretty merry, to sit with me and talk, which we did for an hour or two, and so good night, and I to bed.
Let him continue
in the ground, he
who is now dead,
where all things hurry—
a strange company
who seem to speak.
Let the pursers and clerks
make up their accounts,
the parson rest, and
the great night come
to sit with night.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 2 February 1660/61.
Subnivean
Like varicose veins
in the thinning snow, the dark
tunnels of the voles.
My garbage is nothing
but coffee grounds, each morning
wrapped in its filter-shroud.
I miss summer:
those small millipedes that glide
across the bathroom floor.
Tempering
Rice that’s fed to the gods must be allowed to sweeten in
a gourd: they like best the foam of its intoxicating ferment.
Oh most golden fruit, unblemished skin of melon or pear: meanwhile
we cook the rinds and boast about their notes of complex ferment.
An offering’s a gift: largesse, windfall, the best willingly
given up. No seed pearls that sour, then soon ferment.
And children sing in any tongue their mouths know how to give
shape to: what joy in that honey, before bitterness or its ferment.
Mornings, more often now, in the winter-bare trees, the birds bring
their small, brightly colored racket: I love that startling ferment.
I’ll lie down in my bed at night and pull you close as a sheet,
to dream of bees buzzing in the hive, their ambering ferment.
In response to thus: small stone (265).
Imbolc
(Friday). A full office all this morning, and busy about answering the Commissioners of Parliament to their letter, wherein they desire to borrow two clerks of ours, which we will not grant them.
After dinner into London and bought some books, and a belt, and had my sword new furbished. To the alehouse with Mr. Brigden and W. Symons and drank together. At night home. So after a little music to bed, leaving my people up getting things ready against to-morrow’s dinner.
Ice is an answer
to desire we will
not grant. I don
new fur, den up
against tomorrow’s din.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 1 February 1660/61.
Primary school
Children in the woods:
at first I mistake their distant yelps
for coyotes.
When did I stop climbing trees?
Views are best when seasoned
with a little terror.
Once I found a dead cicada,
stuck half-way out
of its former self.
True Meridian
Where I wanted to go, years ago, seemed so far away:
a dream, a fantasy even, in the blue distance.
Not now what might be purchased, what comes with
a ticket, that place of no return in the blue distance.
All that glitters isn’t a rhinestone seam on a fishnet
stocking: the long hallway beckons in the blue distance.
And the hills will be there, but that city to which
you dedicate songs has receded in the blue distance.
This is the way it is for exiles, for poets, for lovers
who want to keep something pure in the blue distance.
For instance: that parapet where you leant as a child
to watch boats in the harbor, in the blue distance.
Spirits distilled from the lowly potato, the unassuming
birch: waters that have traveled from a blue distance.
Have you changed? and how? ask compatriots. What they mean,
really, is: have I also traversed the same blue distance?
On the eve of the lunar year I walked about with a saucer of salt,
a handful of augurs— Talismans to ground me in this blue distance.
In response to Via Negativa: Lay of the land.
Inferno
This morning with Mr. Coventry at Whitehall about getting a ship to carry my Lord’s deals to Lynne, and we have chosen the Gift. Thence at noon to my Lord’s, where my Lady not well, so I eat a mouthfull of dinner there, and thence to the Theatre, and there sat in the pit among the company of fine ladys, &c.; and the house was exceeding full, to see Argalus and Parthenia, the first time that it hath been acted: and indeed it is good, though wronged by my over great expectations, as all things else are. Thence to my father’s to see my mother, who is pretty well after her journey from Brampton. She tells me my aunt is pretty well, yet cannot live long. My uncle pretty well too, and she believes would marry again were my aunt dead, which God forbid. So home.
We have chosen the gift of heat
and a pit fine and full.
The first time it is good, though wronged
by my over-great expectations,
as all things are.
I cannot believe in a dead God.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 31 January 1660/61.
January oddities
Let us bid a fond farewell to January. With its low-angled light and unpredictable conditions, it’s always the best time of year for spotting oddities. Icicles, for example, can grow feet from walking on the water. Continue reading “January oddities”
Lay of the land
The long, low ridges
in the blue distance are edged
with bands of yellow.
Otherwise, the clouds
are heavy as an old
wool blanket.
I pull the shades for a nap,
a wakeful woodchuck thumping
under my floor.