And here we sit, eating boiled eggs on wilted lettuce, drinking tepid tea then picking our teeth afterwards. What is there left not to believe? A man marries then breaks all his promises before the first year even settles into the shape of the familiar. Snow has fallen in the desert, and millions have died, suddenly and alone, gasping for breath. But then again, what can we say with certainty about a universe where the idea of hugging and eating in restaurants has been shaken? Once the impossible is imagined, the hairline crack in ice begins to broadcast its more widespread campaign. One day in the future, will others read the chapter in a book describing how we failed to recognize so many things in our world are not in fact timeless or unchanging? Or will there be time to tether what hasn't been lost or cloven, even as we watch the old forms drift into the farther unknown?
Night from the inside (6)
Living here for 50 years in a bend of the railroad’s main line through Pennsylvania, I couldn’t help but become an aficionado of train horns. As they age they grow in dissonance, till they’re making chords straight out of Schoenberg.
*
cold twilight
fragments
of a distant ball game
*
night valley
the unadorned darkness
of Amish farms
*
What I thought at first were stars reflected in the forest pool’s nearly still surface turn out, when I look up, to be satellites — a long line of them, easily visible through the half-grown leaves as they file soundlessly overhead. This has the name, I recall, of an almost bird: Starlink. Creepy and unnerving as hell. I guess we should be grateful they don’t spell out DRINK COKE or something, but the long-term plan is even worse: to outnumber the visible stars in the night sky. All so one multinational corporation, SpaceX, can have a monopoly on rural broadband service. I’m reminded of Robinson Jeffers’ misanthropic quote: “Man would shit on the morning star if he could reach it.”
*
I love the startled barks of raccoons. Even when my presence is the occasion for it.
*
A small outbreak of fireworks down the valley: a local clusterfuck.
*
Out in the woods at night, it’s hard to shake the impression that I’m surrounded by tribespeople — I mean the trees. They act as if they own the place. You can see it in their posture, their habit of rarely bowing, their standoffishness. However often we cut them down they keep coming back, as best they can, to this same backward place, clannish, profligate. Prone to annual revivals that quickly devolve into orgies, pollen flying everywhere. Full of exotic music from all the nomads they take in.
*
My brother Mark’s nocturnal audio recordings show that field sparrows, a supposedly diurnal species, are the most regular nighttime songsters. I wonder if being a light sleeper confers evolutionary advantage to a dweller in open spaces? Mark wrote,
A field sparrow or field sparrows called 42 times on the night of May 14-15, after dusk and dawn choruses were over, over the course of 7hr45min. So that works out to about once every 11 min. I believe it was more than one bird, given the differing volumes–assuming they weren’t flying around.
Other diurnal birds singing at night I’ve encountered so far are the [yellow-billed and black-billed] cuckoos, an apparent chipping sparrow, catbird, and a common yellowthroat.
*
I’m sitting in the ridgetop forest listening to a dog or coyote in the valley, yipping and howling to the accompaniment of the high school marching band.
The howls are getting closer, the band more distant.
It is almost fully dark, I’m a mile from home, and I’ve just had my second Covid shot.
OK, no, I must be listening to an outdoor rock or country concert. The howls aren’t canine but human, sounding multi vocal when the audience joins in. I can almost make out the melody line.
It’s like I’m in the world’s darkest, deadest bar with a dying jukebox just out of sight around the corner.
But doubtless this is something the town leaders have dreamed up to get people outside and lift their spirits. I’m glad.
And I’m glad that it’s now over, climaxing in a frenzy of colored spotlights. Silence and darkness descend like benedictions from the great velvet Elvis above the bar.
without my glasses
the shapeliness
of night
*
A genuinely blood-curdling cry from the other side of the spruce grove. It spooked a couple of deer, who just ran past me.
*
nightcrawler
s t r e t c h i n g
into the woods
*
The crescent moon is the best moon: more stylish than the full moon, and available for moongazers and performers of dark rites twice a month rather than just once. Plus it doesn’t nearly eradicate the darkness as the full moon does.
*
In one dream I am hunted — or haunted? — by the Polaroid of a fish.
*
moonlit forest
the sudden crack and roar
of a falling tree
the mouse keeps on
nosing about
Fifteen minutes later, another tree crashes down, twice as close. I take the hint and get out.
*
first field cricket
through the open window
half a moon
*
Fifteen minutes past sunset, coyotes strike up a chorus not far from where I sit, on the appropriately named Coyote Bench. They start out sounding plausibly dog-like, but the yipping and wolf-like howling quickly give them away. Like all music that resonates down deep, this is part moan, part jubilation. Closing in on prey, and close to prayer:
*
First firefly blinking through the half-grown black walnut leaves, all alone going here… here… here…
Rainbow colors in the clouds around the moon — a reminder that even on a sultry evening, ice is less than ten miles away.
Self-sacrifice
(Lord’s day). Lay long, and then up and to Church, and so home, where there come and dined with me Harris, Rolt, and Bannister, and one Bland, that sings well also, and very merry at dinner, and, after dinner, to sing all the afternoon. But when all was done, I did begin to think that the pleasure of these people was not worth so often charge and cost to me, as it hath occasioned me. They being gone I and Balty walked as far as Charing Cross, and there got a coach and to Hales’s the painter, thinking to have found Harris sitting there for his picture, which is drawing for me. But he, and all this day’s company, and Hales, were got to the Crown tavern, at next door, and thither I to them and stayed a minute, leaving Captain Grant telling pretty stories of people that have killed themselves, or been accessory to it, in revenge to other people, and to mischief other people, and thence with Hales to his house, and there did see his beginning of Harris’s picture, which I think will be pretty like, and he promises a very good picture. Thence with Balty away and got a coach and to Hide Park, and there up and down and did drink some milk at the Lodge, and so home and to bed.
the church sings of people
not worth one wing
but go to the tavern
next door
pretty stories of people
that have killed themselves
or been accessory to it
and use gin like milk
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 26 April 1668
Phase I
Would you want it for her, they ask. A woman of her age, past her eighth decade: the seeming implication being that she must be close to the end of the road. As if vaccines are an idea best meant for the young, those with upper lips still faintly imprinted with milk. Or the ones whose duties necessitate putting on a suit and tie, a pair of hard-shined shoes. But one day, sunning herself in the garden, she leans forward and confides: I want to live to be a hundred. She is not yet of the age to be dismissed, her fragile bones not yet delivered from the fire as molecule and ash.
Faithful
Up, and with Sir J. Minnes to my Lord Brouncker, and with him all of us to my Lord Ashly to satisfy him about the reason of what we do or have done in the business of the tradesmen’s certificates, which he seems satisfied with, but is not, but I believe we have done what we can justify, and he hath done what he cannot in stopping us to grant them, and I believe it will come into Parliament and make trouble. So home and there at the office all the morning. At noon home to dinner, and thence after dinner to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there saw “Sir Martin Marr-all,” which, the more I see, the more I like, and thence to Westminster Hall, and there met with Roger Pepys; and he tells me that nothing hath lately passed about my Lord Sandwich, but only Sir Robert Carr did speak hardly of him. But it is hoped that nothing will be done more, this meeting of Parliament, which the King did, by a message yesterday, declare again, should rise the 4th of May, and then only adjourne for three months: and this message being only adjournment, did please them mightily, for they are desirous of their power mightily. Thence homeward by the Coffee House in Covent Garden, thinking to have met Harris here but could not, and so home, and there, after my letters, I home to have my hair cut by my sister Michell and her husband, and so to bed. This day I did first put off my waste-coate, the weather being very hot, but yet lay in it at night, and shall, for a little time.
what we believe
can make the morning more
like sand
but for me coffee
and let my hair
be the weather
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 25 April 1668
Anchor and Release
You read a story about the two elderly men who snuck out of their nursing home to attend a heavy metal festival. You never get to find out which band— an ad interrupts, of course: Aviation Mechanic Training. Or free real estate advice. That's the way of the world: it puts two silk cords in your hands and fills the ends with rocks of different sizes and shapes. You're supposed to spin them with the lightest of wrist movements so they draw helixes in the air; wide, lapping circles around you. All in the footwork. When you get good at this, promises the instructor, you could graduate to fire. Which could be a goal, perhaps because everyone who looks at you only thinks cardigan, not spandex. Or drogue parachute, if parachute at all.
Library wren
Up betimes, and by water to White Hall, to the Duke of York, and there hear that this day Hollis and Temple purpose to bring in the petition against Sir W. Coventry, which I am sorry for, but hope he will get out of it. Here I presented Mrs. Pett and her condition to Mr. Wren for his favour, which he promised us. Thence to Lord Brouncker and sat and talked with him, who thinks the Parliament will, by their violence and delay in money matters, force the King to run any hazard, and dissolve them. Thence to Ducke Lane, and there did overlook a great many of Monsieur Fouquet’s library, that a bookseller hath bought, and I did buy one Spanish [work], “Los Illustres Varones.” Here did I endeavour to see my pretty woman that I did baiser in las tenebras a little while depuis. And did find her sofa in the book[shop], but had not la confidence para alter a elle. So lost my pains. But will another time, and so home and to my office, and then to dinner. After dinner down to the Old Swan, and by the way called at Michell’s, and there did see Betty, and that was all, for either she is shy or foolish, and su mardi hath no mind para laiser me see su moher. To White Hall by water, and there did our business with the Duke of York, which was very little, only here I do hear the Duke of York tell how Sir W. Pen’s impeachment was brought into the House of Lords to-day; and spoke with great kindness of him: and that the Lords would not commit him till they could find precedent for it, and did incline to favour him. Thence to the King’s playhouse, and there saw a piece of “Beggar’s Bush,” which I have not seen some years, and thence home, and there to Sir W. Pen’s and supped and sat talking there late, having no where else to go, and my eyes too bad to read right, and so home to bed.
wren in the library
a luster of lost time to her
as foolish as a lord
for the beggar’s
nowhere else to read
and to be
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 24 April 1668
Extravagance
A famous poet wrote in a famous essay this bit of advice: spend it all, don't save it for a day that might never come— which can mean any of these things: your best work isn't holding off from your reach, rare fruit ripening at the end of a long branch; or you think the options in the present moment might be upstaged by something grander, bigger, shinier—if you just waited a little more. She wasn't just talking about art, was she? There's so much evidence around you of what could be called judicious thought, forethought, afterthought; or maybe just a miserly spirit. "Good plates" still wrapped in tissue, gifts you were given by friends no longer in this world; a letter from a once upon a time love you never answered. Clearly the world is always changing, not even mildly inclined to take your sensibility into account. Before you know it, it's high summer again and the trees are filled with the high humming of cicadas. They've awakened from a long pause, an interlude. Should their bodies become spore-infested so parts fall away, they won't even notice. They'll keep at it for hours, leaning wholly now into that old, blind frenzy to mate before they die.
Luciferase
Up, and to the office, where all the morning, and at noon comes Knepp and Mrs. Pierce, and her daughter, and one Mrs. Foster, and dined with me, and mighty merry, and after dinner carried them to the Tower, and shewed them all to be seen there, and, among other things, the Crown and Scepters and rich plate, which I myself never saw before, and indeed is noble, and I mightily pleased with it. Thence by water to the Temple, and there to the Cocke alehouse, and drank, and eat a lobster, and sang, and mighty merry. So, almost night, I carried Mrs. Pierce home, and then Knepp and I to the Temple again, and took boat, it being darkish, and to Fox Hall, it being now night, and a bonfire burning at Lambeth for the King’s coronation-day. And there she and I drank; and yo did tocar her corps all over and besar sans fin her, but did not offer algo mas; and so back, and led her home, it being now ten at night; and so got a link; and, walking towards home, just at my entrance into the ruines at St. Dunstan’s, I was met by two rogues with clubs, who come towards us. So I went back, and walked home quite round by the wall, and got well home, and to bed weary, but pleased at my day’s pleasure, but yet displeased at my expence, and time I lose.
the self as foxfire
in a corpse
nightwalking
into the ruins
toward a weary
day’s pleasure
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 23 April 1668
(Continuing) Improvisations
6 A lapidary head; a bodice streaked with fog. Translation: Mica, fool's gold, river stone. What's the difference between a thing that cleaves perfectly and one that doesn't know the first rule about shattering? Close a fist around them. Listen for what your pulse says to each.