I was land-hungry in my youth.
In the summer I turned soil
and in winter hoped for snow—
a Platonic kind of field,
rich in solitude as any desert
and as free of weeds,
the leafless rose in the yard
alone with its snarl
of barbed canes.
Winter sky, age 5
The sky lacked
the thinnest
whisker of cloud.
Jets untethered by contrails
hardly seemed to roar,
lost in all that blue.
This was the sky I labored at
with crayons,
having given up on the sun.
Changeling
This my birthday, 28 years.
This morning Sir W. Batten, Pen, and I did some business, and then I by water to Whitehall, having met Mr. Hartlibb by the way at Alderman Backwell’s. So he did give me a glass of Rhenish wine at the Steeleyard, and so to Whitehall by water. He continues of the same bold impertinent humour that he was always of and will ever be. He told me how my Lord Chancellor had lately got the Duke of York and Duchess, and her woman, my Lord Ossory’s and a Doctor, to make oath before most of the judges of the kingdom, concerning all the circumstances of their marriage. And in fine, it is confessed that they were not fully married till about a month or two before she was brought to bed; but that they were contracted long before, and time enough for the child to be legitimate. But I do not hear that it was put to the judges to determine whether it was so or no.
To my Lord and there spoke to him about his opinion of the Light, the sea-mark that Captain Murford is about, and do offer me an eighth part to concern myself with it, and my Lord do give me some encouragement in it, and I shall go on. I dined herewith Mr. Shepley and Howe. After dinner to Whitehall Chappell with Mr. Child, and there did hear Captain Cooke and his boy make a trial of an Anthem against tomorrow, which was brave musique.
Then by water to Whitefriars to the Play-house, and there saw “The Changeling,” the first time it hath been acted these twenty years, and it takes exceedingly. Besides, I see the gallants do begin to be tyred with the vanity and pride of the theatre actors who are indeed grown very proud and rich.
Then by link home, and there to my book awhile and to bed.
I met to-day with Mr. Townsend, who tells me that the old man is yet alive in whose place in the Wardrobe he hopes to get my father, which I do resolve to put for.
I also met with the Comptroller, who told me how it was easy for us all, the principal officers, and proper for us, to labour to get into the next Parliament; and would have me to ask the Duke’s letter, but I shall not endeavour it because it will spend much money, though I am sure I could well obtain it. This is now 28 years that I am born. And blessed be God, in a state of full content, and great hopes to be a happy man in all respects, both to myself and friends.
My birthday is water in wine,
an impertinent chance.
I do not concern myself with it.
Give me rage
and I shall go on:
I was a changeling.
The man in whose place I troll
was born happy.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 23 February 1660/61.
On the Way to Santiago, 1978
I remember the Moorkiller’s
stone horse in Logroño,
its terrible phallus.
Near the steps that pilgrims
once bloodied with their knees,
the jolly lacemaker.
We yield the road
to sheep, a bicycle race,
old men bowling in the afternoon.
Snowfall
The slow and steady
accumulation of snow
making everything strange
reminds me of my father
reading aloud to the family
from a book in his lap,
the whisper of pages turning,
each of us building a picture
all our own.
Rabid
The gray fox sat
and gazed at us like an angel—
one that foamed at the mouth.
I refuse to write
another poem about
the goddamn crows.
Holding a rifle
is like holding an infant,
wary of setting it off.
Secondary school
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.
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.
Short-order cook
To the office all the morning. My wife and people at home busy to get things ready for tomorrow’s dinner. At noon, without dinner, went into the City, and there meeting with Greatorex, we went and drank a pot of ale. He told me that he was upon a design to go to Teneriffe to try experiments there. With him to Gresham Colledge (where I never was before), and saw the manner of the house, and found great company of persons of honour there.
Thence to my bookseller’s, and for books, and to Stevens, the silversmith, to make clean some plate against to-morrow, and so home, by the way paying many little debts for wine and pictures, &c., which is my great pleasure.
Home and found all things in a hurry of business, Slater, our messenger, being here as my cook till very late.
I in my chamber all the evening looking over my Osborn’s works and new Emanuel Thesaurus Patriarchae.
So late to bed, having ate nothing to-day but a piece of bread and cheese at the ale-house with Greatorex, and some bread and butter at home.
The city: a great experiment,
there where I never found
a clean plate against tomorrow,
paying many little debts
and all things in a hurry of business.
As cook, looking over my work,
I ate nothing but bread and cheese
and bread and butter.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 23 January 1660/61.
Ichigo Ichie (one lifetime, one encounter)
A tea gathering cannot be repeated, and the host and guests feel that this is an encounter that can only occur once in a lifetime.
—glossary, Japanese Tea Culture: The Omotesenke Tradition
The room isn’t right: too bright, too perfect,
despite its location in the most venerable
Zen temple in all Kyoto.
The one white lily is a cliché.
And the participants are far too numerous:
15 more than the optimal five.
Examining the implements cannot fail
to become a perfunctory exercise.
The wealthy ladies of the tea ceremony club
from Sakai—hometown of Sen no Rikyū—
sigh for the lack of wabi & sabi.
But then their special guest, a tall,
funny-looking foreigner, enters the room
& hits his head against a ceiling beam
with a satisfying thump.
He grins foolishly & everyone laughs.
How like Daruma now the kettle appears,
round & stolid! And the bamboo whisk
marooned in the dark bowl—how at home!
The foreigner settles into place
& the circle tightens a little
as everyone strains to hear his murmured Japanese,
so beautifully flawed.