Of course it's fixed forever
in a time of blue hills and fog:
a screen of heat reflecting off
tin roofs, a composition rehearsed
day after day by rain. Of course
nights were always lined
with the cries of vendors
and hungry children, smells
of diesel and human waste
floating on water beneath
the bridge. The roads
slipped through rocks
and cypress groves. And we,
formerly devout in childhood,
repeated saints' names in sleep
and on waking, and signed
spit crosses on the tops
of aching feet. Only much
later and far away from that shore
did we marvel at the way the moon
could shine like the perfect
white curve of a French manicure,
at stars that tilted from the weight
of invisible waters kept pouring
everything we thought we wanted
into our upturned mouths.
Holding cell
Up, and at the office all the morning. At noon home to dinner, and after dinner abroad to Lumbard Streete, there to reckon with Sir Robert Viner for some money, and did sett all straight to my great content, and so home, and all the afternoon and evening at the office, my mind full at this time of getting my accounts over, and as much money in my hands as I can, for a great turne is to be feared in the times, the French having some great design (whatever it is) in hand, and our necessities on every side very great. The Dutch are now known to be out, and we may expect them every houre upon our coast. But our fleete is in pretty good readinesse for them.
off the street
to set straight my mind
hands design a hand
our every now an ever hour
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 28 June 1666.
Threnody, with Grass and Saṃsāra
When the man who cuts our grass every two
or three weeks comes by this afternoon,
he turns off his riding lawn mower
to chat. I'm not sure what prompts this
pause for conversation—perhaps the nearly
100-degree heat, or just because
whatever's on the brain has a way
of spilling out of the mouth, seeking
a listening. And that's how I come
to learn about his brother's death.
There's one in every family: oveja
negra notoria. You know how it is,
Joel says. All of us siblings cut
from the same cloth, and yet one of us
somehow takes some kind of wrong turn
and never reaches their full potential.
And yet this brother, no matter how down
on luck or perpetually drowned in his cups,
never lacked for friends. The way Joel
tells it, even people he met for the first
time acted almost like they knew him
from another life. Nearly seven
hundred people went to my brother's funeral,
says Joel, shaking his head. I've known
a few people like that too: old souls,
washing up here again among us after
having traveled so long. Each time, still
trying to figure out how to do it—how
to live this life, how to make amends,
perhaps do it better next time. Just like
all these plots where grasses grow
back, tall and thick and green, no matter
how many times the blade mows them down.
Incubation
Up, and to my office awhile, and then down the river a little way to see vessels ready for the carrying down of 400 land soldiers to the fleete. Then back to the office for my papers, and so to St. James’s, where we did our usual attendance on the Duke. Having done with him, we all of us down to Sir W. Coventry’s chamber (where I saw his father my Lord Coventry’s picture hung up, done by Stone, who then brought it home. It is a good picture, drawn in his judge’s robes, and the great seale by him. And while it was hanging up, “This,” says Sir W. Coventry, merrily, “is the use we make of our fathers,”) to discourse about the proposition of serving us with hempe, delivered in by my Lord Brouncker as from an unknown person, though I know it to be Captain Cocke’s. My Lord and Sir William Coventry had some earnest words about it, the one promoting it for his private ends, being, as Cocke tells me himself, to have 500l. if the bargain goes on, and I am to have as much, and the other opposing it for the unseasonableness of it, not knowing at all whose the proposition is, which seems the more ingenious of the two. I sat by and said nothing, being no great friend to the proposition, though Cocke intends me a convenience by it. But what I observed most from the discourse was this of Sir W. Coventry, that he do look upon ourselves in a desperate condition. The issue of all standing upon this one point, that by the next fight, if we beat, the Dutch will certainly be content to take eggs for their money (that was his expression); or if we be beaten, we must be contented to make peace, and glad if we can have it without paying too dear for it. And withall we do rely wholly upon the Parliament’s giving us more money the next sitting, or else we are undone.
Being gone hence, I took coach to the Old Exchange, but did not go into it, but to Mr. Cade’s, the stationer, stood till the shower was over, it being a great and welcome one after so much dry weather. Here I understand that Ogleby is putting out some new fables of his owne, which will be very fine and very satyricall. Thence home to dinner, and after dinner carried my wife to her sister’s and I to Mr. Hales’s, to pay for my father’s picture, which cost me 10l. the head and 25s. the frame. Thence to Lovett’s, who has now done something towards the varnishing of single paper for the making of books, which will do, I think, very well. He did also carry me to a Knight’s chamber in Graye’s Inne, where there is a frame of his making, of counterfeite tortoise shell, which indeed is most excellently done. Then I took him with me to a picture shop to choose a print for him to vernish, but did not agree for one then.
Thence to my wife to take her up and so carried her home, and I at the office till late, and so to supper with my wife and to bed.
I did this afternoon visit my Lord Bellasses, who professes all imaginable satisfaction in me. He spoke dissatisfiedly with Creed, which I was pleased well enough with. My Lord is going down to his garrison to Hull, by the King’s command, to put it in order for fear of an invasion which course I perceive is taken upon the sea-coasts round; for we have a real apprehension of the King of France’s invading us.
stone fathers
live on as eggs
we must be content
to sit on change
till it fables
varnishing paper for books
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 27 June 1666.
Breach
Up and to my office betimes, and there all the morning, very busy to get out the fleete, the Dutch being now for certain out, and we shall not, we thinke, be much behindhand with them. At noon to the ‘Change about business, and so home to dinner, and after dinner to the setting my Journall to rights, and so to the office again, where all the afternoon full of business, and there till night, that my eyes were sore, that I could not write no longer.
Then into the garden, then my wife and Mercer and my Lady Pen and her daughter with us, and here we sung in the darke very finely half an houre, and so home to supper and to bed. This afternoon, after a long drowth, we had a good shower of rain, but it will not signify much if no more come.
This day in the morning come Mr. Chichly to Sir W. Coventry, to tell him the ill successe of the guns made for the Loyall London; which is, that in the trial every one of the great guns, the whole cannon of seven (as I take it), broke in pieces, which is a strange mishap, and that which will give more occasion to people’s discourse of the King’s business being done ill.
This night Mary my cookemayde, that hath been with us about three months, but find herself not able to do my worke, so is gone with great kindnesse away, and another (Luce) come, very ugly and plaine, but may be a good servant for all that.
my eyes sore I write
long into the dark
after a drought
a good shower of rain
but the guns made a hole
in people’s discourse
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 26 June 1666.
Willow
The willow of your child-
hood: did you confuse it with
the weeping bottlebrush,
its masses of drooping red
inflorescence, its clustered
filaments flushed with the orange
of pollen? There too, the subject
is that old war between beauty
and domesticity, a nation
of girls taught to leave
no signature on furniture but for
the sheen of wax applied with a bit
of rag. And that adjective,
that bit about weeping: not
the good, cleansing tears leading
to weightless joy; not even
the rhinestone variety of afternoon
soap operas, but real weeping.
Which means childhood was never
a tranquil pond fringed with red
or mauve or yellow, only ring upon
ring of soft green tethers.
Two Deer
"Only mystery allows us to live..." ~ Lorca
I have never dreamed of deer, though once
in the mountains, emerging from the house
we rented for the night, I saw a doe
and her fawn chewing on hibiscus leaves.
The wonder was that they didn't seem
skittish at all. Perhaps because the town
was overrun with tourists, the peculiar
imprint of human smells had become familiar
to them: human with backpack, human
fresh from having a traditional tattoo
tapped on an arm, human covered with mud
from spelunking. The mother let me come
closer, let me offer a handful of sweet
grass. There are people who would immediately
seize upon this and turn it into an omen.
Like: rune for impending motherhood; or
you will be the last matriarch of your
line. When the doe and her fawn edged
back into the woods, I walked down the trail
past the orange groves in search of breakfast.
For a second, I couldn't remember how old
I was, or why it should matter. A deep
nostalgia rose up in me at the sight of fog
blanketing the valley. But then I arrived
at a cafeteria selling coffee and smoked
venison, roasted yam, red mountain rice.
Why was I sad just a moment before? How
was I now only ravenous, even cheerful?
Microcosm
Up, and all the morning at my Tangier accounts, which the chopping and changing of my tallys make mighty troublesome; but, however, I did end them with great satisfaction to myself.
At noon, without staying to eat my dinner, I down by water to Deptford, and there coming find Sir W. Batten and Sir Jeremy Smith (whom the dispatch of the Loyall London detained) at dinner at Greenwich at the Beare Taverne, and thither I to them and there dined with them. Very good company of strangers there was, but I took no great pleasure among them, being desirous to be back again. So got them to rise as soon as I could, having told them the newes Sir W. Coventry just now wrote me to tell them, which is, that the Dutch are certainly come out. I did much business at Deptford, and so home, by an old poor man, a sculler, having no oares to be got, and all this day on the water entertained myself with the play of Commenius, and being come home did go out to Aldgate, there to be overtaken by Mrs. Margot Pen in her father’s coach, and my wife and Mercer with her, and Mrs. Pen carried us to two gardens at Hackny, (which I every day grow more and more in love with,) Mr. Drake’s one, where the garden is good, and house and the prospect admirable; the other my Lord Brooke’s, where the gardens are much better, but the house not so good, nor the prospect good at all. But the gardens are excellent; and here I first saw oranges grow: some green, some half, some a quarter, and some full ripe, on the same tree, and one fruit of the same tree do come a year or two after the other. I pulled off a little one by stealth (the man being mighty curious of them) and eat it, and it was just as other little green small oranges are; as big as half the end of my little finger. Here were also great variety of other exotique plants, and several labarinths, and a pretty aviary. Having done there with very great pleasure we away back again, and called at the Taverne in Hackny by the church, and there drank and eate, and so in the Coole of the evening home. This being the first day of my putting on my black stuff bombazin suit, and I hope to feel no inconvenience by it, the weather being extremely hot. So home and to bed, and this night the first night of my lying without a waistcoat, which I hope I shall very well endure. So to bed.
This morning I did with great pleasure hear Mr. Caesar play some good things on his lute, while he come to teach my boy Tom, and I did give him 40s. for his encouragement.
chopping myself down I am
two gardens one garden no garden
oranges grow green
on the tree of my finger
the labyrinth within me
is a bomb
the weather being extreme
and without hope
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 25 June 1666.
Small town parade
I’m here to report that merrie olde England is alive and well… at least in Hebden Bridge‘s annual Handmade Parade. Still, watching all the monsters, I couldn’t help thinking of Ray Bradbury’s novel Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Eucalyptus
Mothers go at dusk in summer to where young
trees line the back driveway of the City Hall,
their green camphor scent a steady
vein beneath the heat. They'll pull
at lower branches to gather tender leaves,
then bear these home in paper bags to dry
in bunches, to keep under glass for the rainy
months. At home, towel over my head, I bend
my face toward a basin of hot water in which
leaves steep, waiting for curled fingers
of steam to loosen my chest tight
with sadness and phlegm, remembering
how poultices drew me out of fever dreams
and oils could make my limbs forget
their hurt before lizards fell,
another green rain from the rafters.