style="font-size:15px;"> As I was fishing off Pondy Point
Between the tides, the sea so still—
Only a whisper against the boat—
No other sound but the scream of a gull,
I heard the voice you will never hear
Filling the crannies of the air.
The doors swung open, the little doors,
The door, the hatch within the brain,
And like the bellowing of ruin
The surf upon the thousand shores
Swept through me, and the thunder-noise
Of all the waves of all the seas.
The doors swung shut, the little doors,
The door, the hatch within the ear,
And I was fishing off Pondy Pier,
And all was as it was before,
With only the whisper of the swell
Against the boat, and the cry of a gull.
I draw a sight from tree to tree
Crossing this other from knoll to rock,
To mark the place. Into the sea
My line falls with an empty hook,
Yet fools the world. So day and night
I crouch upon the thwarts and wait.
There is a roaring in the skies
The great globes make, and there is the sound
Of all the atoms whirling round
That one can hear if one is wise—
Wiser than most—if one has heard
The doors, the little doors, swing wide.
AFTER LOOKING INTO A BOOK BELONGING TO MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER, ELI ELIAKIM PLUTZIK
I am troubled by the blank fields, the speechless graves.
Since the names were carved upon wood, there is no word
For the thousand years that shaped this scribbling fist
And the eyes staring at strange places and times
Beyond the veldt dragging to Poland.
Lovers of words make simple peace with death,
At last demanding, to close the door to the cold,
Only Here lies someone.
Here lie no one and no one, your fathers and mothers.
THE GEESE
A miscellaneous screaming that comes from nowhere
Raises the eyes at last to the moonward-flying
Squadron of wild-geese arcing the spatial cold.
Beyond the hunter’s gun or the will’s range
They press southward, toward the secret marshes
Where the appointed gunmen mark the crossing
Of flight and moment. There is no force stronger
(In the sweep of the monomaniac passion, time)
Than the will toward destiny, which is death.
Value the intermediate splendor of birds.
THE MYTHOS OF SAMUEL HUNTSMAN
If I should round the corner quickly—
Or suddenly turn my head—
I know I’d catch them preparing the scene,
Painting a tree or hanging the moon,
Arranging houses and streets exactly
In the desperate game which is God’s.
For I have seen through their plausible lies—
That of a uniform world,
And cities existing beyond these hills,
Or on rain-wet pampas ferocious bulls,
A logic of morrows and yesterdays
Or real seeds under this field.
The surface is thin as a gilding of oil
Upon an enormous lake
Deep as infinity, void as a gas,
On which they plant the lying rose
To delude the sniffing child or the fool.
But me they cannot expect
To wink forever, never to turn
And look at their empty stage
Of space starless and planetless
Where they swarm to cover some nakedness,
A ravaged fruit tree perhaps, some sin
That calls to me to judge.
One question has to be wrestled down
Before I smash this façade:
Are they worlds, these other men, Thomas or Roger,
Like me, with their plague of conjurers
Or but lesser dolls in the scene of one
Who will deal alone with God?
BEWARE, SAUNTERER, OF THIS DESPERADO, A MR. BONES, A BAD ACTOR
Saunterer on this autumn track
That edges the garden, brown with brown,
Along by the hickory tree remember
To avoid the place where the dead rat lies.
Else how will you breathe untainted the sweet
Rot
