III. Spring 1662
300 were murdered. Twice that
Refuse to garden, hunt, or gather food
But languish like sparrows sunk in a frozen pond
Staring up at shadows, awaiting
The sign that will call them back to life.
They cannot imagine their future.
Haunts without words to tell their trial; like Io,
We would flee the noise of our new voices.
Last night’s sun smeared across the sky
Its customary rose-gold gore. You,
In London, you have applauded no tragedy
Your approximate heart might use to figure this—
This violence. The trees
Do not desist their manufacture.
The perfumier’s corky bitch
Chewed out the tendon in her master’s wrist
Until it inelastic snapped & back she bowled,
Off to the woods & not sniffed since.
With the smell of breakfast still in the air,
The aftertaste of lead was the scandal
Of blood. Bodies stung into postures,
Penitence, Weariness, Surprise, & cardinal
In red caps, red garlands of red roses
Wrapped around white throats, white
As bacon fat. No one need travel any longer
For all have found what they sought:
Henry walks his own fields, Lucy is not afraid,
Will has finally grasped the subjunctive.
The dead do not look asleep.
We cannot sleep through this life.
I watch the flies at their devotions, & I learn.
Time will not end by water or fire,
But by a congregation of frogs who yelp like hounds
& ride each other in shallow plashes.
I am inhabited by things that wake me,
But do not show themselves.
One frog my hand holds like a swollen glove.
As your maid might pare a callous,
I trim the brief cloudburst of its brain,
Which has the texture of cheese under my knife.
The frog, insensate, blind as an idol,
Would sit until it starved.
If I put Ovid between it & the window,
Tickle its hinderparts with acid, it leaps
Towards the light, avoiding the book.
Its movements finical as a rope-dancer.
Though she have her heart & liver pulled out
Another frisks & fidgets up & down.
Who am I so far from home?
A year— & through branches light comes,
A pilgrim out of March from a farther world.
There is a flaw in the air. I breathed it
From the swamp, a kiss of damp
Translated to a plague that would remote me
From care & corroding solicitudes, crown me
With this headdress of red-painted deer-hair
& weight my ears with wheels of copper.
My face painted blue & silver, my body
Washed in crimson dye, they would greet me
First with lamentations to mourn my old life,
Then by psalms I could enter
Purged & reborn & singing in a tongue
Not mine I know not where to go. (I know.)
Refuse to garden, hunt, or gather food
But languish like sparrows sunk in a frozen pond
Staring up at shadows, awaiting
The sign that will call them back to life.
They cannot imagine their future.
Haunts without words to tell their trial; like Io,
We would flee the noise of our new voices.
Last night’s sun smeared across the sky
Its customary rose-gold gore. You,
In London, you have applauded no tragedy
Your approximate heart might use to figure this—
This violence. The trees
Do not desist their manufacture.
The perfumier’s corky bitch
Chewed out the tendon in her master’s wrist
Until it inelastic snapped & back she bowled,
Off to the woods & not sniffed since.
With the smell of breakfast still in the air,
The aftertaste of lead was the scandal
Of blood. Bodies stung into postures,
Penitence, Weariness, Surprise, & cardinal
In red caps, red garlands of red roses
Wrapped around white throats, white
As bacon fat. No one need travel any longer
For all have found what they sought:
Henry walks his own fields, Lucy is not afraid,
Will has finally grasped the subjunctive.
The dead do not look asleep.
We cannot sleep through this life.
I watch the flies at their devotions, & I learn.
Time will not end by water or fire,
But by a congregation of frogs who yelp like hounds
& ride each other in shallow plashes.
I am inhabited by things that wake me,
But do not show themselves.
One frog my hand holds like a swollen glove.
As your maid might pare a callous,
I trim the brief cloudburst of its brain,
Which has the texture of cheese under my knife.
The frog, insensate, blind as an idol,
Would sit until it starved.
If I put Ovid between it & the window,
Tickle its hinderparts with acid, it leaps
Towards the light, avoiding the book.
Its movements finical as a rope-dancer.
Though she have her heart & liver pulled out
Another frisks & fidgets up & down.
Who am I so far from home?
A year— & through branches light comes,
A pilgrim out of March from a farther world.
There is a flaw in the air. I breathed it
From the swamp, a kiss of damp
Translated to a plague that would remote me
From care & corroding solicitudes, crown me
With this headdress of red-painted deer-hair
& weight my ears with wheels of copper.
My face painted blue & silver, my body
Washed in crimson dye, they would greet me
First with lamentations to mourn my old life,
Then by psalms I could enter
Purged & reborn & singing in a tongue
Not mine I know not where to go. (I know.)
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