The great cold shoulders bared,
The last great masts grown rich with moss, unfelled
Pilings, amassings of a shadily
Conservative nature-Balzac alone
Could have done justice to this old salon,
Its slow formation and decline,
Its airs, its tediums. The more astounding, then
To be led out as by young laughter
Onto this sunny balcony
Where somebody quite dashing for a change
Irresistibly goes on
About the banks he has broken and the weights he has lifted,
Dorsals and laterals rippling under sunburn,
Pure muscle round a soul
Not really lost, still … savable, you know?
They knew. The two dirt-caked prospectors
Rubbed their eyes and squatted within earshot:
A Yankee ornery enough to seek
Unfluctuating values, and a meek
Rebel, an embittered dreamer
Out of Balzac. For what it was worth, God loved them
His twelve-ounce rainbow sizzled in their pan;
Next morning, the first nugget.
Crystal tendon strained, the creek
Tossed on its couch, no longer freely associating
Hawk with trout, or cloud with pebble white as cloud.
Its mouth worked. The history began.
I
Since being gelded of my gold,
Gray moods, black moods come over me.
Where’s my old sparkle? Of late
I’ve felt so rushed, so cold.
Am I riding for another fall?
Will I end up at the power station
On charges, a degenerate?
Have my spirit broken in a cell?
Must I grow broad- and dirty-minded
Serving a community, a nation
By now past anybody’s power to shock?
Doctor of locks and dams, the delta’s blinded,
The mudfish grins, how do I reach the sea?
Help me. No! Don’t touch me! Let me be!
II
Time was, time was a handful of gold dust
Fought for like breath, though it was only time.
Grain by grain sifting to a slender waist
Inevitably, the climber gave
Up on those slopes so sheer they seemed concave.
Here below, the campsite-second growth,
Charred beams, a skillet dew gnaws bottomless.
Of our two actors, which one surfaced then
In the casino mirrors of Cheyenne?
Why was his partner not apparent? Guess.
Listen. We must be near. And look, the currant
Berries-how their scarlets drip
Into clear conscience from a fingertip,
Or shrivel, tiny redskins, where next spring
Will rise big ghost-white scentless violets.
Senseless violence! Our quarrels, friend,
Have been, how shall I say,
Mortal as theirs, but less material.
You played your part in a Far Eastern theatre.
I stayed home with Balzac, and meditated.
Red shelter from the blizzard thought, bloodshed …
No hands are washed clean in the same stream twice.
And in the novel which was to have ended the Comédie
Little Hanno Nucingen is lost at sea,
A figure of angelic sacrifice.
III
Come live within me, said the waterfall.
There is a chamber of black stone
High and dry behind my stunning life.
Stay here a year or two, a year or ten,
Until you’ve heard it all,
The inside story deafening but true.
Or false—I’m not a fool.
Moments of truth are moments only,
Eyes burning on the brink of empty beds.
The years wink past, the current changes course.
Ruined by tin-pan blues
The golden voice turns gravelly and hoarse.
Now you’ve seen through me, sang the cataract,
A fraying force, but unafraid,
Plunge through my bath of plus and minus both,
Acid and base,
The mind that mirrors and the hands that act.
Enter this inmost space
Its lean illuminations decompose.
Sun’s rose wash on the wall,
Moon clinging like the Perils of Pauline-
God knows I haven’t failed her yet!
And yet how far away they seem, now small.
Get me by heart, my friend,
And then forget. Forgive
These bones their hollow end, this amulet
Its wearer who atones.
All things in time grow musical.
How can you live without me? While I live
Come live within me, said the waterfall.
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