I
Fate is cleverer than the king
of Babylon. Shadow of yew
fall through windows onto
the floor of the nave and
touch the pillars with tattered
shade. You claim the dearest wish of your
life is to sink into a soul-freezing
situation of horror. The music of a crash
caught in the hollow of a wooded hillside.
2
Grave, questioning sweep—chiefly the weird
that arouses our keenest hopes. The garden of
dreams contains a summerhouse, hazy
period of my growth. There are bodies,
not greatly extended, called seas nevertheless,
because of their depth and
violence. I’ve some little
doubt about this ceremony entirely
embedded in a cup of grassy hills.
3
Pardon me for loitering. I was sleeping
soundly when I was roused by the loud
clang of what turned out to be
a large brass candlestick, flung
against the banister. Unprotected,
destitute of the means of self-defense, you
hug to yourself the consciousness of
vanished beauty. The sea is un-
certain, on the main and also along the coast.
4
Strange rooms. Through these experimental
years, who can describe beauty
in the dead of night? Complain of
frivolity or of portraits exactly
like ghosts. The waters of the great
surrounding sea will completely
evaporate when the sun opens the fifth
of its seven eyes. Oh yes, I take
pleasure in backgrounds, bringing them forward.
5
These are only a few of many
legendary details, called from the distant
future where each thing has its
end, including sea, sun, the eyes.
You live in another season—even now I
feel acrobatic instincts. Large strange
rooms. A silver cup from his household
plate, a sky of the same
gray tones, a great wilderness of books.
6
When the sea subsides into utter
calm, changing clouds caught in its
clarity, then fishermen say the sea
is thinking about itself. A dark back
room, looking down upon a narrow
courtyard—waking out of some
dreams of specters, bellowing the most
frightful shrieks, forgetting only
at the sound of somebody’s voice.
7
You light me to bed with your light, and
never a night but I am
prey to ghostly visions—a tenderness
no usual in my family. The lion
pauses a certain space of time, amid
a sea of divers thoughts, choppy half
desires, memoranda of search
and hunger, very peculiar
ideas of the world.
Keith Waldrop, “Shipwreck in Haven, Part Four” from Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy. Copyright © 2009 by the Regents of the University of California. Reprinted by permission of University of California Press.
Source: Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (University of California Press, 2009)
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