Variations on a Theme by Ammons

Desert flowers, voiced by the wind, their spiked heads
and open blooms lean my way, ever so gently, as if afraid
but the wind pulls them away like a father
wrests wandering eyes from a rough-figured stranger.

The grasses, on the other hand, tune to much subtler
perturbations, above the fears and desires in closeness,
afraid only of missing it, the hidden inculcation.

The wind itself is left with the dead stalks
to state its case, for shivering and coming close,
how hard it is to flow, it stiffly asserts,
and the yellow flowers at the root of these dead
merely watch, in a kind of awe, though
all the wind can say to the living is "Don't be so lazy,
move!" (to the eucalyptus), and "Shake your pretty
tambourine in our choir" (to the bougainvillea).

The grasses feel it all but cannot say,
relying on the pink bloom nested in their bed
to offer a flicker at meaning.
And we, we go through their turnstiles,
twirling their ravishing plumage in the light
as their brothers and sisters whisper in the distant field.
They turn their weary fingers with such hard-earned purpose,
for they can hold so still, for as long as it takes
Herr Wind to summon its presence,

Which sends the mustard to pray, its bobbing bonnets
oscillating at the sky, and makes the ivy
fan the trees, throbbing with honoring, tells the new
oak shoots to reach beyond the who, what, where
they are in the soft persuasions of its breeze,

Yet the honeysuckle struggles, against the reminder
that summer's fat stillness will not be long, it
flails and gesticulates, thinking the recoil is who he is,
but calm returns soon enough, and quiet nodding, the lightest
breeze caresses it like a bee hugs a strand of blossom,

And the cool current flows like a mountain stream,
effortless as the day, and silent except for the sighs
up and down the hillsides, of those who wait for it,
as for a cloud to lift from the sea over a distant golden island.

"This distinction," the wind says, motioning all around, "has no
relevance, except as the parts are forced into a mouth to sing
what they are, that is, not what I am, who attempts to be their
king. A king? As if the symphony I orchestrate is in my name,
as if my nurturing, invisible, has a result that redounds to my
credit — no, my power is in the withholding, creating time
the curse in the waiting."

Another Temporary Identity

Silence is the only truth
        as it sifts between the queries
                of what should or
                       might not be,
Proposing an ever-expanding
        question wide enough
                to swallow the room
                       full of doubt.
Silence is the best
        medicine
               or at least the best
                                  policy
Why then, is it like
        the earth will implode
               if you don't
                                  speak?

By the Glaciers

The hanging rain forest strands
       And moss-mound floor:
Everything has shivered off its white
       And is squeaking color:
Life supplants life, as if there is
       No living thing, no form
To ascribe a good or bad condition
       Through circuitries of blame,
There's only quality of light,
        The way the truth, in being
Articulated, takes the essence with it
         On its endlessly rising wave,
Leaving the salty snow melt grass
         In frosted radiance
With the bullseye lichen
         And the pink wintergreen,
Even the late afternoon, as if they
          Are alive
Like the look of the fireweed,
          The sound of the stones.

In Victoria

Float homes, glass madhouses,
A folk duo in red caps who hop
At the end of every song,
Canadian geese, finally at peace,
Gliding through galvanized ripples
As the wind turns the maple leaves
To Theatre Alley, Orchids for Uma,
The Lee's Benevolent Association,
The Flying Otter's drunken a capella.
Seagulls take over the sky
When the moon goes under.

Some Inner Passage Views

It's how peacefully white folds into black,
The abundance of lack
As the sun scatters living light over the waves
And the many dimensions arrive
And leave just as mysteriously,
Like mountains that offer glimpses of eternity
Before assuming the shapelessness of cloud.

It's an invitation to what never seems to come,
Just ice shrouds on pine islands, crystalline tree lines,
Fishing boats with hooks in pink half-light
That passes for sunrise here.
The mist sweeps by like powder to reveal what isn't there.
The smoke of a deeper war
Explodes in the cold distance.

Because we are curious, we can see
Until how we want the story to end
Leaves fingerprints on our eyes
And we go blind to possibility,
Tapping the stick of our will on the hard mystery
Of whether the illusion can be kind enough to be real
Or we ungracious enough to mind if it can't.

Snow negotiates the crags like a jagged, eternal smile
To snag whatever life it has left
From the sudden, inextricable fall
Off the hanging vapor that hugs the hills
Carved and torqued into divine curves that like the falls
Find new life, in the inner eye, the iridescent purples
Of what needs to exist but cannot.

Two Alaska Towns

Catch as Ketchikan Can
The prison nestled in the glacial cliffs
Where the hemlocks swallow the houses
And the mountains are swallowed by cloud.
They were so kind — their rounded eyes —
And glad as we were we were going.
Now the party begins.
You can hear the screaming from the harbor.

Skagway as a Destination
The Arctic Brotherhood and Red Man's Improvement Association,
Plum storefronts and red bumblebees,
All to celebrate the tragedy
Of gold panners flowing upstream
Like silver salmon to die.
Now the lure of tourist ore
Brings these pale green streams once more to life.

City Afternoon, With Shadows

It was weird out, even for LA, no one talked,
For example, or if they did, it was drowned out
By traffic lights, air brakes, the omnipresent spycams,
And the laughter of ghost bums like fountains
That they could still taunt us for withholding coin.

And the people were as interchangeable as birds,
Hair, wardrobe, accessories cataloged, even the blue-haired
Pewter dolls, the birthday suits red-ribboned with tribal
Angel headdress wings, the hot mess messengers with orange pants
And pink suspenders and phosphorescent yellow dreads.

The new's no longer new, because it won't make one unique
In the homogeneity of diversity. Who sits cross-legged anymore
In the fountain, by the statue? Instead boys in circles spin a soccer ball
In its currents, while girls pose for pictures with their ice-cream cones
As if the fear of others is a holy obligation.

We have become those things that advertising shows up, we don't have
The colors, the spices, the life of pecuniary discontent, we want nothing
But to be part of that. The band of homeless brothers, in olive-drab
Tents, know what we can only surmise; that other people are crazy,
That's why you trust them with your lives.

There's no trust on the other side, with no belief in oneself to rely on,
That a penny in the cold would be more than enough. Instead the usual
Endless line at the modern art museum, never thinning it's cultivation
Of ennui, and the guy she's with is just a prop,
So she can unscrew wandering eyes

Like mine, who hopes for some relief from the inundation
Of humiliating information obsolescing all I seek, who hopes
Someone walks these streets knowing its Hallucination Beach,
Who knows there's nothing but sighs for sale
At the Ghost of Old Mexico Tile and Stone,

Who looks with love in his heart at the heartless, sees the purpose
In grace of every wannabe, as if it all turns real in his light, but no,
There's no room outside the dream anymore,
No one who can rescue the no one to save,
There's only an imagined alternative, me.

Odes by Hölderlin: Résumé

You too wanted something greater, but love forces

    All of us down, bent by a more powerful grief,

       But it does not straighten back

          In vain, our bow, from where it came.

Above or below! Holding sway in holy night,

    While the nascent day mute in its nature muses,

       Does justice rule one level

          Still of the crippled underworld?

This I discovered. For never would I know of

    The heavenly things, the all-abiding support

       That mortal masters possess,

          So steered the straight path warily.

Man verifies everything, say the celestials,

    That he, nourished powerfully, would be thankful

       For the learning, and know he’s

          Free, to go where he wants, to break.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lebenslauf

Größers wolltest auch du, aber die Liebe zwingt

   All uns nieder, das Leid beuget gewaltiger,

      Doch es kehret umsonst nicht

         Unser Bogen, woher er kommt.

Aufwärts oder hinab! herrschet in heilger Nacht,

   Wo die stumme Natur werdende Tage sinnt,

      Herrscht im schiefesten Orkus

         Nicht ein Grades, ein Recht noch auch?

Dies erfuhr ich. Denn nie, sterblichen Meistern gleich,

   Habt ihr Himmlischen, ihr Alleserhaltenden,

      Daß ich wüßte, mit Vorsicht

         Mich des ebenen Pfads geführt.

Alles prüfe der Mensch, sagen die Himmlischen,

   Daß er, kräftig genährt, danken für Alles lern',

      Und verstehe die Freiheit,

         Aufzubrechen, wohin er will.

Faith’s Food

The streets can send off sparks

from their limited compartments:

too much love —

one doesn’t know what to do with

the songbirds in the sculpture

of airplane parts

or the fountains that won’t stop gushing

or the blue dame with the cigarette

standing raptly in a book,

for these things step out of the boots

of immutable appearance

as something purer,

and grow with the wind

to guide one, riding it to a larger

sun, a sky less defined,

until it’s powerful enough

one can withstand at last

the notice

of the tortures of the mind,

how its invisible bile spills

like steam out of stacks

to waiting air —

the prison is everywhere,

it is what cannot give,

it is there to take on

all the gradations of fear

like a vampiric connoisseur

because fear is, after all,

what we create out of nothing,

not like this,

what is already there,

what offers me, as I stare

at the gleam in the palm tree,

what is still unknown: being,

how the cardboard cutouts of our lives

won’t be redeemed. 

Odes by Hölderlin: Love

If you forget all your friends, if you revile

   All your own, O you grateful ones, all your poets,

      God forgives it, but honors

         Only the soul of the lovers.

For, tell me, where does human life live otherwise,

   Since all that we serve now is coaxed out of worry?

      That’s why God has walked carefree

         Over our heads for a long time.

Still, however cold and songless the year may be,

   At the appointed time, from out of a white field

      Green stalks ascend out of sprouts,

         Often a lonelier bird sings,

As the woods gradually stretch, as the river stirs,

   Already the milder midday air gently blows

      At the exquisite hour,

         Sign of a more beautiful time,

Which we still believe will arise, alone, humble

   Rising nobly and devoutly above the bronze,

      Over the untamed soil of

         Love, God's daughter, from it alone.

Be blessed, O be, heavenly plant, neatly kept

   For me in song, when you are nourished by the force

      Of ethereal nectar,

         And ripened in creation’s ray.

Rise and become the forest! A more enlivened,

   Full-flowered world! May the language of the lovers

      Be the language of the land,

         Its soul the sound of the people!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Die Liebe

Wenn ihr Freunde vergeßt, wenn ihr die Euern all,

   O ihr Dankbaren, sie, euere Dichter schmäht,

      Gott vergeb' es, doch ehret

         Nur die Seele der Liebenden.

Denn o saget, wo lebt menschliches Leben sonst,

   Da die knechtische jetzt alles, die Sorge, zwingt?

      Darum wandelt der Gott auch

         Sorglos über dem Haupt uns längst.

Doch, wie immer das Jahr kalt und gesanglos ist

   Zur beschiedenen Zeit, aber aus weißem Feld

      Grüne Halme doch sprossen,

         Oft ein einsamer Vogel singt,

Wenn sich mählich der Wald dehnet, der Strom sich regt,

   Schon die mildere Luft leise von Mittag weht

      Zur erlesenen Stunde,

         So ein Zeichen der schönern Zeit,

Die wir glauben, erwächst einziggenügsam noch,

   Einzig edel und fromm über dem ehernen,

      Wilden Boden die Liebe,

         Gottes Tochter, von ihm allein.

Sei gesegnet, o sei, himmlische Pflanze, mir

   Mit Gesange gepflegt, wenn des ätherischen

      Nektars Kräfte dich nähren,

         Und der schöpfrische Strahl dich reift.

Wachs und werde zum Wald! eine beseeltere,

   Vollentblühende Welt! Sprache der Liebenden

      Sei die Sprache des Landes,

         Ihre Seele der Laut des Volks!

Odes by Hölderlin: Home

Cross the silent river the mariner sweeps,

   Glad to be home, with his haul, from far islands;

      If I were to return to my home,

         Heartbreak would be the bulk of my cargo.

You beloved shore, who raised me once, could you

   Slake all love’s sufferings, could you promise me,

      Forests of my youth, if I return,

         Serenity again, as once before?

At the cool brook, where I gamboled in the waves,

   On the riverbank, where I saw the ships glide,

      You familiar mountains; I am there,

         Home I adored, who looked after me once

Safe in the confines of my mother’s hearth, where

   Affectionate brothers and sisters embraced;

      I’d welcome you and you’d surround me,

         And in that bond, my heart would be mended,

You ever-faithful ones! But I know, I know,

   Love’s sufferings don’t heal for me so soon, no

      Bosom can console with lullabies,

         For they are only the songs mortals sing.

For the gods who lend us the heavenly fire,

   Bestow on us holy suffering as well,

      Thus this residence. I seem a son

         Of the earth; made to love, made to suffer.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Die Heimat

Froh kehrt der Schiffer heim an den stillen Strom,

   Von Inseln fernher, wenn er geerntet hat;

      So käm' auch ich zur Heimat, hätt ich

         Güter so viele, wie Leid, geerntet.

Ihr teuern Ufer, die mich erzogen einst,

   Stillt ihr der Liebe Leiden, versprecht ihr mir,

      Ihr Wälder meiner Jugend, wenn ich

         Komme, die Ruhe noch einmal wieder?

Am kühlen Bache, wo ich der Wellen Spiel,

   Am Strome, wo ich gleiten die Schiffe sah,

      Dort bin ich bald; euch traute Berge,

         Die mich behüteten einst, der Heimat

Verehrte sichre Grenzen, der Mutter Haus

   Und liebender Geschwister Umarmungen

      Begrüß' ich bald und ihr umschließt mich,

         Daß, wie in Banden, das Herz mir heile,

Ihr treugebliebnen! aber ich weiß, ich weiß,

   Der Liebe Leid, dies heilet so bald mir nicht,

      Dies singt kein Wiegensang, den tröstend

         Sterbliche singen, mir aus dem Busen.

Denn sie, die uns das himmlische Feuer leihn,

   Die Götter schenken heiliges Leid uns auch,

      Drum bleibe dies. Ein Sohn der Erde

         Schein' ich; zu lieben gemacht, zu leiden.

Path

Birds should be heard and not seen

— Their voices become then so pure —

The sound of the trees

Breaking through

Walls that the sun just inflames:

Snail shine on the leaves,

Mesquite beans hanging down to be taken,

Cactus hide that seems to dissolve

And the ice plant that seems to glow from within.

It’s that time of the day when

Brown grasses are the emperors of the world,

When the boughs display angelic realms,

When the lowest are the most filled with light

And the dirt holds a promise

In the silence of the dust

Floating to meet
Our pith and vapor,

We stars.

Outside the Passport Office

You'd never know from looking at the line
What's in those many faces,
Words, of course, in many languages,
But the import is the same whether one
       understands them or not:

They are lost, as they fidget and tighten
       their clothes for effect.
They sit immobile, stranded inside their minds,
As if there's nothing they can do,
As if the wait is worse than dying.

And nothing comes out to speak
Of what this is, or who they are,
And what they wait for doesn't save them.

The palo verde trees nearby, however,
Ruffle their yellow leaves,
The branches sway like a plea to the Lord —
A consecrating voice reverberates
That no one seems to notice.

Odes by Hölderlin: The Neckar

In your valleys my heart awakened to life,

   Your waves they surrounded me swirling in play,

      All the lovely hills awoke to you

         Pilgrim, there’s not one that’s foreign to me.

On their peaks, where the airs of heaven released

   The pain of enslavement I felt; and the waves

      Poured happiness as if from a cup,

         Silver glittering blue along the vale.

The springs of the mountain hurried down to you,

   Along with my heart as you took us with you,

      To the silent lord the Rhine, to his

         Towns downstream and his frolicsome islands.

I still consider the world beautiful, and

   The eye flees, yearning for the lures of the earth,

      For golden Paktolos, for Smyrna’s

         Shore, for Ilion's forest. I want to

Land along the mute path at Sunium too,

   And ask for your pillars, O Olympian!

      There’s only the winds and the ages

         In the rubble of the Athenians

And your gods bury you too in these temples,

   For you have stood lonely for so long, O pride

      Of the world, that is no more. Her fair

         Ionian islands, where the sea air

Cools the hot shores and whispers through the forests

   Of laurel, where the sun brings warmth to the vines,

      Oh, where in golden autumn the sighs

         Of the poor metamorphose into song,

When the pomegranate ripens, in green night

   The bitter orange glints, the resin drips from

      The mastic tree, and timpani and

         Cymbal sound out the labyrinthine dance.

That islands you might one day bring me to my

   Guardian god; but I must give faith to sense

      For even my Neckar there was not

         With its lovely pastures and grassy shores.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Der Neckar

In deinen Tälern wachte mein Herz mir auf

   Zum Leben, deine Wellen umspielten mich,

      Und all der holden Hügel, die dich

         Wanderer! kennen, ist keiner fremd mir.

Auf ihren Gipfeln löste des Himmels Luft

   Mir oft der Knechtschaft Schmerzen; und aus dem Tal,

      Wie Leben aus dem Freudebecher,

         Glänzte die bläuliche Silberwelle.

Der Berge Quellen eilten hinab zu dir,

   Mit ihnen auch mein Herz und du nahmst uns mit,

      Zum stillerhabnen Rhein, zu seinen

         Städten hinunter und lustgen Inseln.

Noch dünkt die Welt mir schön, und das Aug entflieht

   Verlangend nach den Reizen der Erde mir,

      Zum goldenen Paktol, zu Smyrnas

         Ufer, zu Ilions Wald. Auch möcht ich

Bei Sunium oft landen, den stummen Pfad

   Nach deinen Säulen fragen, Olympion!

      Noch eh der Sturmwind und das Alter

         Hin in den Schutt der Athenertempel

Und ihrer Gottesbilder auch dich begräbt,

   Denn lang schon einsam stehst du, o Stolz der Welt,

      Die nicht mehr ist. Und o ihr schönen

         Inseln Ioniens! wo die Meerluft

Die heißen Ufer kühlt und den Lorbeerwald

   Durchsäuselt, wenn die Sonne den Weinstock wärmt,

      Ach! wo ein goldner Herbst dem armen

         Volk in Gesänge die Seufzer wandelt,

Wenn sein Granatbaum reift, wenn aus grüner Nacht

   Die Pomeranze blinkt, und der Mastixbaum

      Von Harze träuft und Pauk und Cymbel

         Zum labyrinthischen Tanze klingen.

Zu euch, ihr Inseln! bringt mich vielleicht, zu euch

   Mein Schutzgott einst; doch weicht mir aus treuem Sinn

      Auch da mein Neckar nicht mit seinen

         Lieblichen Wiesen und Uferweiden.

Odes by Hölderlin: The Gods

Secret ethereal: You stay beautiful!

    The soul to me is in pain, and ennobled

       By its bravery before your rays,

          Helios! Chest often puffed in disgust,

You good gods! He who does not know you is poor.

    The strife never rests in him with the rough breast,

       And night is his world, where no joy thrives

          And there’s never any singing to him.

Only you, with your eternal youth, nourish,

    In the hearts that love you, the children’s spirit,

       And never let in the distress and

          Madness the genius spends his days nursing.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Die Götter

Du stiller Aether! immer bewahrst du schön

   Die Seele mir im Schmerz, und es adelt sich

      Zur Tapferkeit vor deinen Strahlen,

         Helios! oft die empörte Brust mir.

Ihr guten Götter! arm ist, wer euch nicht kennt,

   Im rohen Busen ruhet der Zwist ihm nie,

      Und Nacht ist ihm die Welt und keine

         Freude gedeihet und kein Gesang ihm.

Nur ihr, mit eurer ewigen Jugend, nährt

   In Herzen, die euch lieben, den Kindersinn,

      Und laßt in Sorgen und in Irren

         Nimmer den Genius sich vertrauern.

Fathersday Poem

Fathers suffer for the impossible,
What can't be heard or said,
What can't be learned or taught,
What won't be held or held back ...

Just a straight line to be walked
With all that stuff on the side of the road
Given only a nod,

The truth reduced to direction
After all the advice has been allowed
To be a lie

For the sake of harmony,
In the cause of learning,
From the hope that all suffering in silence
Will never be revealed,
As the pain must end with someone

Although that end,
Like the stain left on the shore after
The pebbles have skittered away,
Like the notes that echo after
The music has stopped playing,
Like the summer light after
The giant sun has set,
Stays.

Odes by Hölderlin: Heidelberg

I’ve loved you for a long time, and would desire now

   To call you mother, and give you an artless song,

      Most beautiful town in the

         Fatherland, that far I can see,

As the bird of the forest flies over the peaks

   And swings across the glittering river past you.

     The bridge is strong and simple.

         The people and carriages whirr.

As if sent by the gods, while I paused on the bridge,

   The enchantment enthralled, because I passed over;

      All the way to the mountains

         The distance seemed to tantalize,

And the young man, the river, flowed to the lowlands,

   Sadly, like the heart, if too beautiful itself,

      Will lovingly disappear,

         Throw itself to the floods of time.

Wellsprings you had for him, had the evanescent

   Entrusted, the cool shadows and the creamy shores,

      All to him, and her figure

         Came trembling out of the ripples.

But heavy in the valley hung the gigantic

   Castle, well-versed in destiny, on the low ground

      And ground down by the weather;

         But the ever-present sun cast

Her rejuvenating light over this ancient

    Monument, and the ivy greened more vividly;

       And friendly forests whispered

         Past the ghost of its condition.

The shrubs stayed low, blooming peaceful in the valley

   Where, reclining over the hill, or along the

      Shore, your roads go lighthearted 

          Below the redolent gardens.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heidelberg

Lange lieb' ich dich schon, möchte dich, mir zur Lust,

   Mutter nennen, und dir schenken ein kunstlos Lied,

      Du, der Vaterlandsstädte

         Ländlichschönste, so viel ich sah.

Wie der Vogel des Walds über die Gipfel fliegt,

   Schwingt sich über den Strom, wo er vorbei dir glänzt,

      Leicht und kräftig die Brücke,

         Die von Wagen und Menschen tönt.

Wie von Göttern gesandt, fesselt' ein Zauber einst

   Auf die Brücke mich an, da ich vorüber ging,

      Und herein in die Berge

         Mir die reizende Ferne schien,

Und der Jüngling, der Strom, fort in die Ebne zog,

   Traurigfroh, wie das Herz, wenn es, sich selbst zu schön,

      Liebend unterzugehen,

         In die Fluten der Zeit sich wirft.

Quellen hattest du ihm, hattest dem Flüchtigen

   Kühle Schatten geschenkt, und die Gestade sahn

      All' ihm nach, und es bebte

         Aus den Wellen ihr lieblich Bild.

Aber schwer in das Tal hing die gigantische,

   Schicksalskundige Burg nieder bis auf den Grund,

      Von den Wettern zerrissen;

         Doch die ewige Sonne goß

Ihr verjüngendes Licht über das alternde

   Riesenbild, und umher grünte lebendiger

      Efeu; freundliche Wälder

         Rauschten über die Burg herab.

Sträuche blühten herab, bis wo im heitern Tal,

   An den Hügel gelehnt, oder dem Ufer hold,

      Deine fröhlichen Gassen
        Unter duftenden Gärten ruhn.

That Rare In-the-World Feeling

All this time I wanted to connect, but
       There was no connection, except
              What was already inside: silent.

I worked so hard to bolt myself on,
       But the threads kept on popping
               And I never seemed to notice.

Perhaps there should be a reckoning, for good intentions,
       For wanting what others appeared to have,
               For the gesture of trying to care,

But there was too much real in all that illusion,
       Falsity holds so little pull,
               Not like the eyes finding all I am

And making me feel, for the moment, loved,
       Even as the hollows of my own eyes, shining out,
               Have taken what love I'd had from my sight

As if it was something stolen, what I
       Failed to give, and could never know,
               The thing I desire the most.

Odes by Hölderlin: Rousseau

How finite it is, the day in which we live.

   You came and were astonished, and it’s evening

      Already, so sleep, where the distant

         Infinite drifts across the peoples' years.

And many men can oversee their own time,

   A god shows him to the open, but you stand

      Longingly on the shore, annoying,

         A shadow, never able to love them,

And that, that which you called for, what you promised,

   Where are the new ones, now you’re in a friend’s hand,

      Where are they, that you once heard approach

         And made, in a clear and lonely voice, be?

It is toneless, poor man, in that hall of yours,

   And you wander incoherently, like the

      Unentombed, and seek peace and no one

         Knows how to point out the way to the wise.

Be still, now, be satisfied! The tree grows out

   Of the local soil, but the branches will drop

      The loving ones, all the youthful ones,

         And he will hang in a vast grief his head.

The abundance of life, the infinite that

   Dawns around him, and he never takes hold of

      Warms in him, works in him, lives in him
         Until the fruit of him now is swollen.

You have lived! And also you, and also you.

   The distant sun delights your head, and as it

      Radiates from the more beautiful

         Age, the messengers will locate your heart.

Have you perceived them, understood the language

   Of the strangers, assayed her soul? To the one

       Who yearns, a sign is enough, and signs   

         Are from ancient times the language of gods.

And wonderful, as if from the beginning,

   The human spirit becoming and working,

      Having already learned the way of life,

He knows at the first sign, already finished,

   And flies, the keen spirit, like a thundering

      Eagle, prophesying his gods

         Coming forth up ahead,

------------------------------------------------------------------

Rousseau

Wie eng begrenzt ist unsere Tageszeit.

   Du warst und sahst und stauntest, schon Abend ists,

      Nun schlafe, wo unendlich ferne

         Ziehen vorüber der Völker Jahre.

Und mancher siehet über die eigne Zeit,

   Ihm zeigt ein Gott ins Freie, doch sehnend stehst

      Am Ufer du, ein Ärgernis den

         Deinen, ein Schatten, und liebst sie nimmer,

Und jene, die du nennst, die Verheißenen,

   Wo sind die Neuen, daß du an Freundeshand

      Erwarmst, wo nahn sie, daß du einmal,

         Einsame Rede, vernehmlich seiest?

Klanglos ists, armer Mann, in der Halle dir,

   Und gleich den Unbegrabenen, irrest du

      Unstät und suchest Ruh und niemand

         Weiß den beschiedenen Weg zu weisen.

Sei denn zufrieden! der Baum entwächst

   Dem heimatlichen Boden, aber es sinken ihm

      Die liebenden, die jugendlichen

         Arme, und trauernd neigt er sein Haupt.

Des Lebens Überfluß, das Unendliche,

   Das um ihn und dämmert, er faßt es nie.

      Doch lebts in ihm und gegenwärtig,

         Wärmend und wirkend, die Frucht entquillt ihm.

Du hast gelebt! auch dir, auch dir

   Erfreuet die ferne Sonne dein Haupt,

      Und Strahlen aus der schönern Zeit. Es

         Haben die Boten dein Herz gefunden.

Vernommen hast du sie, verstanden die Sprache der Fremdlinge,

   Gedeutet ihre Seele! Dem Sehnenden war

      Der Wink genug, und Winke sind

         Von alters her die Sprache der Götter.

Und wunderbar, als hätte von Anbeginn

   Des Menschen Geist das Werden und Wirken all,

      Des Lebens Weise schon erfahren,

Kennt er im ersten Zeichen Vollendetes schon,

   Und fliegt, der kühne Geist, wie Adler den

      Gewittern, weissagend seinen

         Kommenden Göttern voraus,

Quandary

Here's a shiny black notebook
       for all your dreamtime thoughts
Of how you must subdue the world
       to be an equal,
Using the flames of the stars
       to cast your light.

In this corner, you, in the other, everything else,
       how you manage to parry and feint
Even if the images you box are shadows
       and the cheers are for someone else.
Still, you carve yourself in the book of heroes,
       though the face and name are not yours,

It is only the others, needing their mirrors
       of a fool trying to do in the sun,
The way we are the same without even knowing,
       cursed with having to be the only one.
The voice that comes to you now from a distance,
       instead of leading you home, sounds like

All the voices that throb in your head
      vying to be the one voice
That speaks for all humanity, safely asleep
      and alone. There is no other sound
Than one's breathing, though the wind
      and a beautiful sight always take it away.

Memories of an Empty Bed

There is no Help Wanted sign in this window
But I jaunt through the door, saying "where do I begin?"

I push the truth to prove me wrong on lucky citizens
Backed with yada yada data and names as talismans,

But no souls are harmed, in the being endured
And enduring, when hope leaves lips, and worse, returns,

And my life is lived, as if on stage,
Looks of pathos as replacement for applause.

To get closer to the vapor of another's eyes
Is the evasion, as shadows move away from trees.

How could I care? If it wasn't for loneliness
What would I do with my life?

Odes by Hölderlin: To The Germans

Don’t ridicule the child, if the still childish

    On a wooden horse fancies he’s resplendent,

       O you good ones! We too are

           Scant in action if not in thought.

But does it come, like a ray out of clouds,

    From thoughts, perhaps, the act, cerebral and ripe?

        Pursue the fruit, in thickets

           Dark sheet, is the writing silent?

And the silence in the people, is it the

    Fete before the feast? The fear, proclaiming God?

        O take me then, you dear ones,

          That I atone for blasphemy.

For too long, too long I’ve erred, like laity

     In the shaping spirit of the workshop here,

        I only see what blossoms,

           What he thinks, I do not perceive.

And to speculate is sweet, but also a

     Sorrow, I’ve lived long enough inside mortals

        Without understanding love,

           Disbelieving, but always moved,

The constant work to be ever more loving,

     To bring souls closer, smiling at the mortal,

        When I am afraid, of life

           Ripeness emerging from hollows.

Creation’s spark, O when, our people’s genius,

     When you come forth whole, soul of the Fatherland,

        That I will bend down more low,

           That the quietest string itself

Falls silent when I’m before you, that I am

     Ashamed, a flower of the night, before you

        Heavenly day, when you end

           With joy, where formerly I mourned,

Whenever our cities fill, bright and open

     And awake, with the immaculate fire

        And mountains, country mountains,

           To the German are the muses,

As once magnificent Pindos, Helicon

     And Parnassus shone, throughout the native land

        Golden heaven, the Open,

           Explicit metaphysical joy.

Well-being is confined by the limits of

     Our lifetimes, we can see and count our own years,

        But the years of the peoples,

           How can a mortal eye see them?

If the soul is also over your own time

     Where you linger, in longing, swaying with grief,

        Then you’ll be on the cold shores

           With what’s yours and never know them,

And the future too, where there are promised ones,

     Where do you see them, when you have a friend's hand?

         You hold something warm again

             And can’t discern a distinct soul?      

Soundless, it is in the hall, from long ago,

     Wretched prophet, with you, longing for your eye

        That is closed as you slumber

           Unlamented, without a name.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An die Deutschen

Spottet nimmer des Kinds, wenn noch das alberne

   Auf dem Rosse von Holz herrlich und viel sich dünkt,

      O ihr Guten! auch wir sind

         Tatenarm und gedankenvoll!

Aber kommt, wie der Strahl aus dem Gewölke kommt,

   Aus Gedanken vielleicht, geistig und reif die Tat?

      Folgt die Frucht, wie des Haines

         Dunklem Blatte, der stillen Schrift?

Und das Schweigen im Volk, ist es die Feier schon

   Vor dem Feste? die Furcht, welche den Gott ansagt?

      O dann nimmt mich, ihr Lieben!

         Daß ich büße die Lästerung.

Schon zu lange, zu lang irr ich, dem Laien gleich,

   In des bildenden Geists werdender Werkstatt hier,

      Nur was blühet, erkenn ich,

         Was er sinnet, erkenn ich nicht.

Und zu ahnen ist süß, aber ein Leiden auch,

   Und schon Jahre genug leb ich in sterblicher

      Unverständiger Liebe

         Zweifelnd, immer bewegt vor ihm,

Der das stetige Werk immer aus liebender

   Seele näher mir bringt, lächelnd dem Sterblichen,

      Wo ich zage, des Lebens

         Reine Tiefe zu Reife bringt.

Schöpferischer, o wann, Genius unsers Volks,

   Wann erscheinest du ganz, Seele des Vaterlands,

      Daß ich tiefer mich beuge,

         Daß die leiseste Saite selbst

Mir verstumme vor dir, daß ich beschämt,

   Eine Blume der Nacht, himmlischer Tag, vor dir

      Enden möge mit Freuden,

         Wenn sie alle, mit denen ich

Vormals trauerte, wenn unsere Städte nun

   Hell und offen und wach, reineren Feuers voll

      Und die Berge des deutschen

         Landes Berge der Musen sind,

Wie die herrlichen einst, Pindos und Helikon,

   Und Parnassos, und rings unter des Vaterlands

      Goldnem Himmel die freie,

         Klare, geistige Freude glänzt.

Wohl ist enge begrenzt unsere Lebenszeit,

   Unserer Jahre Zahl sehen und zählen wir,

      Doch die Jahre der Völker,

         Sah ein sterbliches Auge sie?

Wenn die Seele dir auch über die eigne Zeit

   Sich, die sehnende, schwingt, trauernd verweilest du

      Dann am kalten Gestade

         Bei den Deinen und kennst sie nie,

Und die Künftigen auch, sie, die Verheißenen,

   Wo, wo siehest du sie, daß du an Freundeshand

      Einmal wieder erwarmest,

         Einer Seele vernehmlich seist?

Klanglos, ists in der Halle längst,

   Armer Seher! bei dir, sehnend verlischt dein Aug

      Und du schlummerst hinunter

         Ohne Namen und unbeweint.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Damn that's a fine poem.

Odes by Hölderlin: Song of the Germans

O holy heart of peoples, O Fatherland!

   Suffering place, like the silent mother earth,

      And unrecognized place, when it’s yours,

         For its depths are known best to foreigners!

They reap the conception, the spirit of you,

   They like to pick the grape, but they sneer at you,

      Vine without shape, at how you stagger

         Wildly about the dregs along the ground.

You land of high and most austere genius!

   You land of love! Though I am already yours,

      Often I cry, angrily, how you

         Stupidly deny your own soul always.

Though you didn’t hide all your beauties from me,

   For often I stood overlooking the green,

      The wide garden exalted in yours

         And saw you revealed on a bright mountain.

I went to your currents and imagined you,

   While the tones as timid as the nightingale

      On silent pastures sang, and the wave

         Was still, and the dawning shore was quiet.

On the banks I saw the cities blossoming,

   The lofty ones, where the diligent workshop

      Was silent, where your sun of science

         Illumines the artist’s grim indulgence.

Do you know Minerva's children? She chose the

   First olive tree for her own; do you know the

      Athenian? She’s still alive, still

        Rules the soul, the musing, silent in men,

When Plato's pious garden is no longer,

   The old river has turned green and the poor man

      Plows the ashes of heroes, and the

         Night bird shyly mourns atop her pillar.

O holy woods! O Attica! If she struck

   You too with her terrible radiance, and

      In a flash of haste enlivened you

         Would the flames give birth to the near aether?

And yet genius wanders, as does the spring, from

   Country to country. And we? Of our young men

     Is there one who does not keep secret
         His punishment, a riddle in his breast?

Thank the German women! They have us enshrined

   To the genial spirit of the idols,

     And they repair each day the evil

         Snarls to bring peace, tame and straight, again.

Where now are the poets, to whom God gave song,

   Like those of old, full of joy and piety,

      The visionary, where are ours? The

         Cold and the bold, the incorruptible!

Now! Be welcomed as a noble, Fatherland,

   With a new-found name, ripest fruit of the times!

      You are the last and the first of all

         Muses, Urania, I welcome you!

Still ashamed and still silent, you contemplate

   A new and joyous work, your testimony
      To the singular, like you, that is

         Born of love and goodness, just as you, are —

Where is your Delos, where your Olympia,

   So we may find ourselves at the highest feast? —

      But how the son guesses, what was yours,
         Immortal, prepared for a long, long time?

------------------------------------------------------------------

Gesang des Deutschen

O heilig Herz der Völker, o Vaterland!

   Allduldend, gleich der schweigenden Mutter Erd,

      Und allverkannt, wenn schon aus deiner

         Tiefe die Fremden ihr Bestes haben!

Sie ernten den Gedanken, den Geist von dir,

   Sie pflücken gern die Traube, doch höhnen sie

      Dich, ungestalte Rebe! daß du

         Schwankend den Boden und wild umirrest.

Du Land des hohen ernsteren Genius!

   Du Land der Liebe! bin ich der deine schon,

      Oft zürnt ich weinend, daß du immer

         Blöde die eigene Seele leugnest.

Doch magst du manches Schöne nicht bergen mir,

   Oft stand ich überschauend das holde Grün,

      Den weiten Garten hoch in deinen

         Lüften auf hellem Gebirg und sah dich.

An deinen Strömen ging ich und dachte dich,

   Indes die Töne schüchtern die Nachtigall

      Auf schwanker Weide sang, und still auf

         Dämmerndem Grunde die Welle weilte.

Und an den Ufern sah ich die Städte blühn,

   Die Edlen, wo der Fleiß in der Werkstatt schweigt,

      Die Wissenschaft, wo deine Sonne

         Milde dem Künstler zum Ernste leuchtet.

Kennst du Minervas Kinder? sie wählten sich

   Den Ölbaum früh zum Lieblinge; kennst du sie?

      Noch lebt, noch waltet der Athener

         Seele, die sinnende, still bei Menschen,

Wenn Platons frommer Garten auch schon nicht mehr

   Am alten Strome grünt und der dürftge Mann

      Die Heldenasche pflügt, und scheu der

         Vogel der Nacht auf der Säule trauert.

O heilger Wald! o Attika! traf Er doch

   Mit seinem furchtbarn Strahle dich auch, so bald,

      Und eilten sie, die dich belebt, die

         Flammen entbunden zum Aether über?

Doch, wie der Frühling, wandelt der Genius

   Von Land zu Land. Und wir? ist denn Einer auch

      Von unsern Jünglingen, der nicht ein

         Ahnden, ein Rätsel der Brust, verschwiege?

Den deutschen Frauen danket! sie haben uns

   Der Götterbilder freundlichen Geist bewahrt,

      Und täglich sühnt der holde klare

         Friede das böse Gewirre wieder.

Wo sind jetzt Dichter, denen der Gott es gab,

   Wie unsern Alten, freudig und fromm zu sein,

      Wo Weise, wie die unsre sind? die

         Kalten und Kühnen, die Unbestechbarn!

Nun! sei gegrüßt in deinem Adel, mein Vaterland,

   Mit neuem Namen, reifeste Frucht der Zeit!

      Du letzte und du erste aller

         Musen, Urania, sei gegrüßt mir!

Noch säumst und schweigst du, sinnest ein freudig Werk,

   Das von dir zeuge, sinnest ein neu Gebild,

      Das einzig, wie du selber, das aus

         Liebe geboren und gut, wie du, sei -

Wo ist dein Delos, wo dein Olympia,

   Daß wir uns alle finden am höchsten Fest? -

      Doch wie errät der Sohn, was du den
          Deinen, Unsterbliche, längst bereitest.

Sunday at Mother's

A blue '59 Citroen,
As rustic as a tractor on an endless hay field,
Glows redolent in the grocery parking lot
With Parisian dreams of existential teens
And the hairpin escapes of the rich and dangerous —
A classic car, one may say, in a world where
Distinction narrows like the late afternoon,
Something, perhaps, to aspire to ...

Until the owner, baggy pants, supplements clutched
In hand, opens its creaking door —
Dutch Masters cigars fill the ashtray,
5150 bags fill the floor;
It's a wonder it even drives, as much as
He's alive, with that look
Of complete despair.

And so the eye betrays again,
Sides with what is lost and unrecoverable —
There's no safety in this world,
Only pathos in what's become of all we knew,
The prerequisite for faith:
No possible solution.

Hands on Old Instruments

Sitar gourd and accordion lungs
Sing, if you let them,
A song of love
From the notes that are freed
To the woodsmoke of a home,
Remembering themselves
Under fingers
And beckoning others
To create in dream
What was real once
From other lovers
Studious before the silence,
For the ghosts,
If that is what they are,
Tell what is true
In the false hardness of objects,
The distance of eyes,
They say your desire
Is not imagined,
Only incomplete,
Lacking only the crypt to hold
All the love you give.
They wait, elusive, for you to
Find this silence
Past the clamor of voices
Scorned,
What left in the air
Bent tones, crying sounds.

Party Lines

At the Noir Bar
They barter condolences
Like arsonists spread straw,
To shatter like crystal
To the surface of the floor.

The message is unscrambled
From the invisible waves
Each to his own illusion,
Safe.

Is there waste? Chaos? Or just
Solitude extending itself
To no place?

Truth shares Thunderbird with bums,
Acts like nothing matters,
No need to justify what needs no proof,
A curio to reach for
In the golden light
Of the store,

Where every kind of crazy
Is worshipped and abhorred
But eventually we agree
For the good of the party
To be redeemed
By what we don't understand,
What others say we are,
What they see.

Loneliness in Music City

Unholy rolling of predator drones:
Every citizen dressed and marching
To the center from every direction
In a hockey uniform

Past the true and deserted churches
And the walking neon guitars
Where the John the Baptist wanna-be’s
Can’t lift their heads to see the dream

Of cowboy boot blonde, when realized,
As the opposite of their inauthentic asses,
Just a machine extracting sentiment
With a right to wave its non-existent flag

As much as any tourist, scaling the high
And mighty without the slightest touch of fear.
Those who lurk here, however, oversee
The debauchery, weighing heavy as the river air.

Better that than the weight of holding all
That refuses to be preserved,
Sentiments of the lost, wounded and dead
Lovers who never saw themselves in the needle’s eye,

Only the accents of an other;
How strangers can be kind to those with trunks
And how the home that asks for nothing
Asks too much.

They kept buzzing through the night
— Like steel guitars, those drones,
Chasing something real or foreign,
Not overheated or jejeune,

Mere souls, on ice, to be sold
To the most rebellious yell,
The strictest catechism
That leaves all flocks behind.

I have walked the sordid sidewalks,
Heard the grate of each sweet whine,
Seen the faces make their way
Across the stricken avenues

And felt the inexorable flow
Go always against the crystal
Of the unimaginable
Sacredness of every individual,

And I have voiced alone
What the wind won’t allow to be kept,
Some cries of annihilation
Of the self in all that confronts it,

What cannot show its face
Or speak of what it is without a “you.”
But the wind makes a ghost of every town
Gusting life from the death of soft, warm lights —

A daring to dream of something different,
Something larger, something nearer,
Somehow realer, than the spectres
Down all the streets you know,

Who left us here long ago,
Before we knew their names.
They didn’t have the strength
To say goodbye.

May Days

1.
On Hopeless Street the purple trees
wave like radar turning

The masters of what should be
will never interfere, in this sun,
with what is — the metal sheen
too clean — the purple trees
too distant  — and the people blind
to the gridlines that hold in orbits
dreams

Indulgences are bartered by old men
in wide straw hats:
dental work, insurance, bonds for bail ...

2.
Shoes clap,
what needs to be understood
is in their sound.
It echoes away.
Too much compassion.

3.
Another world is churning away
I can feel almost its heat
As I imagine I know the words you speak
And you hear the heart I beat.

4.
On Pelican Rock a stillness we can barely dream of
Even the rocks swirl in violent movement
The golds hold such terrible truths
Kelp hung like curtains in dissolving falls

What's released with the wave eludes our capture
Only the crisp frisson crash of white
crowns crushed — eclat  —
Into lines of force that bloom,
like our heartbreaks in endless recursion
Like the danger is play for our unpeeling.

The cliffside castles  — once dream homes  —
now are part of a baroque outcropping
that fills you as far as you can look
with the splendor of the remote,
giving as much as you can yield
to what protects you,
the undisclosed.

On the rock's edge
purple flowers
facing the resolute ocean
without dimension or name,
but speaking to us — all ears —
as to rocks.

5.
The offerings of love — flags
in trees — fall away — late
springtime sadness — as if
the love itself could somehow
die.