motherâs
effort to restrain my sister, all the calling, the waving,
since, in that sense, I had no home any longer.
AMAZONS
End of summer: the spruces put out a few green shoots.
Everything else is goldâthatâs how you know the end of the growing season.
A kind of symmetry between whatâs dying, whatâs just coming to bloom.
Itâs always been a sensitive time in this family.
Weâre dying out, too, the whole tribe.
My sister and I, weâre the end of something.
Now the windows darken.
And the rain comes, steady and heavy.
In the dining room, the children draw.
Thatâs what we did: when we couldnât see,
we made pictures.
I can see the end: itâs the name thatâs going.
When weâre done with it, itâs finished, itâs a dead language.
Thatâs how language dies, because it doesnât need to be spoken.
My sister and I, weâre like amazons,
a tribe without a future.
I watch the children draw: my son, her daughter.
We used soft chalk, the disappearing medium.
CELESTIAL MUSIC
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god,
she thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth, sheâs unusually competent.
Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness.
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
Iâm always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality.
But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
according to nature. For my sake, she intervened,
brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down across the road.
My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains
my aversion to reality. She says Iâm like the child who buries her head in the pillow
so as not to see, the child who tells herself
that light causes sadnessâ
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous personâ
In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. Weâre walking
on the same road, except itâs winter now;
sheâs telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
like brides leaping to a great heightâ
Then Iâm afraid for her; I see her
caught in a net deliberately cast over the earthâ
In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
Itâs this moment weâre both trying to explain, the fact
that weâre at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesnât move.
Sheâs always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
capable of life apart from her.
Weâre very quiet. Itâs peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition
fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glitteringâ
itâs this stillness that we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.
FIRST MEMORY
Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he wasâ
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.
THE WILD IRIS (1992)
FOR
KATHRYN DAVIS
MEREDITH HOPPIN
DAVID LANGSTON
FOR
JOHN AND NOAH
THE WILD IRIS
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in
effort to restrain my sister, all the calling, the waving,
since, in that sense, I had no home any longer.
AMAZONS
End of summer: the spruces put out a few green shoots.
Everything else is goldâthatâs how you know the end of the growing season.
A kind of symmetry between whatâs dying, whatâs just coming to bloom.
Itâs always been a sensitive time in this family.
Weâre dying out, too, the whole tribe.
My sister and I, weâre the end of something.
Now the windows darken.
And the rain comes, steady and heavy.
In the dining room, the children draw.
Thatâs what we did: when we couldnât see,
we made pictures.
I can see the end: itâs the name thatâs going.
When weâre done with it, itâs finished, itâs a dead language.
Thatâs how language dies, because it doesnât need to be spoken.
My sister and I, weâre like amazons,
a tribe without a future.
I watch the children draw: my son, her daughter.
We used soft chalk, the disappearing medium.
CELESTIAL MUSIC
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god,
she thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth, sheâs unusually competent.
Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness.
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
Iâm always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality.
But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
according to nature. For my sake, she intervened,
brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down across the road.
My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains
my aversion to reality. She says Iâm like the child who buries her head in the pillow
so as not to see, the child who tells herself
that light causes sadnessâ
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous personâ
In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. Weâre walking
on the same road, except itâs winter now;
sheâs telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
like brides leaping to a great heightâ
Then Iâm afraid for her; I see her
caught in a net deliberately cast over the earthâ
In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
Itâs this moment weâre both trying to explain, the fact
that weâre at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesnât move.
Sheâs always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
capable of life apart from her.
Weâre very quiet. Itâs peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition
fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glitteringâ
itâs this stillness that we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.
FIRST MEMORY
Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he wasâ
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.
THE WILD IRIS (1992)
FOR
KATHRYN DAVIS
MEREDITH HOPPIN
DAVID LANGSTON
FOR
JOHN AND NOAH
THE WILD IRIS
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in
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