everyday,
To be wise, subtract â¦
This is the season of subtraction,
Â
When what goes away is what stays,
pooled in its own grace,
When loss isnât loss, and fall
Hangs on the cusp of its one responsibility,
Tiny erasures,
palimpsest over the pear trees.
Â
Somewhere inside the landscape
Something reverses.
Leaf lines recoil, the moon switches
Her tides, dry banks begin to appear
In the long conduits
under the skin and in the heart.
Â
I listen to dark October just over the hill,
I listen to what the weeds exhale,
and the pines echo,
Elect in their rectitude:
The idea of emptiness is everything to them.
I smooth myself, I abide.
Chinese Journal
In 1935, the year I was born,
Giorgio Morandi
Penciled these bottles in by leaving them out, letting
The presence of what surrounds them increase the presence
Of what is missing,
keeping its distance and measure.
Â
Â
The purple-and-white spike plants
stand upright and spine-laced,
As though poised to fight by keeping still.
Inside their bristly circle,
The dwarf boxwood
flashes its tiny shields at the sun.
Â
Â
Under the skylight, the Pothos plant
Dangles its fourteen arms
into the absence of its desire.
Like a medusa in the two-ply, celadon air,
Its longing is what it grows on,
heart-leaves in the nothingness.
Â
Â
To shine but not to dazzle.
Falling leaves, falling water,
everything comes to rest.
Â
Â
What can anyone know of the sure machine that makes all things
work?
To find one word and use it correctly,
providing it is the right word,
Is more than enough:
An inch of music is an inch and a half of dust.
Night Journal
The breath of Whatâs-Out-There sags
Like bad weather below the branches,
fog-sided, Venetian,
Trailing its phonemes along the ground.
It says what it has to say
Carefully, without sound, word
After word imploding into articulation
And wherewithal for the unbecome.
I catch its drift.
Â
And if I could answer back,
If once I had a cloudier tongue,
what would I say?
Iâd say what it says: nothing, with all its verities
Gone to the ground and hiding:
Iâd say what it says now,
Dangling its language like laundry between the dark limbs,
Just hushed in its cleanliness.
Â
The absolute night backs off.
Hard breezes freeze in my eyelids.
The moon, stamped horn of foolâs gold,
Answers for me in the arteries of the oak trees.
I long for clear water, the silence
Of risk and deep splendor,
the quietness inside the solitude.
I want its drop on my lip, its cold undertaking.
Notes
Night Journal
Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard (Harper & Row, 1982).
Â
A Journal of the Year of the Ox
Â
Catullus Tibullus and Pervigilium Veneris (Harvard University Press MCMLXXVI); The Penguin Book of Italian Verse (Penguin Books, 1960); Historical Sketches of the Holston Valleys by Thomas W. Preston (The Kingsport Press, 1926); âBy the Banks of the Holstonâ by Jeff Daniel Marion, The Iron Mountain Review, Vol. 1, #2 (Winter 1984); Il Palazzo di Schifanoia by Ranieri Varese, Grafici Editoriale s.r.i. (Bologna, 1983); The Cloud of Unknowing: An English Mystic of the 14th Century (Bums Oates).
Â
Light Journal
Salvatore Quasimodo, âEd è súbito sera.â
Â
A Journal of One Significant Landscape
Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari, translated by George Bull (Penguin Books, 1965).
Â
Night Journal II
For Stanley Kunitz.
Copyright © 1988 by Charles Wright
All rights reserved
Â
Â
Published simultaneously in Canada by
Collins Publishers, Toronto
Â
Â
eISBN 9781429933568
First eBook Edition : May 2011
Â
Â
First printing, 1988
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wright, Charles.
Zone journals.
âThe first five poems appeared in ⦠limited
edition volume entitled 5 journalsââ
I. Wright, Charles. 5 journals.
II. Title.
PS3573.R52Z39 1988 811â².54 87-21207
Acknowledgments are made to Field, The
To be wise, subtract â¦
This is the season of subtraction,
Â
When what goes away is what stays,
pooled in its own grace,
When loss isnât loss, and fall
Hangs on the cusp of its one responsibility,
Tiny erasures,
palimpsest over the pear trees.
Â
Somewhere inside the landscape
Something reverses.
Leaf lines recoil, the moon switches
Her tides, dry banks begin to appear
In the long conduits
under the skin and in the heart.
Â
I listen to dark October just over the hill,
I listen to what the weeds exhale,
and the pines echo,
Elect in their rectitude:
The idea of emptiness is everything to them.
I smooth myself, I abide.
Chinese Journal
In 1935, the year I was born,
Giorgio Morandi
Penciled these bottles in by leaving them out, letting
The presence of what surrounds them increase the presence
Of what is missing,
keeping its distance and measure.
Â
Â
The purple-and-white spike plants
stand upright and spine-laced,
As though poised to fight by keeping still.
Inside their bristly circle,
The dwarf boxwood
flashes its tiny shields at the sun.
Â
Â
Under the skylight, the Pothos plant
Dangles its fourteen arms
into the absence of its desire.
Like a medusa in the two-ply, celadon air,
Its longing is what it grows on,
heart-leaves in the nothingness.
Â
Â
To shine but not to dazzle.
Falling leaves, falling water,
everything comes to rest.
Â
Â
What can anyone know of the sure machine that makes all things
work?
To find one word and use it correctly,
providing it is the right word,
Is more than enough:
An inch of music is an inch and a half of dust.
Night Journal
The breath of Whatâs-Out-There sags
Like bad weather below the branches,
fog-sided, Venetian,
Trailing its phonemes along the ground.
It says what it has to say
Carefully, without sound, word
After word imploding into articulation
And wherewithal for the unbecome.
I catch its drift.
Â
And if I could answer back,
If once I had a cloudier tongue,
what would I say?
Iâd say what it says: nothing, with all its verities
Gone to the ground and hiding:
Iâd say what it says now,
Dangling its language like laundry between the dark limbs,
Just hushed in its cleanliness.
Â
The absolute night backs off.
Hard breezes freeze in my eyelids.
The moon, stamped horn of foolâs gold,
Answers for me in the arteries of the oak trees.
I long for clear water, the silence
Of risk and deep splendor,
the quietness inside the solitude.
I want its drop on my lip, its cold undertaking.
Notes
Night Journal
Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard (Harper & Row, 1982).
Â
A Journal of the Year of the Ox
Â
Catullus Tibullus and Pervigilium Veneris (Harvard University Press MCMLXXVI); The Penguin Book of Italian Verse (Penguin Books, 1960); Historical Sketches of the Holston Valleys by Thomas W. Preston (The Kingsport Press, 1926); âBy the Banks of the Holstonâ by Jeff Daniel Marion, The Iron Mountain Review, Vol. 1, #2 (Winter 1984); Il Palazzo di Schifanoia by Ranieri Varese, Grafici Editoriale s.r.i. (Bologna, 1983); The Cloud of Unknowing: An English Mystic of the 14th Century (Bums Oates).
Â
Light Journal
Salvatore Quasimodo, âEd è súbito sera.â
Â
A Journal of One Significant Landscape
Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari, translated by George Bull (Penguin Books, 1965).
Â
Night Journal II
For Stanley Kunitz.
Copyright © 1988 by Charles Wright
All rights reserved
Â
Â
Published simultaneously in Canada by
Collins Publishers, Toronto
Â
Â
eISBN 9781429933568
First eBook Edition : May 2011
Â
Â
First printing, 1988
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wright, Charles.
Zone journals.
âThe first five poems appeared in ⦠limited
edition volume entitled 5 journalsââ
I. Wright, Charles. 5 journals.
II. Title.
PS3573.R52Z39 1988 811â².54 87-21207
Acknowledgments are made to Field, The
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