Wild Gratitude Read online

  transparent as glass, clairvoyant as crystal.…

  Some nights it is almost ready to join them.

  Oh, this is a strained, unlikely tethering,

  a furious grafting of the quick and the slow:

  when the soul flies up, the body sinks down

  and all night—locked in the same cramped room—

  they go on quarreling, stubbornly threatening

  to leave each other, wordlessly filling the air

  with the sound of a low internal burning.

  How long can this bewildering marriage last?

  At midnight the soul dreams of a small fire

  of stars flaming on the other side of the sky,

  but the body stares into an empty night sheen,

  a hollow-eyed darkness. Poor luckless angels,

  feverish old loves: don’t separate yet.

  Let what rises live with what descends.

  Wild Gratitude

  Tonight when I knelt down next to our cat, Zooey,

  And put my fingers into her clean cat’s mouth,

  And rubbed her swollen belly that will never know kittens,

  And watched her wriggle onto her side, pawing the air,

  And listened to her solemn little squeals of delight,

  I was thinking about the poet, Christopher Smart,

  Who wanted to kneel down and pray without ceasing

  In every one of the splintered London streets,

  And was locked away in the madhouse at St. Luke’s

  With his sad religious mania, and his wild gratitude,

  And his grave prayers for the other lunatics,

  And his great love for his speckled cat, Jeoffry.

  All day today—August 13, 1983—I remembered how

  Christopher Smart blessed this same day in August, 1759,

  For its calm bravery and ordinary good conscience.

  This was the day that he blessed the Postmaster General

  “And all conveyancers of letters” for their warm humanity,

  And the gardeners for their private benevolence

  And intricate knowledge of the language of flowers,

  And the milkmen for their universal human kindness.

  This morning I understood that he loved to hear—

  As I have heard—the soft clink of milk bottles

  On the rickety stairs in the early morning,

  And how terrible it must have seemed

  When even this small pleasure was denied him.

  But it wasn’t until tonight when I knelt down

  And slipped my hand into Zooey’s waggling mouth

  That I remembered how he’d called Jeoffry “the servant

  Of the Living God duly and daily serving Him,”

  And for the first time understood what it meant.

  Because it wasn’t until I saw my own cat

  Whine and roll over on her fluffy back

  That I realized how gratefully he had watched

  Jeoffry fetch and carry his wooden cork

  Across the grass in the wet garden, patiently

  Jumping over a high stick, calmly sharpening

  His claws on the woodpile, rubbing his nose

  Against the nose of another cat, stretching, or

  Slowly stalking his traditional enemy, the mouse,

  A rodent, “a creature of great personal valour,”

  And then dallying so much that his enemy escaped.

  And only then did I understand

  It is Jeoffry—and every creature like him—

  Who can teach us how to praise—purring

  In their own language,

  Wreathing themselves in the living fire.

  2

  Indian Summer

  It must have been a night like this one,

  Cool and transparent and somehow even-tempered,

  Sitting on the friendly wooden porch of someone’s

  Summer house in mid-October in the country

  That my father, home from the Korean War

  And still in uniform, wearing a pilot’s bars

  And carrying a pilot’s stark memories (still

  Fingering a parachute in the back of his mind)

  Jumped from the front steps where he’d been sitting

  And held a sweating gin and tonic in the air

  Like a newly won trophy, and flushed and smiled

  Into the eyes of a strangely willing camera.

  It must have been winning to see him again

  Safely home at the close of a vague war

  That was too far away to imagine clearly,

  A little guarded and shy, but keenly present,

  Tall and solid and actual as ever, and anyway

  Smiling past the camera at his high-school sweetheart

  (Now his wife, mother of his two small children)

  Surrounded by friends on a calm midwestern night.

  It must have been so soothing to have him back

  That no one studied him closely, no one noticed

  That there was something askew, something

  Dark and puzzling in his eyes, something deeply

  Reluctant staring into the narrow, clear-eyed

  Lens of the camera. I’ve imagined it all—

  And tonight, so many light years afterwards,

  Looking intently at a torn photograph

  Of that young soldier, my distant first father,

  Home from a war that he never once mentioned,

  I can foresee the long winter of arguments

  Ahead, the hard seasons of their divorce,

  The furious battles in court, and beyond that,

  The unexpected fire, the successive bankruptcies,

  The flight to California with a crisp new bankroll,

  The move to Arizona with a brand-new family.

  Tonight the past seems as sharp and inevitable

  As the moment in Indian Summer when you glance up

  From a photograph album and discover the fireflies

  Pulsing in the woods in front of the house

  And the stars blackening in a thicket of clouds.…

  It must have been a night like this one

  When my mother glanced over her husband’s head

  Into a cluster of trees emerging behind him

  And heard the wind scraping against the branches

  Like the strop strop of a razor on rawhide,

  And saw the full moon rising between the clouds

  And shattering into hundreds of glassy fragments.

  The Skokie Theatre

  Twelve years old and lovesick, bumbling

  and terrified for the first time in my life,

  but strangely hopeful, too, and stunned,

  definitely stunned—I wanted to cry,

  I almost started to sob when Chris Klein

  actually touched me—oh God—below the belt

  in the back row of the Skokie Theatre.

  Our knees bumped helplessly, our mouths

  were glued together like flypaper, our lips

  were grinding in a hysterical grimace

  while the most handsome man in the world

  twitched his hips on the flickering screen

  and the girls began to scream in the dark.

  I didn’t know one thing about the body yet,

  about the deep foam filling my bones,

  but I wanted to cry out in desolation

  when she touched me again, when the lights

  flooded on in the crowded theatre

  and the other kids started to file

  into the narrow aisles, into a lobby

  of faded purple splendor, into the last

  Saturday in August before she moved away.

  I never wanted to move again, but suddenly

  we were being lifted toward the sidewalk

  in a crush of bodies, blinking, shy,

  unprepared for the ringing familiar voices

  and the harsh glare of sunlight, the brightne
ss

  of an afternoon that left us gripping

  each other’s hands, trembling and changed.

  Prelude of Black Drapes

  Now the city deepens in smoke,

  now the darkness raises a withered hand

  and the night begins, like a prelude,

  in real earnest. This is the music

  that hurries pedestrians home

  and follows a fading breath of ashes

  out of the faded commuter stations.

  Slowly the bridges open their arms

  over the river and the cars

  fan out in the mist like a peacock’s

  feathers, or a deck of luminous cards

  dealt into shadows. This is the hour

  when the tugs slide into their cells

  and the gates snap shut behind them, when

  prisoners stare at their blank ceilings

  and windows are bolted in factories.

  Some of us remember the moon:

  it is a tarnished silver ball worn

  into our memories, a faint smudge

  of light rubbed into the heavy fog.

  In this city even the ginkgoes

  turn up their collars in self-protection

  while the buildings stiffen like hills

  against the wind. And as we hurry home

  in the cold, in our separate

  bodies, it takes all our faith to believe

  these black drapes, this curtain of ash

  will ever rise again in the morning.

  Commuters

  It’s that vague feeling of panic

  That sweeps over you

  Stepping out of the #7 train

  At dusk, thinking, This isn’t me

  Crossing a platform with the other

  Commuters in the worried half-light

  Of evening, that must be

  Someone else with a newspaper

  Rolled tightly under his arm

  Crossing the stiff, iron tracks

  Behind the train, thinking, This

  Can’t be me stepping over the tracks

  With the other commuters, slowly crossing

  The parking lot at the deepest

  Moment of the day, wishing

  That I were someone else, wishing

  I were anyone else but a man

  Looking out at himself as if

  From a great distance,

  Turning the key in his car, starting

  His car and swinging it out of the lot,

  Watching himself grinding uphill

  In a slow fog, climbing past the other

  Cars parked on the side of the road,

  The cars which seem ominously empty

  And strange,

  and suddenly thinking

  With a new wave of nausea

  This isn’t me sitting in this car

  Feeling as if I were about to drown

  In the blue air, that must be

  Someone else driving home to his

  Wife and children on an ordinary day

  Which ends, like other days,

  With a man buckled into a steel box,

  Steering himself home and trying

  Not to panic

  In the last moments of nightfall

  When the trees and the red-brick houses

  Seem to float under green water

  And the streets fill up with sea lights.

  In the Middle of August

  The dead heat rises for weeks,

  Unwanted, unasked for, but suddenly,

  Like the answer to a question,

  A real summer shower breaks loose

  In the middle of August. So think

  Of trumpets and cymbals, a young girl

  In a sparkling tinsel suit leading

  A parade down Fifth Avenue, all

  The high school drummers in the city

  Banging away at once. Think of

  Bottles shattering against a warehouse,

  Or a bowl of apricots spilling

  From a tenth-floor window: the bright

  Rat-a-tat-tat on the hot pavement,

  The squeal of adults scurrying

  For cover like happy children.

  Down the bar, someone says it’s like

  The night she fell asleep standing

  In the bathroom of a dank tavern

  And woke up shivering in an orchard

  Of lemon trees at dawn, surprised

  By the sudden omnipotence of yellows.

  Someone else says it’s like spinning

  A huge wheel and winning at roulette,

  Or drawing four aces and thinking:

  “It’s true, it’s finally happening.”

  Look, I’m not saying that the pretty

  Girl in the fairy tale really does

  Let down her golden hair for all

  The poor kids in the neighborhood—

  Though maybe she does. But still

  I am saying that a simple cloud

  Bursts over the city in mid-August

  And suddenly, in your lifetime,

  Everyone believes in his own luck.

  Sleepwatch

  In the middle of the middle of the night

  it is a dull tom-tom

  thudding in your chest, a ghostly drumroll

  of voices keening in the dark, words

  vibrant with echoes, keeping you awake.

  The body next to yours is already asleep.

  Already you’ve lost it

  to invisible caves, the slight stirring

  of leaves in a wet field, the crescent

  of another man’s face flaming in the trees.

  Outside, the snow falls into yesterday’s snow,

  tomorrow’s stormy rain.

  But, inside, a moon shivers in the spaces

  between your wife’s outstretched arms, between

  her shoulders and her legs, between the skin

  of water pulled over her watery lungs

  and the white egg growing

  larger and larger in her chest. This is

  the same moon that shudders in darkness

  inside of darkness, behind your eyes.

  Last night you walked along a cold, snowy beach

  and watched a flock of gulls

  flapping into a drift of stars, a drift

  of flakes thickening on the water

  like a mist of empty hands. You paused,

  but your dog loped hopelessly downbeach after

  them, swallowed up by fog,

  too far away to call. It was like this:

  your legs walked a stark beach, but your hands

  were at home fastened to your wife’s body.

  All night you could feel them rising and falling

  on the dim waves, helpless

  in moonlight, wanting to be anchors, mouths,

  wanting to be anything else but hands

  drifting farther and farther out of reach.

  Tonight you’re alive in your own dank forest.

  And now the body

  sleeping next to yours makes small gaping

  noises, like birds flying overhead

  with an alien upwards gesture.

  But down here all your bones make music.

  Down here in the middle

  of the middle of the night, you’re awake

  listening to the steady drumroll of a heart

  ghostly with losses, your tribal chant.

  The Night Parade

  Homage to Charles Ives

  1

  Officially, the parade begins at midnight

  When the vice-president of sleep calls the assembly

  To order while the sergeant-at-arms bangs

  A drowsy gavel against the empty brown forehead

  Of the podium and all the slumbering senators

  Turn over at once, bleary-eyed, weary, and

  Still a little drunk, though a few junior

  Republicans from Idaho and Mississippi

&nbs
p; Rise up in their plush seats to applaud

  The honorable gentleman from Alabama calling

  For a vote. The burly speaker announces

  That the unanimous motion of sleep carries

  And on the well-lit corners of Maple and Elm,

  On Main Street in small towns and villages

  All over America, the children of sleep stand

  In plaid nightshirts, rubbing their eyes,

  The veterans of sleep surround the flagpole

  For that brave radiant moment when the first

  Notes of the National Anthem of Night float

  Over the bandshell like balloons and then

  Drift across the bleachers of the high-school

  Football stadium where the janitor and

  The assistant principal are preparing to fire

  A cannon and spangle the sky with stars.

  And now the mayor of sleep shakes hands

  With the owner of sleep and the newly elected

  President of the Chamber of Commerce, and maybe

  He even pecks his wife on her fat cheek.

  This is the signal for the prom queen to hop

  Into the back seat of a ghostly blue convertible

  Driven by her blond boyfriend who is already

  Dreaming of the moment when he can park

  The triumphant car by the lagoon and slip

  His arm around her naked white shoulders.

  Because at night in even the smallest towns

  Desire spreads through the body like a stain.

  2

  That’s why his cousin with the thick glasses,

  Braces and skinny blue legs is sobbing

  Into her pillow, refusing to dry her eyes

  Or comb her hair, refusing to listen

  To her mother in pink curlers and a silky

  Gray nightgown, even refusing to look up

  At her beloved father in maroon pajamas.

  Later, she will watch the night parade on

  Television, like hotel clerks, night-watchmen,

  Prison guards, waitresses in all-night diners,