The Heart Is Strange (9 page)

freer. Cantablanks & mummers, nears

longing for you. Our chopping scores my ears,

our costume bores my eyes.

St. George to the good sword, rise! chop-logic’s rife

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& fever & Satan & Satan’s ancient fere.

Pioneering is not feeling well,

not Indians, beasts.

Not all their riddling can forestall

one leaving. Sam, your uncle has had to

go fróm us to live with God. ‘Then Aunt went too?’

Dear, she does wait still.

Stricken: ‘Oh. Then he takes    us one by one.’ My dear.

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Forswearing it otherwise, they starch their minds.

Folkmoots, & blether, blether. John Cotton rakes

to the synod of Cambridge.

Down from my body my legs flow,

out from it arms wave, on it my head shakes.

Now Mistress Hutchinson rings forth a call—

should she? many creep out at a broken wall—

affirming the Holy Ghost

dwells in one justified. Factioning passion blinds

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all to all her good, all—can she be exiled?

Bitter sister, victim! I miss you.

—I miss you, Anne,

day or night weak as a child,

tender & empty, doomed, quick to no tryst.

—I hear you. Be kind, you who leaguer

my image in the mist.

—Be kind you, to one unchained eager far & wild

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and if, O my love, my heart is breaking, please

neglect my cries and I will spare you. Deep

in Time’s grave, Love’s, you lie still.

Lie still. —Now? That happy shape

my forehead had under my most long, rare,

ravendark, hidden, soft bodiless hair

you award me still.

You must not love me, but    I do not bid you cease.

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Veiled my eyes, attending. How can it be I?

Moist, with parted lips, I listen, wicked.

I shake in the morning & retch.

Brood I do on myself naked.

A fading world I dust, with fingers new.

—I have earned the right to be alone with you.

—What right can that be?

Convulsing, if you love, enough, like a sweet lie.

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Not that, I know, you can. This cratered skin,

like the crabs & shells of my Palissy ewer, touch!

Oh, you do, you do?

Falls on me what I like a witch,

for lawless holds, annihilations of law

which Time and he and man abhor, foresaw:

sharper than what my Friend

brought me for my revolt when I moved smooth & thin,

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faintings black, rigour, chilling, brown

parching, back, brain burning, the grey pocks

itch, a manic stench

of pustules snapping, pain floods the palm,

sleepless, or a red shaft with a dreadful start

rides at the chapel, like a slipping heart.

My soul strains in one qualm

ah but
this
is not to save me but to throw me down.

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And out of this I lull. It lessens. Kiss me.

That once. As sings out up in sparkling dark

a trail of a star & dies,

while the breath flutters, sounding, mark,

so shorn ought such caresses to us be

who, deserving nothing, flush and flee

the darkness of that light,

a lurching frozen from a warm dream. Talk to me.

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—it is Spring’s New England. Pussy willows wedge

up in the wet. Milky crestings, fringed

yellow, in heaven, eyed

by the melting hand-in-hand or mere

desirers single, heavy-footed, rapt,

make surge poor human hearts. Venus is trapt—

the hefty pike shifts, sheer—

in Orion blazing. Warblings, odours, nudge to an edge—

32

—Ravishing, ha, what crouches outside ought,

flamboyant, ill, angelic. Often, now,

I am afraid of you.

I am a sobersides; I know.

I
want
to take you for my lover. —Do.

—I hear a madness. Harmless I to you

am not, not I? —No.

—I cannot but be. Sing a concord of our thought.

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—Wan dolls in indigo on gold: refrain

my western lust. I am drowning in this past.

I lose sight of you

who mistress me from air. Unbraced

in delirium of the grand depths, giving away

haunters what kept me, I breathe solid spray.

—I am losing you!

Straiten me on. —I suffered living like a stain:

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I trundle the bodies, on the iron bars,

over that fire backward & forth; they burn;

bits fall. I wonder if

I
killed them. Women serve my turn.

—Dreams! You are good. —No. —Dense with hardihood

the wicked are dislodged, and lodged the good.

In green space we are safe.

God awaits us (but I    am yielding) who Hell wars.

35

—I cannot feel myself God waits. He flies

nearer a kindly world; or he is flown.

One Saturday’s rescue

won’t show. Man is entirely alone

may be. I am a man of griefs & fits

trying to be my friend. And the brown smock splits,

down the pale flesh a gash

broadens and Time holds up your heart against my eyes.

36

—Hard and divided heaven! creases me. Shame

is failing. My breath is scented, and I throw

hostile glances towards God.

Crumpling plunge of a pestle, bray:

sin cross & opposite, wherein I survive

nightmares of Eden. Reaches foul & live

he for me, this soul

to crunch, a minute tangle of eternal flame.

37

I fear Hell’s hammer-wind. But fear does not wane.

Death’s blossoms grain my hair; I cannot live.

A black joy clashes

joy, in twilight. The Devil said

‘I will deal toward her softly, and her enchanting cries

will fool the horns of Adam.’ Father of lies,

a male great pestle smashes

small women swarming towards the mortar’s rim in vain.

38

I see the cruel spread Wings black with saints!

Silky my breasts not his, mine, mine, to withhold

or tender, tender.

I am sifting, nervous, and bold.

The light is changing. Surrender this loveliness

you cannot make me do.
But
I will. Yes.

What horror, down stormy air,

warps towards me? My threatening promise faints—

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torture me, Father, lest not I be thine!

Tribunal terrible & pure, my God,

mercy for him and me.

Faces half-fanged, Christ drives abroad,

and though the crop hopes, Jane is so slipshod

I cry. Evil dissolves, & love, like foam;

that love. Prattle of children powers me home,

my heart claps like the swan’s

under a frenzy of
who
love me & who shine.

40

As a canoe slides by on one strong stroke

hope his hélp not I, who do hardly bear

his gift still. But whisper

I am not utterly. I pare

an apple for my pipsqueak Mercy and

she runs & all need naked apples, fanned

their tinier envies.

Vomitings, trots, rashes. Can be hope a cloak?

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for the man with cropt ears glares. My fingers tighten

my skirt. I pass. Alas! I pity all.

Shy, shy, with mé, Dorothy.

Moonrise, and frightening hoots. ‘Mother,

how
long
will I be dead?’ Our friend the owl

vanishes, darling, but your homing soul

retires on Heaven, Mercy:

not we one instant die, only our dark does lighten.

42

When by me in the dusk my child sits down

I am myself. Simon, if it’s that loose,

let me wiggle it out.

You’ll get a bigger one there, & bite.

How they loft, how their sizes delight and grate.

The proportioned, spiritless poems accumulate.

And they publish them

away in brutish London, for a hollow crown.

43

Father is not himself. He keeps his bed,

and threw a saffron scum Thursday. God-forsaken words

escaped him raving. Save,

Lord, thy servant zealous & just.

Sam he saw back from Harvard. He did scold

his secting enemies. His stomach is cold

while we drip, while

my baby John breaks out. O far from where he bred!

44

Bone of moaning: sung Where he has gone

a thousand summers by truth-hallowed souls;

be still. Agh, he is gone!

Where? I know. Beyond the shoal.

Still-all a Christian daughter grinds her teeth

a little. This our land has ghosted with

our dead: I am at home.

Finish, Lord, in me this work thou hast begun.

45

And they tower, whom the pear-tree lured

to let them fall, fierce mornings they reclined

down the brook-bank to the east

fishing for shiners with crookt pin,

wading, dams massing, well, and Sam’s to be

a doctor in Boston. After the divisive sea,

and death’s first feast,

and the galled effort on the wilderness endured,

46

Arminians, and the King bore against us;

of an ‘inward light’ we hear with horror.

Whose fan is in his hand

and he will thoroughly purge his floor,

come towards mé. I have what licks the joints

and bites the heart, which winter more appoints.

Iller I, oftener.

Hard at the outset; in the ending thus hard, thus?

47

Sacred & unutterable Mind

flashing thorough the universe one thought,

I do wait without peace.

In the article of death I budge.

Eat my sore breath, Black Angel. Let me die.

Body a-drain, when will you be dry

and countenance my speed

to Heaven’s springs? lest stricter writhings have me declined.

48

‘What are those pictures in the air at night,

Mother?’ Mercy did ask. Space charged with faces

day & night! I place

a goatskin’s fetor, and sweat: fold me

in savoury arms. Something is shaking, wrong.

He smells the musket and lifts it. It is long.

It points at my heart.

Missed he must have. In the gross storm of sunlight

49

I sniff a fire burning without outlet,

consuming acrid its own smoke. It’s me.

Ruined laughter sounds

outside. Ah but I waken, free.

And so I am about again. I hagged

a fury at the short maid, whom tongues tagged,

and I am sorry. Once

less I was anxious when more passioned to upset

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the mansion & the garden & the beauty of God.

Insectile unreflective busyness

blunts & does amend.

Hangnails, piles, fibs, life’s also.

But we are that from which draws back a thumb.

The seasons stream and, somehow, I am become

an old woman. It’s so:

I look. I bear to look. Strokes once more his rod.

51

My window gives on the graves, in our great new house

(how many burned?) upstairs, among the elms.

I lie, & endure, & wonder.

A haze slips sometimes over my dreams

and holiness on horses’ bells shall stand.

Wandering pacemaker, unsteadying friend,

in a redskin calm I wait:

beat when you will our end. Sinkings & droopings drowse.

52

They say thro’ the fading winter Dorothy fails,

my second, who than I bore one more, nine;

and I see her inearthed. I linger.

Seaborn she wed knelt before Simon;

Simon I, and linger. Black-yellow seething, vast

it lies fróm me, mine: all they look aghast.

It will be a glorious arm.

Docile I watch. My wreckt chest hurts when Simon pales.

53

In the yellowing days your faces wholly fail,

at Fall’s onset. Solemn voices fade.

I feel no coverlet.

Light notes leap, a beckon, swaying

the titled, sickening ear within. I’ll—I’ll—

I am closed & coming. Somewhere! I defile

wide as a cloud, in a cloud,

unfit, desirous, glad—even the singings veil—

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—You are not ready? You áre ready. Pass,

as shadow gathers shadow in the welling night.

Fireflies of childhood torch

you down. We commit our sister down.

One candle mourn by, which a lover gave,

the use’s edge and order of her grave.

Quiet? Moisture shoots.

Hungry throngs collect. They sword into the carcass.

55

Headstones stagger under great draughts of time

after heads pass out, and their world must reel

speechless, blind in the end

about its chilling star: thrift tuft,

whin cushion—nothing. Already with the wounded flying

dark air fills, I am a closet of secrets dying,

races murder, foxholes hold men,

reactor piles wage slow upon the wet brain rime.

56

I must pretend to leave you. Only you draw off

a benevolent phantom. I say you seem to me

drowned towns off England,

featureless as those myriads

who what bequeathed save fire-ash, fossils, burled

in the open river-drifts of the Old World?

Simon lived on for years.

I renounce not even ragged glances, small teeth, nothing,

57

O all your ages at the mercy of my loves

together lie at once, forever or

so long as I happen.

In the rain of pain & departure, still

Love has no body and presides the sun,

and elfs from silence melody. I run.

Hover, utter, still,

a sourcing    whom my lost candle like the firefly loves.

NOTES

STANZAS