V
That Autumn
The movie came to a close and went, and, in time,
it was forgotten, placed upon the background of
the past—: and I returned to play and laughter,
to class and lessons hardly learned. Each time I
spoke I lost a thought, or else said nothing to
friends who might have seen the picture to the end:
who might have been awakened, transfigured in some
faint and inner way by rage. Now I think: the
poem’s the thing wherein I’ll etch the semblance
of the film. So the mind becomes involved again with
after-sight, with frames as large as screens…and
without wearing it as too much knowledge, something
out of reach gets under way and the two-sided act of
myself (in the available light) behaves into words…
Fade-Out-Fade-In
From the screen, from its multi-colored light
that struck my face and eye’s anatomy, I
understood that indigenous fact—a victory for
Sarge, who disrupted my poise; who reached me,
heavily, through the shadows banked against the
back-most seats. When goodness was torn down
amidst the café air, not breathable at times,
something happened in me as well. With the vivid
plain before me at film’s end, before the curtains
closed, the bright blankness of the screen came
down and shone on me when I stepped into the
aisle, vague in the yielding chiaroscuro. And
what I took in that afternoon took root and a
quiet vehemence arose. It arose in language—
the legitimate deduction of the years thought out.
Now I am because I write: I know it in my heart
And know it in the sound iambics of my fist that
Mark across the paper with the sun’s exacting rays.
The Slow Weight of Time
Endlessly to no end looking through
memory (O conscience that accentuates
a history full of ways to know the
heart) at what not long ago did happen,
you turn back to when your offended
little world was unresolved. Each
thought is longing to become another
longing to sing, once again and always,
deep into a song of what memory still
might know. You draw air, press these
thoughts to paper and release your daily
self from the lost fragments of the past.
Now: in the conquered vigil of your
Days, all distance weeps for you as you
Drift out from the journey through
The slow weight of time, and you claim
That you are safe forever in the
Very words you have chosen to become.
The Telling
Anywhere, anytime, I fix it in my mind
That what I know and runs through the
body, like unction, is anxious truth in me:
truth, uproaring in shadow and light,
which descends from days burnt away nakedly;
from what the eye has taken in, and the eye
does not confuse time and place with
the act. At this moment of being human
(when the teller is the tale being told),
the ash of memory rises that I might speak,
that I might tell what I tell with words,
which are the past falling from my mind.
Let the script reveal: that in the telling
I am cast in time forward, wherethrough runs
The present—one track of light triumphant,
the sum of everything that ignites this room
with light, vida que no olvida, calling out
my name…O life, this body that speaks, this
repetitious self drawn out from la vida revivida,
vida sacada de cada clamor. Home at last, I am
trusting the light that attends me, and the
natural physic of breathing, with words to
show the measure. O vida vivida y por vivir…
