Poems
I’m Reading Darwin
I’ve finally finished reading Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle and wanted to post this poem from my new book, Before There Was Before. I was fascinated to learn that Darwin had planned to become a preacher when he returned from his travels, and like most of his countrymen, believed in the literal words of the bible. He was also appalled at some of the local medical treatments.
I’M READING DARWIN
1
On a tiny rocky island in the Atlantic,
a few months out on the Beagle, Darwin found
only two kinds of birds, the booby and the noddy,
both . . . of a tame and stupid disposition,
easily distracted and deceived—the males
couldn’t stop crabs from snatching
the flying fish they’d left near the nests
for their females. They even let
those crabs steal their chicks.
And on that island, not one plant,
not one lichen, no royal palms succeeded
by majestic plumage, succeeded
by Adam and Eve’s descendants.
Instead, just two dumb birds,
on whose feathers and skin and shit
the life of the island hinged; and a species
of fly that lived on the booby; and a tick
burrowed in noddy flesh; and a small brown moth
that fed on the feathers; and a beetle
and a woodlouse that fed on dung;
and a host of spiders, who fed on them all.
2
In Santa Fé, Argentina, a man splits a bean,
places the moistened bean on his sore head,
and his headache goes away.
A broken leg? Kill and cut open
two puppies, tie them on either side of the leg.
Replace doubt with a plaster!
Did Darwin despair? Or still believe
in a God who would break our chains?
On a dark night, south of the Plata,
he comforted himself with the sea’s
most beautiful spectacle . . . every part
of the surface . . . glowed with a pale light . . .
two billows of liquid phosphorus
before the ship’s bows, and in her wake . . .
a milky train.
Before There Was Before
“Before There Was Before” was first published in the journal Common Ground.
1.
Before there was before, there was still before,
no verb to carry the abyss.
Light from dark, this from that, an easing
of boundaries, a slit
making a run for it,
everything
blue at the edge of that pose.
2.
The Big Bang hurled all the starstuff
ever to be made—brazen tumult,
lashed by the muscle of spume,
hydrogen and helium waiting
for their rings to close,
dark tonnage, billions and billions
of mewling seedstars,
all burning and burning
themselves out, the universe
braced to decay.
3.
The shoulder of one boulder settling
against the shoulder of another.
Canyons cleaving, granite
wrenched free.
The apple asleep
inside the sleeping tree.
4.
The tide slinks in.
Shelves of blue-green algae.
Bluefish.
Lungfish.
Weakfish.
5.
Shaggy-maned mushrooms
sink and dissolve. Beneath,
beetles frill.
Pea vines, holdfast clovers.
Bees shiver the white throats—
Whales slip through the slot.
Baleen and blue milk spilled
through all the rooms of the ocean.
Long lives call and click
the grievous migrations.
Sharp-shinned hawks seize
their trophies, clamping down
the whole lid of air.
7.
When trees come, they are meant to
be climbed.
Stay away, or come, or come
just this far—you and I are
here, the compound of us,
a colossal conjunction.
And the calendulas in the field
who are riddled
with life-spark and flaws.
Let’s take a stab
at the dark, let’s
time our tea,
if we have tea,
if we have time.
Skunk Cabbage
Saw my first spring skunk cabbage of the year today at Mass Audubon’s beautiful Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary in Natick, MA.
This poem is from my book Western Motel.
SKUNK CABBAGE
Out of nowhere, then,
skunk cabbages astonish
the meadow: pursed
and swollen spathes,
putrid fists, ugly,
unreticent, and inside,
a knotted yellow swarm.
Slugs, snails, five-lined skink,
blue-bottled flies are avid
on the cud of mottled leaves
whose stench is salvage.
How long winter slung itself
over my shoulder,
each rogue thing
obstinate, returning—
Epithalamium
I wrote this poem for my daughter’s wedding. As I began to read it at the reception, which was held in a large tent, rain and thunder began to pound on the roof. I imagine very few people actually held it, and the tent began leaking as well. I’m pleased that it finally made it to publication.
EPITHALAMIUM
—for Julia and Robert
I want to give you a poem with a pond in it,
and if you see a heron glide down,
to fold the blue smocking of her wings,
swishing silence, remember her
when you stand at the edge of things.
At the National Archaeological Museum in Athens
The Nine Fortunate Things
Beetle
His black-shellacked body
lay belly up on the basement floor,
everything in him already
decided, the huge husk of him—
three sections knuckle-coupled
like train cars: the thorax scribed
with scarabs, compact as a flower bulb,
the abdomen hinged to his tiny head,
and inside that, the minuscule brain
that mounted his little music, day
and night issued meek and fierce
instructions to himself in his dark city.
And refused what? And raced where?
Sought what solace scuttling?
And did he notice or not the tepid light
squinting through smeared windows?
Did he brace his legs against the spin
of the washer’s thrum? Nothing more
for him but this one hard look—to memorize
the six matched dancers of his legs,
each curving toward its partner in a series
of jointed etceteras all the way out
to the hooks, barbed, and beyond,
the ardent tips that almost touch.
Forbearance
“All actual life is encounter.” Martin Buber
The cows look slowly up,
flick flies with their tails,
with their ears, the whole
of their flanks twitching
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