memory & desire

The Wake

Iris
- by David St. John -

  Vivian St. John (1981-1974)

There is a train inside this iris:

You think I'm crazy, & like to say boyish
& outrageous things. No, there is

A train inside this iris.

It's a child's finger bearded in black banners.
A single window like a child's nail,

A darkened porthole lit by the white, angular face

Of an old woman, or perhaps the boy beside her in the stuffy,
Hot compartment. Her hair is silver, & sweeps

Back off her forehead, onto her cold and bruised shoulders.

The prairies fail along Chicago. Past the five
Lakes. Into the black woods of her New York; & as I bend

Close above the iris, I see the train

Drive deep into the damp heart of its stem, & the gravel
Of the garden path

Cracks under my feet as I walk this long corridor

Of elms, arched
Like the ceiling of a French railway pier where a boy

With pale curls holding

A fresh iris is waving goodbye to a grandmother, gazing
A long time

Into the flower, as if he were looking some great

Distance, or down an empty garden path & he believes a man
Is walking toward him, working

Dull shears in one hand; & now believe me: The train

Is gone. The old woman is dead, & the boy. The iris curls,
On its stalk, in the shade

Of those elms: Where something like the icy & bitter fragrance

In the wake of a woman who's just swept past you on her way
Home

& you remain

From Study for the World's Body, published by HarperCollins, 1994. Electronic text via http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15375

Nothing in Hand

"Keep me fully glad..."
- by Rabindranath Tagore -

    Keep me fully glad with nothing. Only take my hand in your hand.
    In the gloom of the deepening night take up my heart and play with it as you list. Bind me close to you with nothing.
    I will spread myself out at your feet and lie still. Under this clouded sky I will meet silence with silence. I will become one with the night clasping the earth in my breast.
    Make my life glad with nothing.
    The rains sweep the sky from end to end. Jasmines in the wet untamable wind revel in their own perfume. The cloud-hidden stars thrill in secret. Let me fill to the full my heart with nothing but my own depth of joy.

From Poetry, June 1913. Online Text via Poetry Foundation

"Blue Hands I-X" by Daniele Buetti, 2005. Via Artnet.com

mysterious wisteria

Wisteria
- by Philip Levine -

The first purple wisteria
I recall from boyhood hung
on a wire outside the windows
of the breakfast room next door
at the home of Steve Pisaris.
I loved his tall, skinny daughter,
or so I thought, and I would wait
beside the back door, prostrate,
begging to be taken in. Perhaps
it was only the flowers of spring
with their sickening perfumes
that had infected me. When Steve
and Sophie and the three children
packed up and made the move west,
I went on spring after spring,
leaden with desire, half-asleep,
praying to die. Now I know
those prayers were answered.
That boy died, the brick houses
deepened and darkened with rain,
age, use, and finally closed
their eyes and dreamed the sleep
of California. I learned this
only today. Wakened early
in an empty house not lately
battered by storms, I looked
for nothing. On the surface
of the rain barrel, the paled,
shredded blossoms floated.

the urn-shaped rosebud

My grandfather was a talented gardener and though I remember plenty of marigolds planted in his yard, I don't think he grew any roses. Still, he always had catalogs from nurseries and rose growers laying around. I have always been a bit of a reference material freak, and for me, these catalogs were portals of imagination.

All the varieties were organized by type and then by color and each offering was accompanied by a picture and a description. Sometimes, but not always, a picture of that variety's bud would be included. The description would usually go something like: "Queen Elizabeth -- Bud pointed; Flower MEDIUM PINK COLOR, double flower (38 petals), high-centered to cupped, large (4 inch) blooms borne singly and in clusters; Fragrant; Foliage dark, glossy, leathery; Growth very vigorous, upright and bushy. All American Rose Society Award, 1955." (This description is courtesy of Texas A&M.)

I read the descriptions as if they were secret incantations. I memorized the descriptions several varieties and checked up on them from year to year. I was intrigued by the scent descriptions (pungent, spicy and sweet - how could you get all that in a one rose?) But my favorite factoid was the shape of the rosebud (which, remember, was not always pictured). The regal Queen Elizabeth noted above sports a pointed bud, Golden Medal's is ovoid, and Pristine's bud is described as long. Just long. To me, these descriptors always seemed pretty vague. But there is the elusive, and to my imagination, the most perfect shape of all buds: the urn.