The Linkage - Robert Kelly
(for Ken Irby)
of all the places we walked
bought or entered householding of,
anything from that you
wanted to know of the upright, no not even a flag, flagpole
over the river, over one open place surrounded by trees
this pointer its shadow moving hour by hour around it, trees
up, start, cut thru the woods, river & then
because we were late to meet you at the bus
strangeness of hurrying there & idling back,
drove you thru Astor & Delano land
but didnt let on, didnt let on
if we passed S_ _ _ _ _ _ _'s barn
he shot himself in when the tortures bled dry,
didnt tell you of the great red barn
torn down one weekend we were at sea,
didnt tell you of the sea, the mouths of it
so variously articulate in me, of all my friends
torn down in me, their voices one by one
tuning out in despair of an answer, wrack
of a gazebo rickety in a back pasture, ruin
of a woman in my mind, its lightening rod stiff shiny,
who knew she & I had nothing more to say,
didnt show you the gates of Montgomery Place
where every spring the horse chestnut
smashes into flower, or that particular tunnel of trees
where the green turns gold every afternoon minute
by minute earlier all summer long, I heard her
at the back of my mind, held all the answers
to her letters there, how could I write
to the smoothness of her skin or her full
nerve-bitten lips with nothing to say, neither
of us anything to say in her head where the indifferent
wisdoms of a hundred manifestoes made their peace,
we saw woodchuck, one raccoon, tonight
an emaciated red fox
turned from his dinner by our curiosity
lay in the extremity of patience behind a fence
till we left, not even bothering to hide his
ears wedged up in defiance of his fear,
we broke his dinner under the wheels, he would
come back to it anyhow, I wanted to talk
but understanding made me silent, we had been there
together, Latin epigrams easy on the tongue
over the old garden where I first knew
the silence of what our bodies really are, silence
of words when I have failed them so often,
too much or too stingy, her face turned up in moonlight,
you & I stood on the porch in rare rain,
so many years the drought has lasted, I told you
all about Cruger's island, a landfall below the forest,
did not show it to you, we show or we tell,
we see or we make up, where is the linkage,
the places I know so well we went thru
that even if I'd been asleep at the wheel
I would know what to say now, tell now,
of all the places we'd been thru now, not been now,
how Stephens sailed up the river with his Mayan trove
artifacts & replicas, parked them there on the island
in & around Cruger's old mansion, for us
only the brick chimney stands, 42nd parallel, 5 months
of snow & year after year even in his decade
the boys found Yucatecan shreds when the tide went down,
jade quetzals & a few Mohegan arrowheads
among the many warheads of the Mohawks
who brought a nation to ruin in this place,
blood in the black swamp pools, the coves choked with lilies,
I told those things that were not there to see
things true only in the phony orders of history
as her name is true in my memory, my hands'
memory of her hips, I talked of the things invisible
& thought of her without knowing why, without
now even knowing why, why should I think of her
among many or few, so many walked here,
looked down the lawn at Blithewood towards the river,
lay on the dry grass or stared
unnecessarily at the ill-formed
statue of a naked girl I worship in the spray of the fountain
to whom a friend even that day had brought
handfuls of irises to lay in her lap, wiltings of history,
wiltings of flowers, this girl remembered, I could only
tell you about things, not show, not talk yet to you
(as you wrote later) deeper, of deeper things
than the wet stone thighs, deeper than here am I
& here are what I love or need or dont
know what to make of, here they are,
they speak themselves in us over & over,
in much-talking, Benedict said, you will not flee sin,
yet these things are a gossip in themselves,
luring & smiling, turning shadowy in a wink of sky,
remember this place, remember
(which is: reconstitute alive) the limbs of this place
as I carry over the ground she walked on
the incomprehensible memory of her face in moonlight,
& have nothing to say to her, but these
are the beginnings of talk between us whose bodies
have no commerce, reconstitute this place only if anywhere
in the cells of your body, your own hidden
memories of Texas & grasslands before it,
worlds & drumlins & grasslands back thru the Pleistocene,
reaching the ice where we started together
some kind of trip or rendezvous or country walk,
surviving the ice the cells of our memory, cells of our loves
hot & cold, weathered to the bone, hanging on instant
inside us, almost irretrievable, coming along for the ride,
at dead rest but by their weight subduing us, forcing our hands
to this work of walking around & giving things names,
calling, recalling, conquering the parts of the world in their name,
the cells which are power, breath, continuity, fathers
of our frontiers, shaping us is what I'm saying, shaping
our breaths as our breaths shape our journeys,
how high you can climb or stand Death Valley heat
where you watched the tracks of the stones that pick
themselves up & skate in the night, moving god knows why
& getting nowhere, where do our memories get us
but to this place where river garden women or glassland
we saw one motionless
flower of a perpetual
movement
that does not remember its spring
& does not anticipate its fall
from which an equal rose or woman will arise.
Find the stem.
[From:
Kelly, R. (1868) Finding The Measure. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, p87 - p90]
of all the places we walked
bought or entered householding of,
anything from that you
wanted to know of the upright, no not even a flag, flagpole
over the river, over one open place surrounded by trees
this pointer its shadow moving hour by hour around it, trees
up, start, cut thru the woods, river & then
because we were late to meet you at the bus
strangeness of hurrying there & idling back,
drove you thru Astor & Delano land
but didnt let on, didnt let on
if we passed S_ _ _ _ _ _ _'s barn
he shot himself in when the tortures bled dry,
didnt tell you of the great red barn
torn down one weekend we were at sea,
didnt tell you of the sea, the mouths of it
so variously articulate in me, of all my friends
torn down in me, their voices one by one
tuning out in despair of an answer, wrack
of a gazebo rickety in a back pasture, ruin
of a woman in my mind, its lightening rod stiff shiny,
who knew she & I had nothing more to say,
didnt show you the gates of Montgomery Place
where every spring the horse chestnut
smashes into flower, or that particular tunnel of trees
where the green turns gold every afternoon minute
by minute earlier all summer long, I heard her
at the back of my mind, held all the answers
to her letters there, how could I write
to the smoothness of her skin or her full
nerve-bitten lips with nothing to say, neither
of us anything to say in her head where the indifferent
wisdoms of a hundred manifestoes made their peace,
we saw woodchuck, one raccoon, tonight
an emaciated red fox
turned from his dinner by our curiosity
lay in the extremity of patience behind a fence
till we left, not even bothering to hide his
ears wedged up in defiance of his fear,
we broke his dinner under the wheels, he would
come back to it anyhow, I wanted to talk
but understanding made me silent, we had been there
together, Latin epigrams easy on the tongue
over the old garden where I first knew
the silence of what our bodies really are, silence
of words when I have failed them so often,
too much or too stingy, her face turned up in moonlight,
you & I stood on the porch in rare rain,
so many years the drought has lasted, I told you
all about Cruger's island, a landfall below the forest,
did not show it to you, we show or we tell,
we see or we make up, where is the linkage,
the places I know so well we went thru
that even if I'd been asleep at the wheel
I would know what to say now, tell now,
of all the places we'd been thru now, not been now,
how Stephens sailed up the river with his Mayan trove
artifacts & replicas, parked them there on the island
in & around Cruger's old mansion, for us
only the brick chimney stands, 42nd parallel, 5 months
of snow & year after year even in his decade
the boys found Yucatecan shreds when the tide went down,
jade quetzals & a few Mohegan arrowheads
among the many warheads of the Mohawks
who brought a nation to ruin in this place,
blood in the black swamp pools, the coves choked with lilies,
I told those things that were not there to see
things true only in the phony orders of history
as her name is true in my memory, my hands'
memory of her hips, I talked of the things invisible
& thought of her without knowing why, without
now even knowing why, why should I think of her
among many or few, so many walked here,
looked down the lawn at Blithewood towards the river,
lay on the dry grass or stared
unnecessarily at the ill-formed
statue of a naked girl I worship in the spray of the fountain
to whom a friend even that day had brought
handfuls of irises to lay in her lap, wiltings of history,
wiltings of flowers, this girl remembered, I could only
tell you about things, not show, not talk yet to you
(as you wrote later) deeper, of deeper things
than the wet stone thighs, deeper than here am I
& here are what I love or need or dont
know what to make of, here they are,
they speak themselves in us over & over,
in much-talking, Benedict said, you will not flee sin,
yet these things are a gossip in themselves,
luring & smiling, turning shadowy in a wink of sky,
remember this place, remember
(which is: reconstitute alive) the limbs of this place
as I carry over the ground she walked on
the incomprehensible memory of her face in moonlight,
& have nothing to say to her, but these
are the beginnings of talk between us whose bodies
have no commerce, reconstitute this place only if anywhere
in the cells of your body, your own hidden
memories of Texas & grasslands before it,
worlds & drumlins & grasslands back thru the Pleistocene,
reaching the ice where we started together
some kind of trip or rendezvous or country walk,
surviving the ice the cells of our memory, cells of our loves
hot & cold, weathered to the bone, hanging on instant
inside us, almost irretrievable, coming along for the ride,
at dead rest but by their weight subduing us, forcing our hands
to this work of walking around & giving things names,
calling, recalling, conquering the parts of the world in their name,
the cells which are power, breath, continuity, fathers
of our frontiers, shaping us is what I'm saying, shaping
our breaths as our breaths shape our journeys,
how high you can climb or stand Death Valley heat
where you watched the tracks of the stones that pick
themselves up & skate in the night, moving god knows why
& getting nowhere, where do our memories get us
but to this place where river garden women or glassland
we saw one motionless
flower of a perpetual
movement
that does not remember its spring
& does not anticipate its fall
from which an equal rose or woman will arise.
Find the stem.
[From:
Kelly, R. (1868) Finding The Measure. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, p87 - p90]
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