Subject
*Dark Ice* XII (fwd)
Date
Body
XII
Let me stop here. I've been up all night,
Watching the lake. The ice is creaking, wet:
870 Its luscious quickening returns the dawn
(Which for some reason we've been waiting for).
Past clumped, illiterate scrub
Old boulders glisten; molten coatings glow
Like the internal organs of the sun.
The bell-bronze trees are still. Few pages left.
I'll walk out one last time. I'm thinking of
Two unrelated surfaces: the ice
Slips and whispers underfoot; the sky,
The daylight surface of the universe,
880 Benign and bare, is moving overhead.
There is no death. No petty torturer.
No programmatic force that murders minds,
No grim competitor. Relinquish us
From our excuses and our differences;
Show us a faultless sky, unhinging ice,
And dark water on a bed of stars.
The scattered letters drift, and leave our lives
Wearing through words, reflecting everything
In treacherous grammar, breathing on a dark
890 And temporary pane of lacing mass
(Like Zemblan fishers camping on the ice).
I see the road from here, and hear the cars
Speeding along the slick black Interstate
With whirlwinds bolted underneath their hoods,
Their violence directed to our will;
We rush ahead--hissing across the miles
Of unencumbered continent so fast
The passing signposts blur like turning spokes--
Not thinking of the ruin in our wake,
900 Only of moving onward: faster, go!--
--And delicate valves distribute golden oil;
With timed explosions, forceful pistons lift.
We know the motion, not the things we pass,
Which hardly shimmer into solidness
Before another apparition comes,
Peripheral and ghostly, in its place--
We leave that place behind--perspective slips
And slides through everything that isn't road.
America----Aren't you hurtling
910 Forward on fresh roads at such a speed
That nothing can overtake you? Where you pass
The highway steams and trembles, bridges jump,
Everything falls away, is left behind,
And on you hurtle, finished with the past;
The other nations pull aside and stop
To let you by--they stare through your exhaust
With mixed expressions as you rocket on;
Even the *troïka* shivers in your wake,
Is almost thrown to splinters by the wind:
920 The horses flinch, a wheel hooks the edge,
And only the skillful driver can prevent
The whole contraption's tumbling down a ditch
And killing everyone. People get out,
Embrace and curse; one staggers to the cold
Stamped-metal guardrail, hugs it and is sick;
Another comforts a child (who excitedly
Struggles loose to gape after the car).
*Where are you speeding to, America?*
Answer! I listen. Leafscrape. Falling dust.
930 Black, patterned tires kiss the distant curves.
The road is briefly empty, and the ice
Drips--sudden slushfall from a higher limb--
In patterns too complex to separate
Music from crust-slip, slush from squirrel-climb.
A tree flings up a handful of black birds
Like a magician's sudden offering:
Grapple of thaw. Retaken continent.
The lake's thick ice is wet, with streaks of sky--
Chilly today, but melting nonetheless:
940 A tank could never make it to this spot.
The wind picks up. Trees wave. A boulder glares;
Beyond its sinking shade, a lexicon
Of molting meanings tangling with melt:
A weedy dam, a stand of gangly trees,
And, matted with softening frost-crusts, living grass
In heavy clumps. The remnants of a path:
Left to be mud, it might solidify.
*A long and glorious road continues, comrades,*
*Toward ultimate victory in our mighty struggle!*
950 Who'd follow it, be wary but be brave:
It glitters and sinks, glares and spatters up,
Ensnares and sucks rank gold-gut. Melt reveals
We are surrounded by transparent things--
Dense ones too: but molten. Flaring sun
Will set afire lepidoptera
And swarming siltmotes where at water's edge
Frogs, fircone-green, will kick up heavy mud
And bask almost submerged, as if at rest
After their long, slow, slippery twist from one
960 State of being to another (Crick
In my neck. Excuse me). Melting isogloss
(Mica, isinglass, or muscovite)
Of thinnest, frailest ice divides us now,
In undecided spring: winds gust across
The endless prairie of the Russian steppes;
Already a little lapping water eats
Away at every joint. Trapped bubbles quake
Under these soles. (Hope I make the edge.)
Thinner and thinner. End of page and pane.
970 A liquid path has followed us, our feet
One mirror inch above uncertain depth.
Under this white, wet sheet of crystal glare
(Which can't support me long--I'm walking back)
Numb fishes dream of evolution's pain.
Dark mud sucks down, in cold, the visible.
O instant instar, dark intaglio,
Scrawl on, unsilvering our mirror-fear!
----Just made the shore. That last leap broke glass,
Punched through to mud: boot soaked. I'm
heading back.
980 The moonbound lake is, after all, a page--
A mica pane dissolving in a stream
So cleansing and so cold it washes blank.
The nose-coned buds are pointed everywhere
In constant readiness as earth deploys
Delivery systems of unbalanced spring.
--*Trimeter, trimeter, trimeter.* Bird somewhere.
In vair-lined scarlet cloaks, spruce uniforms,
Come May Day dignitaries might review
The ranks and files of birches flowering--
990 Young insects, croaking throats, the generous
Instinct quick and liquid in the law.
Last ice surrenders to reflections; think:
If struggle is a struggle to be kind
We are not only animals with thumbs
And pretenses like dark insignia
Mimicking eyes on frail unfolded wings.
Thaw-drop. Crystals leak. Limbs flex. New air!
Mud follows glare-melt. Sun intensifies,
Old snow slips off: limbs jump;
1000 Green, limber cones
Peal free.
Let me stop here. I've been up all night,
Watching the lake. The ice is creaking, wet:
870 Its luscious quickening returns the dawn
(Which for some reason we've been waiting for).
Past clumped, illiterate scrub
Old boulders glisten; molten coatings glow
Like the internal organs of the sun.
The bell-bronze trees are still. Few pages left.
I'll walk out one last time. I'm thinking of
Two unrelated surfaces: the ice
Slips and whispers underfoot; the sky,
The daylight surface of the universe,
880 Benign and bare, is moving overhead.
There is no death. No petty torturer.
No programmatic force that murders minds,
No grim competitor. Relinquish us
From our excuses and our differences;
Show us a faultless sky, unhinging ice,
And dark water on a bed of stars.
The scattered letters drift, and leave our lives
Wearing through words, reflecting everything
In treacherous grammar, breathing on a dark
890 And temporary pane of lacing mass
(Like Zemblan fishers camping on the ice).
I see the road from here, and hear the cars
Speeding along the slick black Interstate
With whirlwinds bolted underneath their hoods,
Their violence directed to our will;
We rush ahead--hissing across the miles
Of unencumbered continent so fast
The passing signposts blur like turning spokes--
Not thinking of the ruin in our wake,
900 Only of moving onward: faster, go!--
--And delicate valves distribute golden oil;
With timed explosions, forceful pistons lift.
We know the motion, not the things we pass,
Which hardly shimmer into solidness
Before another apparition comes,
Peripheral and ghostly, in its place--
We leave that place behind--perspective slips
And slides through everything that isn't road.
America----Aren't you hurtling
910 Forward on fresh roads at such a speed
That nothing can overtake you? Where you pass
The highway steams and trembles, bridges jump,
Everything falls away, is left behind,
And on you hurtle, finished with the past;
The other nations pull aside and stop
To let you by--they stare through your exhaust
With mixed expressions as you rocket on;
Even the *troïka* shivers in your wake,
Is almost thrown to splinters by the wind:
920 The horses flinch, a wheel hooks the edge,
And only the skillful driver can prevent
The whole contraption's tumbling down a ditch
And killing everyone. People get out,
Embrace and curse; one staggers to the cold
Stamped-metal guardrail, hugs it and is sick;
Another comforts a child (who excitedly
Struggles loose to gape after the car).
*Where are you speeding to, America?*
Answer! I listen. Leafscrape. Falling dust.
930 Black, patterned tires kiss the distant curves.
The road is briefly empty, and the ice
Drips--sudden slushfall from a higher limb--
In patterns too complex to separate
Music from crust-slip, slush from squirrel-climb.
A tree flings up a handful of black birds
Like a magician's sudden offering:
Grapple of thaw. Retaken continent.
The lake's thick ice is wet, with streaks of sky--
Chilly today, but melting nonetheless:
940 A tank could never make it to this spot.
The wind picks up. Trees wave. A boulder glares;
Beyond its sinking shade, a lexicon
Of molting meanings tangling with melt:
A weedy dam, a stand of gangly trees,
And, matted with softening frost-crusts, living grass
In heavy clumps. The remnants of a path:
Left to be mud, it might solidify.
*A long and glorious road continues, comrades,*
*Toward ultimate victory in our mighty struggle!*
950 Who'd follow it, be wary but be brave:
It glitters and sinks, glares and spatters up,
Ensnares and sucks rank gold-gut. Melt reveals
We are surrounded by transparent things--
Dense ones too: but molten. Flaring sun
Will set afire lepidoptera
And swarming siltmotes where at water's edge
Frogs, fircone-green, will kick up heavy mud
And bask almost submerged, as if at rest
After their long, slow, slippery twist from one
960 State of being to another (Crick
In my neck. Excuse me). Melting isogloss
(Mica, isinglass, or muscovite)
Of thinnest, frailest ice divides us now,
In undecided spring: winds gust across
The endless prairie of the Russian steppes;
Already a little lapping water eats
Away at every joint. Trapped bubbles quake
Under these soles. (Hope I make the edge.)
Thinner and thinner. End of page and pane.
970 A liquid path has followed us, our feet
One mirror inch above uncertain depth.
Under this white, wet sheet of crystal glare
(Which can't support me long--I'm walking back)
Numb fishes dream of evolution's pain.
Dark mud sucks down, in cold, the visible.
O instant instar, dark intaglio,
Scrawl on, unsilvering our mirror-fear!
----Just made the shore. That last leap broke glass,
Punched through to mud: boot soaked. I'm
heading back.
980 The moonbound lake is, after all, a page--
A mica pane dissolving in a stream
So cleansing and so cold it washes blank.
The nose-coned buds are pointed everywhere
In constant readiness as earth deploys
Delivery systems of unbalanced spring.
--*Trimeter, trimeter, trimeter.* Bird somewhere.
In vair-lined scarlet cloaks, spruce uniforms,
Come May Day dignitaries might review
The ranks and files of birches flowering--
990 Young insects, croaking throats, the generous
Instinct quick and liquid in the law.
Last ice surrenders to reflections; think:
If struggle is a struggle to be kind
We are not only animals with thumbs
And pretenses like dark insignia
Mimicking eyes on frail unfolded wings.
Thaw-drop. Crystals leak. Limbs flex. New air!
Mud follows glare-melt. Sun intensifies,
Old snow slips off: limbs jump;
1000 Green, limber cones
Peal free.