Post by MoonyLuna on Feb 15, 2009 12:32:23 GMT -5
I hesitate to mention now the time
I hesitated—was it weeks or months?—
Before telling him I was leaving, leaving for good,
So that, in the end, it was he who left me,
And my fear of his decision, or no ... well,
His tonelessly announcing it one night,
Only that, always that, has clouded the scene,
Not unlike the way the years of happiness
Until that day, all of them a delusion,
Had prevented my recalling just how long
I'd waited to discover my feelings at the start.
Two weeks—no, less—on my own, secret cell
Phone calls, a rented post office box,
The desperate joking, the passionate or-elses,
Seemed only to discover the nowhere
I lingered in, the time I wanted to postpone
Hurting myself or him, the time I wanted
To wait until I could turn into something
He would never leave. Years later, forcing me
To divide the shoebox full of snapshots
Or the letters from our long-dead companions,
He waited while I chose, through tears, the things
I didn't want to see, and did not look back
Through the closing door, though it only seemed
As if he were standing there and I was falling
Back, back to a time when I couldn't delay
Any longer, the time I leaned down to select
My lot, lying there on the ground, in the field,
Where I recognized so many others waiting their turn.
•
In Plato's Republic, there is an explanation of this.
Twelve days after his death in battle, the body of Er—
Son of Armenius, a hero of legend in far Pamphylia—
As torches were readied, came to life again on his funeral pyre,
And told what he had seen of the other world,
That his soul in a crush of companions had journeyed
To a mysterious place, two openings, it seemed, in the earth
And two others above, between them the seats of judges
Who bound men to their sentences, that they should climb
Or descend, the symbols of their deeds fastened to their backs.
But Er was told only to watch and bear the message back to men.
He saw the dead arrive, dusty with travel, and the souls
Of those already saved step down into a meadow to meet them.
Those who knew one another embraced and wept at tales
Of what they had endured and seen, while those above
Told of delights to come, of injustices reversed, of tyrants
Cast into terrors worse than they had themselves inflicted.
Er then looked up at a column of light to which the chains
Of heaven were attached that held the spindle of Necessity,
Its eight hollowed whorls broadening into spangled ranks
Of wheeling planetary orbits moving as they must,
Each sounding a note in harmony with the rest, and the Fates
Adding their overtones, their hands touching, turning,
Guiding the spindle through its past, its present, its future.
As Er looked on, each mortal soul was asked to choose its genius.
The first were told not to be careless, the last not to despair—
Each would have the lot of his desire, the length of a new life.
Er stood in astonishment as, one after another, men and women,
Because the memory of their previous lives was still so strong,
Asked to be animals in the next, no matter bird or beast,
A blameless, unknowing being not in love with death.
The soul that had once been Orpheus chose the life of a swan,
Not wanting to be born of a woman, hating
The race of women who had murdered him.
Others chose sparrow or horse or, remembering their pain,
An eagle that could circle the slain in their bloody armor,
Slowly circle, high over what men do to themselves.
Then each was given a cup of Unmindfulness
From which some carelessly drank too much
And some too little, so that the past would haunt them.
Er himself was kept from drinking, and how
His body was returned he could never say,
But as the others were driven, like stars shooting,
Up to their births in the world, torches were lit
And Er suddenly woke and found himself
Lying on a pyre, his old parents in tears.
•
In the end, because I took too long to decide,
The bird-lives on the ground there to choose from
Meant I would have to live far from home.
I chose the farthest, the common tufted warbler,
Native to the Maghreb, a small bird,
The size of a fist, the color of wet sand,
My tail brushed with berrystain, my crest
Opening to the sides its fan of mandarin
Barbules gemmed with black incipient beads,
My call a calling, er-rand, er-rand, er-rand.
I can fly to find direction out and sing
Only to attract the echoing air,
But my task, an hour before dawn, is to help
Summon the halfhearted day from its sleep
As the dark begins to tip reluctantly.
My limping chirr, its admonition falling
Into place, glides through the oasis citrus grove,
Switches of scrub beginning to stir and stretch,
To remind who hears it there is work to be done,
Word to be sent ahead of happiness,
Of noon on an iridescent scarab wing,
Of the dank leaf mold and warted rind,
Of the peace in our hours now, for all but them,
Those humans who shout and slash and smell of flesh.
One of them stands alone, every morning, looking
Into water, silently moving his lips. I stay
To keep watch, and something comes back, a sense
From some other life, that because he has never been hurt,
He is impossible to love. For now, he is my errand.
for Edmund White
Copyright
J. D. McClatchy
I hesitated—was it weeks or months?—
Before telling him I was leaving, leaving for good,
So that, in the end, it was he who left me,
And my fear of his decision, or no ... well,
His tonelessly announcing it one night,
Only that, always that, has clouded the scene,
Not unlike the way the years of happiness
Until that day, all of them a delusion,
Had prevented my recalling just how long
I'd waited to discover my feelings at the start.
Two weeks—no, less—on my own, secret cell
Phone calls, a rented post office box,
The desperate joking, the passionate or-elses,
Seemed only to discover the nowhere
I lingered in, the time I wanted to postpone
Hurting myself or him, the time I wanted
To wait until I could turn into something
He would never leave. Years later, forcing me
To divide the shoebox full of snapshots
Or the letters from our long-dead companions,
He waited while I chose, through tears, the things
I didn't want to see, and did not look back
Through the closing door, though it only seemed
As if he were standing there and I was falling
Back, back to a time when I couldn't delay
Any longer, the time I leaned down to select
My lot, lying there on the ground, in the field,
Where I recognized so many others waiting their turn.
•
In Plato's Republic, there is an explanation of this.
Twelve days after his death in battle, the body of Er—
Son of Armenius, a hero of legend in far Pamphylia—
As torches were readied, came to life again on his funeral pyre,
And told what he had seen of the other world,
That his soul in a crush of companions had journeyed
To a mysterious place, two openings, it seemed, in the earth
And two others above, between them the seats of judges
Who bound men to their sentences, that they should climb
Or descend, the symbols of their deeds fastened to their backs.
But Er was told only to watch and bear the message back to men.
He saw the dead arrive, dusty with travel, and the souls
Of those already saved step down into a meadow to meet them.
Those who knew one another embraced and wept at tales
Of what they had endured and seen, while those above
Told of delights to come, of injustices reversed, of tyrants
Cast into terrors worse than they had themselves inflicted.
Er then looked up at a column of light to which the chains
Of heaven were attached that held the spindle of Necessity,
Its eight hollowed whorls broadening into spangled ranks
Of wheeling planetary orbits moving as they must,
Each sounding a note in harmony with the rest, and the Fates
Adding their overtones, their hands touching, turning,
Guiding the spindle through its past, its present, its future.
As Er looked on, each mortal soul was asked to choose its genius.
The first were told not to be careless, the last not to despair—
Each would have the lot of his desire, the length of a new life.
Er stood in astonishment as, one after another, men and women,
Because the memory of their previous lives was still so strong,
Asked to be animals in the next, no matter bird or beast,
A blameless, unknowing being not in love with death.
The soul that had once been Orpheus chose the life of a swan,
Not wanting to be born of a woman, hating
The race of women who had murdered him.
Others chose sparrow or horse or, remembering their pain,
An eagle that could circle the slain in their bloody armor,
Slowly circle, high over what men do to themselves.
Then each was given a cup of Unmindfulness
From which some carelessly drank too much
And some too little, so that the past would haunt them.
Er himself was kept from drinking, and how
His body was returned he could never say,
But as the others were driven, like stars shooting,
Up to their births in the world, torches were lit
And Er suddenly woke and found himself
Lying on a pyre, his old parents in tears.
•
In the end, because I took too long to decide,
The bird-lives on the ground there to choose from
Meant I would have to live far from home.
I chose the farthest, the common tufted warbler,
Native to the Maghreb, a small bird,
The size of a fist, the color of wet sand,
My tail brushed with berrystain, my crest
Opening to the sides its fan of mandarin
Barbules gemmed with black incipient beads,
My call a calling, er-rand, er-rand, er-rand.
I can fly to find direction out and sing
Only to attract the echoing air,
But my task, an hour before dawn, is to help
Summon the halfhearted day from its sleep
As the dark begins to tip reluctantly.
My limping chirr, its admonition falling
Into place, glides through the oasis citrus grove,
Switches of scrub beginning to stir and stretch,
To remind who hears it there is work to be done,
Word to be sent ahead of happiness,
Of noon on an iridescent scarab wing,
Of the dank leaf mold and warted rind,
Of the peace in our hours now, for all but them,
Those humans who shout and slash and smell of flesh.
One of them stands alone, every morning, looking
Into water, silently moving his lips. I stay
To keep watch, and something comes back, a sense
From some other life, that because he has never been hurt,
He is impossible to love. For now, he is my errand.
for Edmund White
Copyright
J. D. McClatchy