Eating the whole apple, stem & all.

Robert Frost often professed that family and friends should not be made a subject matter for poetry, that we should resist the temptation. In “Putting in the Seed”, though, he does just the opposite, whipping it all out into the open. While it is unclear as to whether it’s his own garden or his wife’s that he tends to, there is no doubt by the final couplet that the plant is sown.

PUTTING IN THE SEED - Robert Frost

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

This is a long one for sure, but read it through and you will be the better for it. I promise. Perhaps my favorite poem. WCW reworks the central images of the song, namely flowers, such that they acquire an emotional value I cannot express without slipping. His associative process is stunning. It seems in reading it that his conception of love and specifically his relationship with his wife requires these images, that he truly cannot see it any other way. His understanding of love and memory is so deeply anchored in the image of a dried flower, of a storm over the ocean, of the sea itself and its ties to the Iliad (as the barest, most antiquated and essential story of love that we have), on through vague images of heaven and hell, and of poetry and books as a means by which to better understand it all. Read on, read on.

Asphodel, That Greeny Flower - Book 1

Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
          like a buttercup
                    upon its branching stem-
save that it's green and wooden-
          I come, my sweet,
                    to sing to you.
We lived long together
          a life filled,
                    if you will,
with flowers.  So that
          I was cheered
                    when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
          in hell.
                    Today
I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers
          that we both loved,
                    even to this poor
colorless thing-
          I saw it
                    when I was a child-
little prized among the living
          but the dead see,
                    asking among themselves:
What do I remember
          that was shaped
                    as this thing is shaped?
while our eyes fill
          with tears.
                    Of love, abiding love
it will be telling
          though too weak a wash of crimson
                    colors it
to make it wholly credible.
          There is something
                    something urgent
I have to say to you
          and you alone
                    but it must wait
while I drink in
          the joy of your approach,
                    perhaps for the last time.
And so
          with fear in my heart
                    I drag it out
and keep on talking
          for I dare not stop.
                    Listen while I talk on
against time.
          It will not be
                    for long.
I have forgot
          and yet I see clearly enough
                    something
central to the sky
          which ranges round it.
                    An odor
springs from it!
          A sweetest odor!
                    Honeysuckle!  And now
there comes the buzzing of a bee!
          and a whole flood
                    of sister memories!
Only give me time,
          time to recall them
                    before I shall speak out.
Give me time,
          time.
When I was a boy
          I kept a book
                    to which, from time
to time,
          I added pressed flowers
                    until, after a time,
I had a good collection.
          The asphodel,
                    forebodingly,
among them.
          I bring you,
                    reawakened,
a memory of those flowers.
          They were sweet
                    when I pressed them
and retained
          something of their sweetness
                    a long time.
It is a curious odor,
          a moral odor,
                    that brings me
near to you.
          The color
                    was the first to go.
There had come to me
          a challenge,
                    your dear self,
mortal as I was,
          the lily's throat
                    to the hummingbird!
Endless wealth,
          I thought,
                    held out its arms to me.
A thousand tropics
          in an apple blossom.
                    The generous earth itself
gave us lief.
          The whole world
                    became my garden!
But the sea
          which no one tends
                    is also a garden
when the sun strikes it
          and the waves
                    are wakened.
I have seen it
          and so have you
                    when it puts all flowers
to shame.
          Too, there are the starfish
                    stiffened by the sun
and other sea wrack
          and weeds.  We knew that
                    along with the rest of it
for we were born by the sea,
          knew its rose hedges
                    to the very water's brink.
There the pink mallow grows
          and in their season
                    strawberries
and there, later,
          we went to gather
                    the wild plum.
I cannot say
          that I have gone to hell
                    for your love
but often
          found myself there
                    in your pursuit.
I do not like it
          and wanted to be
                    in heaven.  Hear me out.
Do not turn away.
I have learned much in my life
          from books
                    and out of them
about love.
          Death
                    is not the end of it.
There is a hierarchy
          which can be attained,
                    I think,
in its service.
          Its guerdon
                    is a fairy flower;
a cat of twenty lives.
          If no one came to try it
                    the world
would be the loser.
          It has been
                    for you and me
as one who watches a storm
          come in over the water.
                    We have stood
from year to year
          before the spectacle of our lives
                    with joined hands.
The storm unfolds.
          Lightning
                    plays about the edges of the clouds.
The sky to the north
          is placid,
                    blue in the afterglow
as the storm piles up.
          It is a flower
                    that will soon reach
the apex of its bloom.
          We danced,
                    in our minds,
and read a book together.
          You remember?
                    It was a serious book.
And so books
          entered our lives.
The sea!  The sea!
          Always
                    when I think of the sea
there comes to mind
          the Iliad
                    and Helen's public fault
that bred it.
          Were it not for that
                    there would have been
 no poem but the world
          if we had remembered,
                    those crimson petals
spilled among the stones,
          would have called it simply
                    murder.
The sexual orchid that bloomed then
          sending so many
                    disinterested
men to their graves
          has left its memory
                    to a race of fools
or heroes
          if silence is a virtue.
                    The sea alone
with its multiplicity
          holds any hope.
                    The storm
has proven abortive
          but we remain
                    after the thoughts it roused
to
          re-cement our lives.
                    It is the mind
the mind
          that must be cured
                    short of death's
intervention,
          and the will becomes again
                    a garden.  The poem
is complex and the place made
          in our lives
                    for the poem.
Silence can be complex too,
          but you do not get far
                    with silence.
Begin again.
          It is like Homer's
                    catalogue of ships:
it fills up the time.
          I speak in figures,
                    well enough, the dresses
you wear are figures also,
          we could not meet
                    otherwise.  When I speak
of flowers
          it is to recall
                    that at one time
we were young.
          All women are not Helen,
                    I know that,
but have Helen in their hearts.
          My sweet,
                    you have it also, therefore
I love you
          and could not love you otherwise.
                    Imagine you saw
a field made up of women
          all silver-white.
                    What should you do
but love them?
          The storm bursts
                    or fades!  it is not
the end of the world.
          Love is something else,
                    or so I thought it,
a garden which expands,
          though I knew you as a woman
                    and never thought otherwise,
until the whole sea
          has been taken up
                    and all its gardens.
It was the love of love,
          the love that swallows up all else,
                    a grateful love,
a love of nature, of people,
          of animals,
                    a love engendering
gentleness and goodness
          that moved me
                    and that I saw in you.
I should have known,
          though I did not,
                    that the lily-of-the-valley
is a flower makes many ill
          who whiff it.
                    We had our children,
rivals in the general onslaught.
          I put them aside
                    though I cared for them.
as well as any man
          could care for his children
                    according to my lights.
You understand
          I had to meet you
                    after the event
and have still to meet you.
          Love
                    to which you too shall bow
along with me-
          a flower
                    a weakest flower
shall be our trust
          and not because
                    we are too feeble
to do otherwise
          but because
                    at the height of my power
I risked what I had to do,
          therefore to prove
                    that we love each other
while my very bones sweated
          that I could not cry to you
                    in the act.
Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
          I come, my sweet,
                    to sing to you!
My heart rouses
          thinking to bring you news
                    of something
that concerns you
          and concerns many men.  Look at
                    what passes for the new.
You will not find it there but in
          despised poems.
                    It is difficult
to get the news from poems
          yet men die miserably every day
                    for lack
of what is found there.
          Hear me out
                    for I too am concerned
and every man
          who wants to die at peace in his bed
                    besides.

Another ghazal, this one by request. Agha Shahid Ali was  Director of the Creative Writing program at UMass Amherst. The poem is included in his book The Country Without a Post Office, a collection that grapples with the tension between notions of home and and homeland. Ali later published an entire collection of ghazals, the title of which comes from the final line of this poem: “Call me Ishmael tonight”. Ali was born is Kashmir but lived most of his adult life in United States. He died in 2001.

Ghazal
        Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar
-Laurence Hope

Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight
before you agonize him in farewell tonight?

Pale hands that once loved me beside the Shalimar:
Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight?

Those “Fabrics of Cashmere—“ “to make Me beautiful—“
“Trinket”—to gem—“Me to adorn—How—tell”—tonight?

I beg for haven: Prisons, let open your gates—
A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight.

Executioners near the woman at the window.
Damn you, Elijah, I’ll bless Jezebel tonight.

Lord, cried out the idols, Don’t let us be broken,
Only we can convert the infidel tonight.

Has God’s vintage loneliness turned to vinegar?
He’s poured rust into the Sacred Well tonight.

In the heart’s veined temple all statues have been smashed.
No priest in saffron’s left to toll its knell tonight.

He’s freed some fire from ice, in pity for Heaven;
He’s left open—for God—the doors of Hell tonight.

And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee—
God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight.

A poem by writer-in-residence Daniel Hall. It takes the form of a ‘ghazal’, an arabic form:

Memento

He gazed into the air, searching for a word in my language.
I blinked. Across the pool a zephyr stirred, in my language.

Where was I? Where was he? Where he looked, remembering?
The air was his release; his burden, my language.

Our silence was the air itself, and the moment timeless
(though a timeless moment is absurd, in my language).

So it would always be with us, back and forth:
what he implied in his, I inferred in my language.

Plain speech? There’s no such thing. I can’t tell you
how much the overwrought can undergird in my language.

Did he clear his throat? Did rain fall? Can there really be
a ringing bell or a singing bird in my language?

He blurted out the word in his own tongue, like a rung bell,
a distant bell, whose very speech was slurred, in my language.

Who am I now, gone crystalline with waiting, listening
for what I still have never heard in my language?

The poet John Berryman wrote between the 1940’s and 70’s. His greatest work, and the greatest of headaches for many a reader (Pritchard: Berryman’s “dialect” sets my teeth on edge.), is a long form poem titled The Dream Songs, which he began in the late 50’s and continued working on until his death in 1972. In fact, it’s rumored that a final dream song was found crumpled in a waste bin on the day of his death. One of the late dream songs takes on the quality of a suicide note, though I’ve no idea if this d.s. and the song discovered in his waste been are one and the same. It goes as follows:
Henry’s Understanding

He was reading late, at Richard’s,
down in Maine, aged 32? Richard & Helen long in bed,
my good wife long in bed.
All I had to do was strip & get into my bed,
putting the marker in the book, & sleep,
& wake to a hot breakfast.

Off the coast was an island, P’tit Manaan,
the bluff from Richard’s lawn was almost sheer.
A chill at four o’clock.
It only takes a few minutes to make a man.
A concentration upon now & here.
Suddenly, unlike Bach,

& horribly, unlike Bach, it occurred to me
that one night, instead of warm pajamas,
I’d take off all my clothes
& cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff
into the terrible water & walk forever
under it out toward the island.

–Berryman killed himself by jumping off a bridge in Minnesota. And, oh, all the songs are about a man named Henry. I’m currently taking Daniel Hall’s class, Imitations and this week we were asked to write our own dream songs. As a late night back clap (the kind your  third grade teacher always encouraged) I’ve decided to post it. See below:

“Cables fray”

Our son is stuck on the wide ledge
of childhood’s window. He wíll not swim along.
Through the can-phone wires of his head,
above & across time’s thickening hedge,
a quiet thought vibrates, a wave of song.
Accordions contract; his years collapse. We drift ahead.

Once, before knotting her heart with the needle’s thread,
a mother sang, and tucked her boy in the river bed
forever:
I love you with all my heart
And a piece of my liver.
If I had you in my mouth
I’d spit you in a river.

–I reach for some old thought or meaning
to pair with the toilet’s flush,
the gush of water gone.
A visit. A disappearance.
A something in the sound of come and go.
I cannot remember. It is washing away.

This is, of course, a work in progress. Berryman was enebriated around the clock; maybe a cocktail before edits (with his spirit in mind) will shed me some light. In that vein:

“The Chinese communes hum. Two daiquiris
withdrew into a corner of the gorgeous room
and one told the other a lie.”

-Berryman, DS 16

Aside from any random musings I may commit to virtual paper, I think I’ll start posting a poem a day. So here goes it:

Wallace Stevens

Tea
When the elephant’s ear in the park
Shriveled in the frost
And the leaves on the paths
Ran like rats,
Your lamplight fell
On shining pillows
Of sea-shades and sky-shades
Like umbrellas in Java.

Welcome to amhpub.amherst.edu. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!