Singing the City Electric

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry


1

FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face.

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.
2

The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme:
The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings—on the walk in the street, and the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away;
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others—the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east;
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

3

It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not;
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

I too many and many a time cross’d the river, the sun half an hour high;
I watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls—I saw them high in the air, floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
I saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies, and left the rest in strong shadow,
I saw the slow-wheeling circles, and the gradual edging toward the south.

I too saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light around the shape of my head in the sun-lit water,
Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and southwestward,
Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the arriving ships,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops—saw the ships at anchor,
The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars,
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,
The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sun-set,
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening,
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite store-houses by the docks,
On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the barges—the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
On the neighboring shore, the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow light, over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.

4

These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you;
I project myself a moment to tell you—also I return.

I loved well those cities;
I loved well the stately and rapid river;
The men and women I saw were all near to me;
Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them;
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

5

What is it, then, between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.

6

I too lived—Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine;
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it;
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.

I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution;
I too had receiv’d identity by my Body;
That I was, I knew was of my body—and what I should be, I knew I should be of my body.

7

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw patches down upon me also;
The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious;
My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? would not people laugh at me?

It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil;
I am he who knew what it was to be evil;
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant;
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting.

8

But I was Manhattanese, friendly and proud!
I was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street, or ferry-boat, or public assembly, yet never told them a word,
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,
Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

9

Closer yet I approach you;
What thought you have of me, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance; 90
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?

It is not you alone, nor I alone;
Not a few races, nor a few generations, nor a few centuries;
It is that each came, or comes, or shall come, from its due emission,
From the general centre of all, and forming a part of all:
Everything indicates—the smallest does, and the largest does;
A necessary film envelopes all, and envelopes the Soul for a proper time.

10

Now I am curious what sight can ever be more stately and admirable to me than my mast-hemm’d Manhattan,
My river and sun-set, and my scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide,
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter;
Curious what Gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach;
Curious what is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face, 105
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you.

We understand, then, do we not?
What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish, is accomplish’d, is it not?
What the push of reading could not start, is started by me personally, is it not?

11

Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sun-set! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me;
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta!—stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house, or street, or public assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress! 120
Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one makes it!

Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water! and faithfully hold it, till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you;
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sun-lit water;
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset;
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses;
Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are;
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul;
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas;
Thrive, cities! bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers;
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual;
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

12

We descend upon you and all things—we arrest you all;
We realize the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids;
Through you color, form, location, sublimity, ideality;
Through you every proof, comparison, and all the suggestions and determinations of ourselves.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers! you novices!
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward;
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us;
We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us;
We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also;
You furnish your parts toward eternity;
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

A sixth-generation -- maybe a seventh -- New Yorker, I have spent the past few days watching one of my close circle fall in love with my city. If I'm to dedicate any verse to his new affection, then it must be one of Walt Whitman's. Whitman in his day, like my friend on this exceptionally warm November evening, knew how to sing this city, and how to sing it well enough that the city, almost surely, deep in her dark bowels, must stir and hear the song.

What I Learned

What I Learned From My Mother

Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewing even if I didn't know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another's suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

What I learned, not entirely from my mother, was that all you have to offer is yourself. Sometimes, it is enough.

Breaking into Bloom

A Blessing

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girls’ wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

James Wright's delicate paean to tenderness is so sweetly set in nature that it would be both tempting and easy to forget that he was born (in 1927) into an angular world. Wright was the son of a glass-factory worker (his father) and a laundry worker (his mother, who left school at the age of fourteen to join the work force). When he was sixteen, Wright had a nervous breakdown and missed a year of school. He went on to join the army, study at Kenyon College and marry (Liberty Kardules, who came from Wright's home town, Martin's Ferry). James Wright became a Fulbright scholar and he and his wife went to Austria, where he studied with Theodore Roethke and Stanley Kunitz. Later, he would work closely with Robert Bly. The poverty and pain Wright had witnessed in his youth always coloured his work. Nature is an essential and integral part of his work.

Trying to Pray

This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In its dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
It is dusk.
It is the good darkness
Of women's hands that touch loaves.
The spirit of a tree begins to move.
I touch leaves.
I close my eyes and think of water.



To console those of us who feel faintly guilty about thinking, 'Oh, this book is utter rubbish,' let Wright offer this:

Depressed by a Book of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward an Unused Pasture and Invite the Insects to Join Me

Relieved, I let the book fall behind a stone.
I climb a slight rise of grass.
I do not want to disturb the ants
Who are walking single file up the fence post,
Carrying small white petals,
Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them.
I close my eyes for a moment and listen.
The old grasshoppers
Are tired, they leap heavily now,
Their thighs are burdened.
I want to hear them, they have clear sounds to make.
Then lovely, far off, a dark cricket begins
In the maple trees.



Wright's marriage produced two boys and ended in divorce. Some books later, he married again: Edith Anne Crunk, who became Annie in some of his poems.

He taught at Hunter, received the Pulitzer Prize and a Rockefeller Award (not, I think, in that order). Wright died in 1980 of cancer of the throat, shortly after completing the manuscript for The Journey.

Like Persephone, he returns each spring -- not physically, of course, but in the form of a festival: The James Wright Poetry Festival.

This entry began with a blessing. Let it end, as all things do, with a death:

On the Skeleton of a Hound

Nightfall, that saw the morning-glories float
Tendril and string against the crumbling wall,
Nurses him now, his skeleton for grief,
His locks for comfort curled among the leaf.
Shuttles of moonlight weave his shadow tall,
Milkweed and dew flow upward to his throat.
Now catbird feathers plume the apple mound,
And starlings drowse to winter up the ground.
thickened away from speech by fear, I move
Around the body. Over his forepaws, steep
Declivities darken down the moonlight now,
And the long throat that bayed a year ago
Declines from summer. Flies would love to leap
Between his eyes and hum away the space
Between the ears, the hollow where a hare
Could hide; another jealous dog would tumble
The bones apart, angry, the shining crumble
Of a great body gleaming in the air;
Quivering pigeons foul his broken face.
I can imagine men who search the earth
For handy resurrections, overturn
The body of a beetle in its grave;
Whispering men digging for gods might delve
A pocket for these bones, then slowly burn
Twigs in the leaves, pray for another birth.
But I will turn my face away from this
Ruin of summer, collapse of fur and bone.
For once a white hare huddled up the grass,
The sparrows flocked away to see the race.
I stood on darkness, clinging to a stone,
I saw the two leaping alive on ice,
On earth, on leaf, humus and withered vine:
The rabbit splendid in a shroud of shade,
The dog carved on the sunlight, on the air,
Fierce and magnificent his rippled hair,
The cockleburs shaking around his head.
Then, suddenly, the hare leaped beyond pain
Out of the open meadow, and the hound
Followed the voiceless dancer to the moon,
To dark, to death, to other meadows where
Singing young women dance around a fire,
Where love reveres the living.


I alone
Scatter this hulk about the dampened ground;
And while the moon rises beyond me, throw
The ribs and spine out of their perfect shape.
For a last charm to the dead, I lift the skull
And toss it over the maples like a ball.
Strewn to the woods, now may that spirit sleep
That flamed over the ground a year ago.
I know the mole will heave a shinbone over,
The earthworm snuggle for a nap on paws,
The honest bees build honey in the head;
The earth knows how to handle the great dead
Who lived the body out, and broke its laws,
Knocked down a fence, tore up a field of clover.

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz

What Bee Did

Bee not only buzzed.
When swatted at, Bee deviled,
Bee smirched. And when fuddled,
like many of us, Bee labored, Bee reaved.
He behaved as well as any Bee can have.

Bee never lied. Bee never lated.
And despite the fact that Bee took, Bee also stowed.
In love, Bee sieged. Bee seeched.
Bee moaned, Bee sighed himself.
Bee gat with his Beloved.

And because Bee tokened summer
(the one season we all, like Bee, must lieve)
Bee also dazzled.

This piece of work by Julie Larios comes to you through me because (or Bee cause) everybody must play some time(s).

Axe, Amen, So Mote it Be

Hallelujah

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well, it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

Well, baby, I've been here before.
I've seen this room, and I've walked this floor.
I used to live alone before I knew you.
But I've seen your flag on the marble arch,
And love is not a victory march,
It's a cold and it is a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

Well, there was a time when you'd let me know
What's really going on below,
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember when I moved in you,
And the Holy Ghost was moving too,
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

Well, maybe there is a God above,
But all that I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.
It's not a cry that you hear at night,
And it is not somebody who has seen the light
It's a cold and it is a broken Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
Hallelujah.

Leonard Cohen gave us that. What gives us reason for venting and exclamation of joy or praise -- which is what 'Halleluja', spell it as you will, is -- varies. If we're lucky, then our reasons are many and manifold.

If we're wise, we learn to cherish our breakages as well as our healings, to find beauty in our pains; we come to terms with our histories. Sorrows teach us and that, too, is a cause for some rejoicing.

Like 'Amen', which comes from the Hebrew 'aman', which is to do with permanency, truth, assent and support, we lose our root of 'hallelujah', diminishing that sound of rejoicing as we do the word 'love' by attaching it to an article of clothing or a flavour of ice cream. Practitioners of earth magic, with their 'So mote' or 'So may it be' attend more keenly to their avowals. Axe (pronounced 'ashay') is the Portuguese spelling of an African word meaning the energy of gods and goddesses or, according to some, of peace.

Life is a fleeing thing (although it need not be nasty and brutish as well as short) and it is well to take the time to revel in small moments for rejoicing, to remember to say 'hallelujah' or to breathe it, to inhale that vivid, vital, 'Yes,' to witness other people's moments of celebration and, supporting them in following their bliss, in holding hope that life with bring them -- will bring all and each of us -- further cause for deep delight, affirm that moment in whatever word or tone or silence best sings the beating heart.

Seconds

At First Sight

Robert Graves

'Love at first sight,' some say, misnaming
Discovery of twinned helplessness
Against the huge tug of procreation.

But friendship at first sight? This also
Catches fiercely at the surprised heart
So that the cheek blanches and then blushes.

People talk about love as if 'romantic' were the only option. That's nonsense. Love comes in many hues and shapes and tastes and shades and patterns and . . . and thanks be to the God of your choice (or to the wonders of random happenstance if you have none) that it does.

Graves was not alone in knowing this. Here's Melville ("Call me Ishmael.") pursuing Graves' topic: “Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight is said to be the only truth."

And when first sight is blanched by second and second dimmed by third as friendship grows, then we have a potent truth indeed.

I'll cherish that.

Open Water

Syros

In Syros' harbor abandoned merchant ships lay idle.
Stem by stem by stem. Moored for many years:
CAPE RION, Monrovia.
KRITOS, Andros.
SCOTIA, Panama.

Dark paintings on the water, they have been hung aside.

Like playthings from our childhood, grown gigantic,
that remind us
of what we never became.

XELATROS, Piraeus.
CASSIOPEIA, Monrovia.
The ocean scans them no more.

But when we first came to Syros, it was at night,
we saw stem by stem by stem in moonlight and thought:
what a powerful fleet, what splendid connections!

That, by Tomas Tranströmer, was translated from the Swedish by May Swenson and Leif Sjöberg. (The Scandinavians are nourishing me.)

I am of several minds about this poem.

Is the putting aside of childish things (so not my favourite of the apostles) an ill thing?

Can we -- a separate question in terms of more than spacing -- not choose to set aside certain dreams, recognising that they no longer serve us or that we, in serving them, do nobody and nothing good?

And yet . . . I remember a story (although I do not recall who wrote it) . . . There is something of Dan Millman about it in my memory. Whoever the writer, he went to a wise (Quaker, as I recall) old woman (It's always a wise old someone or something, isn't it, in any proper tale?) to ask about choices. She said that she had never seen doors opening before her, but had often found her choices being constrained by doors that closed behind.

At the time, the questioner did not find satisfaction in the answer. (That, too, is often the way.)

We can choose to leave our ships. We can choose to leave our ships docked, in which case, we are still attached to them, as a dock to a boat by a line. We can choose to let them float away, perhaps (Who can know it?) to find other homes.

We can choose to remember, with great love or tenderness, the outlines of our earlier or not-chosen selves, viewing their outlines against the current sky of our day.

'The ocean scans them no more . . . '

Ah, yes.

Much could be said about Tranströmer's short verse. And isn't that an ultimate praise of poets, that they can take little and fill it with more than much?

Much -- to pick up on the alpha and omega of the preceding paragraph -- is affected by the translator, as seen with these three shapings of one poem, with which I shall (for this day's time) leave you:


Breathing Room: July

Lying on his back under tall trees
he is also up there. He rills into thousands of twigs and branches,
is swayed back and forth,
as if in a catapult seat outflung in slow motion.

Standing down by the jetties he squints across the waters.
The docks ages sooner than men.
Made of splintered silver gray planks, and with stones in their
bellies.
The blinding light rips its way straight through.

Sailing all day in an open boat
over the glittering bights,
he will fall asleep at last inside a blue lamp
while islands like great nocturnal moths creep over the glass.

Translation by May Swenson


Breathing Space July

The man lying on his back under the high trees
is up there too. He rills out in thousandfold twigs,
sways to and fro,
sits in an ejector seat that releases in slow motion.

The man down by the jetties narrows his eyes at the water.
The jetties grow old more quickly than people.
They have silver grey timber and stones in their stomachs.
The blinding light beats right in.

The man traveling all day in an open boat
over the glittering straits

Will sleep at last inside a blue lamp
while the islands creep like large moths across the glass.

Translation by Robert Fulton


Breathing Space July

The man who lies on his back under huge trees
is also up in them. He branches out into thousands of tiny branches.
He sways back and forth,
he sits in a catapult chair that hurtles forward in slow motion.

The man who stands down at the dock screws up his eyes against the water.
Docks get older faster than men.
They have silver-gray posts and boulders in their gut.
The dazzling light drives straight in.

The man who spends the whole day in an open boat
moving over the luminous bays
will fall asleep at last inside the shade of his blue lamp
as the islands crawl like huge moths over the globe.

Translation by Robert Bly