G]Ertrud Schnackenberg(b. 1953)
Darwin in 1881
Sleepless as Prospero back in his bedroom
In Milan, with all his miracles
R e d u c e d t o sailors' t a l e s , 2
H e sits u p i n t h e dark. T h e i s l a n d s l o o m .
H i s s e a s i c k n e s s u p w e l l s ,
S i l e n c e c r e e p s b y i n m e m o r y a s i t c r e p t
By him on water, 3 while the sailors slept,
From broken eggs and vacant tortoise shells.
H i s v o y a g e a r o u n d t h e c a p e o f m i d d l e a g e
Comes, with a feat of insight, to a close,
The same way Prospero's
E n d e d b e f o r e h e l e f t t h e s t a g e
To be led home across the blue-white sea,
When he had spoken of the clouds and globe,
Breaking his wand, and taking off his robe: 4
K n o w l e d g e i n c r e a s e s u n r e a l i t y .
He quickly dresses.
Form wavers like his shadow on the stair
As he descends, in need of air
To cure his dizziness,
Down past the ship-sunk emptiness
Of grownup children's rooms and hallways where
The family portraits stare,
All haunted by each other's likenesses.
Outside, the orchard and a piece of moon
Are islands, he an island as he walks,
Brushing against weed stalks.
By hook and plume
The seeds gathering on his trouser legs
Are archipelagoes, like nests he sees
Shadowed in branching, ramifying trees,
Each with unique expressions in its eggs.
Different islands conjure
Different beings; different beings call
From different isles. And after all
His scrutiny of Nature
All he can see
Is how it will grow small, fade, disappear,
A coastline fading from a traveler
Aboard a survey ship. Slowly,
As coasts depart,
Nature had left behind a naturalist
Bound for a place where species don't exist,
Where no emergence has a counterpart.
He's heard from friends
About the other night, the banquet hall
Ringing with bravos—like a curtain call,
He thinks, when the performance ends,
Failing to summon from the wings
An actor who had lost his taste for verse,
Having beheld, in larger theaters,
Much greater banquet vanishings
Without the quaint device and thunderclap
Required in Act 3. 5
He wrote, Let your indulgence set me free,6
To the Academy, and took a nap
Beneath a London Daily tent,
Then puttered on his hothouse walk
Watching his orchids beautifully stalk
Their unreturning paths, where each descendant
Is the last—
Their inner staircases
itself, / Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; / makes it disappear with thunder and (as in the
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, / Leave stage direction) "a quaint device (3.3.52).
H a u n t e d b y v a n i s h e d i n s e c t f a c e s
So tiny, so intolerably vast.
A n d , w h i l e t h e y gave his proxy the award,
H e d i n e d i n D o w n e 7 a n d stayed u p rather late
For b a c k g a m m o n w i t h his b e l o v e d m a t e ,
W h o reads his b o o k s a n d is, quite frankly, bored.
Now, done with beetle jaws and beaks of gulls
And bivalve hinges, now, utterly done,
O n e m i r a c l e r e m a i n s , a n d o n l y o n e .
An ocean swell of sickness rushes, pulls,
He leans against the fence
A n d lights a cigarette a n d d e e p l y draws,
D o n e w i t h fixed laws,
D o n e w i t h e x p e r i m e n t s
W i t h i n his g r e e n h o u s e h e a v e n w h e r e
H i s o f f s p r i n g , Frank, for half t h e a f t e r n o o n
P l a y e d , like a n a w k w a r d angel, his b a s s o o n
Into the humid air
S o h e c o u l d tell
If s o u n d w o u l d m a k e a Venus's-flytrap c l o s e .
A n d , d o n e for g o o d w i t h s c i e n t i f i c p r o s e ,
T h a t raging hell
Of tortured g r a m m a r s w r i t h i n g on their stakes,
He'd turned to his memoirs, chuckling to write
About his boyhood in an upright
H o m e : a b o y preferring gartersnakes
To s c h o o l w o r k , a lazy, strutting liar
W h o q u i t e p r o v o k e d h e r aggravated look,
Shushed in the drawing room behind her book,
His bossy sister itching with desire
T o t a t t l e t a l e — y e s , that w a s g o o d .
B u t e v e n t h e n , m u c h like t h e c o n j u r e r
G r o w n cranky w i t h i m p a t i e n c e to abjure
All his g i g a n t i c works a n d l i v e l i h o o d
In order to i m m e r s e
H i m s e l f i n tales w h e r e h e c o u l d b e t h e m a n
In O n c e u p o n a t i m e t h e r e w a s a m a n ,
He'd quite by chance beheld the universe:
A disregarded game of chess
B e t w e e n t w o l o v e - d a z e d heirs
W h o f i d d l e w i t h t h e tiny pairs
Of statues in their hands, 8 while numberless
Abstract unseen
C o m b i n i n g s o n t h e silent board r e m a i n
U n p l a y e d forever w h e n t h e y leave t h e g a m e
To turn, t h e m s e l v e s , i n t o a king a n d q u e e n .
N o w , like t h e c o m i n g day,
Inhaled smoke illuminates his nerves.
He turns, taking the sandwalk as it curves
Back to the yard, the house, the entrance way
Where, not to waken her,
He softly shuts the door,
And leans against it for a spell before
He climbs the stairs, holding the banister,
Up to their room: there
Emma sleeps, moored
In illusion, blown past the storm he conjured
With his book,9 into a harbor
Where it all comes clear,
Where island beings leap from shape to shape
As to escape
Their terrifying turns to disappear.
He lies down on the quilt,
He lies down like a fabulous-headed
Fossil in a vanished riverbed,
In ocean drifts, in canyon floors, in silt,
In lime, in deepening blue ice,
In cliffs obscured as clouds gather and float;
He lies down in his boots and overcoat,
And shuts his eyes.