"A"22

LOUIS ZUKOFSKY

"Ar

AN ERA

ANY TIME

OF YEAR

Others letters a sum owed

ages account years each year

out of old fields, permute

blow blue up against yellow

-scapes welcome young birds-initial

transmutes itself, swim near and

read a weed's reward-grain

an omen a good omen

the chill mists greet woods

ice, fowers-their soul's return

let me live here ever,

sweet now, silence foison to

on top of the weather

it has said it before

why that was you that

is how you weather division

a peacocks grammar perching-and

perhaps think that they see

or they fly thru a

window not knowing it there

the window could they sing

it broken need not bleed

one proof of its strength

a need birds cannot feign

persisting for flight as when

they began to exist-error

if error vertigo their sun

eyes delirium-both initial together

rove into the blue initial

surely it carves a breath

one air then a host

an air not my own

an earth of three trees

sleep revives-night adds hours

awake to augur days impend

the trumpet ice edges shrill,

twigged heart flounce the Land

be not fought-greatness remain

what avails the life to

leaf to flower to fruit

the season's colors a ripening

work their detail-the perennial

invariance won't hollow it, no

averaging makes their tones-Paradise

the swept brain blood warmer

leaving it eyes' heat stars'

dawn mirror to west window

binds the sun's east-steersman's

one guess at certainty made

with an assemblage of naught-

yet in cells not vacuum

records as tho horses rushed

definite as an aching nerve

pleads feed and feed back-

spine follows path once born,

to arrogate it small eloquence,

an affair with the moon

it looked as if it

looked up someway above earth

a hectic of an instant

until computed in the metal-

tidal waves also timing it

moon's day and earth's month

figured closer-blazed sun, white

under weightless dancing after the

predictable vaguer with time's increase,

seemed to say: the same

earth gaze returns to them

weightless, inkling of outlines, unearthing

always only their past futures

hearing iron horse scrape me

begging so to speak, stay-

history their figment of miracle-

young led, painting a standpipe

seeing it swan or stork-

fish purl in the weir:

we are caught by our

own knowing, barb yellow hard

ever yet-oink little jangler

thrums-sigh, prattle sea flood-

shard porcelain learned blue veined

by wreathed penny in ice-

coo (where?) dig or not

piece dig who with what

what with ninth year's gait

of eight, weird's lettered pebble

a pan plinth table of

law-noon wait a weight

wait it is very right,

sink killick read the kelp-

cherries, knave of a valentine,

were ever blue of yellow,

birds, harp in three trees-

now summer happy new year

any time of year-so

no piper lead with nonsense

before its music don't, horse,

brag of faith too much-

fear thawed reach three-fingered chord

sweet treble hold lovely-initial

Late later and much later

surge sea erupts boiling molten

lava island from ice, land

seen into color thru day

and night: voiced, once unheard

earth beginning idola of years

that love well forget late.

History's best emptied of names'

impertinence met on the ways:

shows then the little earth

at regard of the heavens

unfolding tract and flying congregate

birds their hiding valentine's day:

little horse can you speak

won't know till it speaks:

three birches in the meadow

kiss: constant please. Attentive as

good: no prophet no footnote:

earliest mountain the lowest the

seas moil, thin earth crust

resists less, thickened thrown highest;

stone, coral time evoke chitin's-

word time a voice bridled

as order, what is eternal

is living, a tree's growing

body's actual shadow in light.

Figured 135,000 years built up

from 75 foot depth the

coast gained from the sea-

upheaval subsided or still gaining-

colder currents south, warmer north:

conjecture not for the ganoid

or monkey dropped from branch's

perch-breccia-tumulus skull fished.

Cave, moraine-in peat moss

layers lie tree trunks, red

pine called fir, oak above

or beech; higher-alder, hazel,

birch sinking, aspen indifferently everywhere.

Summers looking across marches to

mountains an old mind sees

more, thinking of a thought

not his thought, older complexities:

the fractional state of the

annals, a bird's merrythought graving

of quill and down, apposed.

human cranium's dendritical crystallizations offer

no sure estimate of antiquity

only archaic time unchanged unchangeable:

aeolian loess, glacier carrying graywether-

chipped and rubbed contorted drift-

concentric bed blue clay-white,

yellow sand, striped loam-blue

laminated. Laminated marl-fret changes

only himself, to prove peach

blooms, cherry blossoms, dogwood: seen

seeded flower; unaltered flowerless marriage

of spore. Races endure more

slowly than languages unconsciously sounding

skills as of bees in

a hive, animal passions range

human, alike their affections individual:

if created Once (a thought)

or thought of consecutively fossiliferous

marl saved froghopper, ladybird, glowworm,

red admiral, mingling in dredged

lake mud, anachronous stone, horn,

bone, jade, an armlet's brass

wire, flax plaited, not woven,

carbonized apple, raspberry, blackberry seed,

wild plum drupe, reindeer antler

nowhere, remains of a larger

hunting dog, a forest pony,

a burnt brick, and round :

small bodies-fossils of the

white chalk-might have been

strung together as beads, the

bond that united them unbroken.

The departed celestial radiated alive

under earth rest will not

return above to hunger, sustained

by mayapple root, their children

unmolested fleeted by glowworms before

stars course ocean flicker continents:

north south west east uncompassed

only sun unshifting wind and

wave return drifted prow home

early sailors world no other

their earth's an island whether

hugged coast landlocked sea atoll-

lost on water discovery's accident

(with bat migrant at sea)

emerged from water nameless, story

celestial skin may help father.

Small wonder when they fish

some greet food in water

others count one tivo many

or for forgiveness hide in

noway able to think about-

unnamable things in their healing:

fireless cold tamed geese barren-

jackal, coyote ravished earth-separated.

Warming, blue ridge tore down-

rocks avulsed from their beds

water long percolating dripped caves'

massive columns, incrusted elegant drapery.

Where stone pillars leaned together

a smaller stone topped them

on furrowed plain-how plowed?

no iron, tawny-skin storied a

stick thrown to man, 'here's

an animal to follow you' -

this turned into a dog.

Faithful vivacity, pigmy and mammoth-

the difference of increment unsearchable-

sunned soil's son chyle fed

feigning stay a-devout nothing

dog's letter growled dog-ear marked.

Dog his luck, stone passion's

tears, his mother sings, corn's

ground I may not hunt,

never lived without bringing some

thing fired, woven, hided, threshed-

water is mine speaking eddies

thru coiled shells, clouds trail

smoke hole-risen like millet

gone and come back-work

is by day; night's-don't

know, better than error, drums

weave two and dances shuttle

no new heart for an

old, old habit orders there-

sacred, knotted. Four for balance

deer born blue, rain trees

songbird pith: winding heartstring morning,

prosper, heal-all pays the fee.

A flat roof discerned area,

tread and riser how long.

Then trade thought of twins

both equally lovely, an ant

to witness while thing differed

with want each talked with

mouth true as the work

of hands that held it:

four eyes agreed birdprint wrote

for them-sun, weather extol,

metal say chase, wood say

carve, bone say cut-from

one place rayed or as -

rainbow dispersed to each place,

in time lost white light.

As to flood, but for

You we'd all be fishes.

As to drought, why burn

a witch if she were

cause might make things worse.

Annals moon's summer midnight aerolite.

64 guesses at order in

mist early insatiate resigned to

the season, what's fortunate what's

calamitous creating created treads the

tail of a tiger and

it may, may not bite.

Stuck in a rut? try

a flagstaff pry the wheel

then horses may travel light

get on with less. Measure

(harmony) need not delight you

dwarfed pine still a pine:

sat until nothing was something

ancestral smile, 'empty, zimbabwe' knowing

not knowing everlasting. A roof

leader rains why be led-

he will take your sons

for war, and the fields-

king so part your supplement

fair kill's no valor in

uprooted valerian, belching his hymns

once yours. Seventy plants, thirty

trees cite the way why

argue it, those wise don't

inflict your living this place

simple, quiet, kind. The simplest

man laughs about greater intangibles

'it wouldn't be the way

otherwise.' Woo weigh not too much

less talk of "love" and

"right" raises what you bear

an infant grasp holds your

finger not its might, ice

melts, well-carved does not niggle.

Callous stone men great names

are too late if ties

are no ties cities feed ruins.

No songs where she's immortal

and if not no rites:

cosmos-it appears worlds-sphere's

peerless remove no side beside-

they see on and on

hear and do not breathe;

breath would be a soul's

allotted ills. At the most

truths dig caverns-pure water

drips, honey's yellow glosses figs

less sweet-calls bird-cherry mulberry.

Oaths obtrude on the silence

and a hero dotes on

a tale of honesty (beyond

ocean pillars on sand sun

goes over) of black and

white, gold stack for wares.

Times the gain from philosophy

harassed: abuse-brothel and inn,

crueler out to look equal

to dynasties passing; high matter

rather harmless ignorance the spitting

seas redeem. No knowledge but

intimate pleasure, tho a trained

horse's no stone, takes trouble-

historic abstraction riffles his mane-

hoofs to bed disputing soul

owns laws' spiderweb surfeit's outrage,

wounds from acting in tragedies.

Pith or gore has 4

seasons, 20 yet boy, 40

young, 60 ripe, 80 aged

pursued pi beyond stratus, weights

and measures, the eyes doors

to sun, air thronged with

souls exacting heroes' crumbs, salt

from seas men with their

livestock dream, warned not to

pray, unsure where help comes

when Evening Star lowers to

Morning Star. How can you,

opinion's throbbing ear aimless eye,

serve ghosts-remain loyal, living

faithful glances, magic and medicine.

For now it is: not

is the same and can

be thought and thought is

now. Truth's way all one

where it begins and shall

come back again thru traceless

now the moving body's sphere.

Pride drenched faster than fire,

good laws uphold good walls

a breath up from the

sea-home, light upward silent

path to let others chatter.

Love and hate-souls of

animals and plants, where a

nest is tears may flow

no key to the tangle.

Mind would not defend itself

believing bone's of smaller bone

particle accreted elements-mind humble

before molten sun reflecting moon's

low fosses and far ranges,

a heaven of stones whose

swiftness made their separate orbits

one, that slackening would fall:

not justice nor virtue the

singer knew or life retraced

in annual holidays for boys.

A porter's neat wood bundle

talked wish, question, answer, command.

Our call's nature, sound is

shocked air, human virtue convention-

to which a pupil shrugged,

so crater fuses is that

all? most gorge to eat

I eat to live. Science:

a well-empty yet something

uncut; shadow speaking irks action.

Man featherless two-legs, at which

the cosmopolite plucked a fowl's,

'Here's your man-'My teacher

gone mad: 'loveliest-free speech'

(unlicensed tongue) 'true polity wide

as the universe, but the

great thieves lead the little

away.' Your eyes see-prating-

not to my mind-expose

pride. Like the Dog Star

set-died holding his breath.

Pragmatic meaning equivocally fare well.

Trivial uttered, hard to stand

under: polity's impossible without friends

and most want praise more

than health-by nature human

presence is not everlasting-speaking

for the good omen: against

chance perhaps some light sheds

nourishing itself seeing the need

without anger, without envy, without

stupidity-past speech, affectations, attitudes.

Air of early dawn, how

shun jee and ch', eagre

bore the crest, o sun

if you die we do,

'if your house were burning

what would you save from

it?' "The fire.' To see

small beginnings clear, the little

handicaps cause of a brood:

3 years on ivory leaves,

slighting green, leaves history poorer:

rejoic'd na men but dogs.

Earth, its people must weather,

but should honor plead profir?

Could do without the book

rather than read the ivory.

White snow, white feather, white

horse, is man white felling

hills for fuel, they revive

some shrubs, yet in the

early morning white hairs regret

the tree a child's heart

once grasped with both hands

concealing folly shrewd to age.

Esteem me now, may it

never happen to disprove any

to you the one love-

not small for the greatest

not great for the smallest

merely a tree's highest branches

fish happy water in water

what it is to be

water, butterfly or man know

stop by your own action:

there is the right moment

a feat standing, little earth:

knowing also the fishes positioned

whatever vector find purchasers, would

you have them suffer justly?

sometimes hearing a warning-learning

dam from the waters not

the sages, ancestors wore cotton

rot to growth, lore and

odor severe, planting useless if

the willows snarl a hull.

Annual in all parts annual-

mere regard won't carp, own

fruit sees his story as

defined, once understood by another.

With plants as with men

as to wild and cultivated:

cautioning fast and hard definitions-

poley sends moths from closets.

Some plants love wet: shore

trees color of roses, young

smooth bark, older rougher, vine

bark cracked, arbutus peeling, an

apple's animal faces. Rooted: felt

depth, density, core-distancing bare

ground the banyan roots from

shoots, roots again, no root

deeper than the sun's heat

reaches. A white fig mutates

to black, and the opposite

happens: replanted best with soil

it grew in or into

better. (Root cuttings below the

axil downwards!) Spines replace leaves,

the white poplars' turn their

under surfaces up and men

say 'summer goes' and as

leaves turn every which way

to the sun it's hardy

to see which surface is

close to the twig. Engaged

paroled of fate, we determine

nothing (not really) purvey their

idols, theories in no hurry,

ostensibly saying yes in fairness

to them (valerian purges itself)

suspend judgment (likely impossible) invite

calm as woods shadow, not

insensibly spared relatives, yet dusting

mementos shelter an older sister's

causes: walked alone and when

a cur leaped at him

just presence enough to accord

ruffled, hard to defy human

weakness, in a tempest saw

the little pig eat calmly.

"Why then study these things?'

"3 pennies for you who

need profit from learning.' To

translate the exile whose arch

eyebrows darken your thought, all

steel can achieve his songs

obviate, cuirass war-beard and ale.

Time vague gods intervals worlds

everlastingly themselves eidolons intellect garden

reading an old epic, cure

vacancy fills, returns profound inane

the sum total of things

does not vary, blest nature's

no backwater on life, free

as the need quicks thought,

fact apprehending main heads, duration

a knowledge that verifies-passion

may complain-wisdom most sensitive

to emotion can slow to

least hurt deepest pleasure, age

young in good things, and

young grow up without fear:

lampooned in off time by

a stage dancer restoring song

under scholia-'a schoolmaster physicist'-

attracting philosophers by fleeing them;

both deceived that humility exhausts

insolence. Nor will it do

saying, 'I desire neither profit

nor fawner, only my forbearance'-

few'll believe or allow you.

Scribes conceive history as tho

sky, sun, men never were.

In hard times the poor

politicize; in prosperous cheer the

prosperous: inflated state and abated

derelict pretend titular courage. Look

when shoe pinches East, about

the like era the same

need rouses West, the sum

of things does not vary

charged with the air everywhere

when fool sparks wisdom, shepherd

jailer, let the flogged escape

suffering innocence like you, kite

or phoenix, the date palm

bent: the law, water, shaped

to the container it's in.

Strength's perfection asks no prayer,

redeems every fault, dreams no

hell. Devotion cannot add or

subtract. The amiable spares both

the laughing and weeping his

rudeness. His integrity drinks is

sober, knows those who shun

pleasure greatly pretend, judged by

the fruit not the root.

Unpolished jade so hard steel

cut no scratch-traveler recorded

city shape of a chlamys,

street for men on horse,

library, harbor beacon: the mind

does not light of itself;

stripped to the meditated object

eyes, lights, out there here,

itself all ever, increate, seedless-

yoke fruits other, farming watercourse

brimming obstacle running by itself.

Temple altar light unextinguished yes,

sleep waylaid, mused more hours,

in a fire of coals-

bread: their past 5000 years

not duped by studied words

an idea meant a name

calls soul in me if

erased by drunken elephants or

ignored exile, born for fellowship,

no share, only all welcome

related by good nature, inviolable

adversity, ardor, actions animate rest:

their detractors modern late learning

a borrowed alphabet while children

counted 153 fish like sonnets.

Where they make a desert

call't peace: East penned stag's

more memorial for who's who

than a moneyed subscriber. Born

amoral seed, air as good.

Deemed tree-twho? a bronze

tablet: ocean and teats: scribe.

Another: a husband and wife.

2000 years old: West-East dictionaries.

As tea guides this hour

keep, pear-her root's in

wrinkles: come now to practice

pressing me on, horse hear

us home, dismount is marathon.

May day assay the eyes'

chronicle light photos, chromatic fire

salt consumes animate? Enigma: tongue

gone scaling down sees apace,

clods deafmute let springs pray-

gay not drugged, sun raise

rarer air-unarmed little want-

wrist high unwearying bent, cosmos

fingers order trope to trope.

Choice by lot's no insight,

grass where his mother lay

can T any philosophical rambler

to a fist free of

theories, dotterel's last ties peridot.

To think His Thought: Once

(presumably) after Him: Delight, Tree

of the Sweet Fool's Utterance:

or later teaching a trodden

path: law-salt, water; restored

talk, story-wine, allspice. A

child learns on blank paper,

an old man rewrites palimpsest,

a good heart dejected brings

others peace, asks no returns,

assumes milestones guide all and

belong to each so no

one people can claim to

excel. Should wasp torture caterpillar

gait deprive ass of barley?

Do you come teaching from

your cave to destroy My

Earth's Fullness, return to your

tomb, who leads must run

there. Remember faith seeds, four

seasons celebrate, strength your girl's

summer her second time, her

wisdom given knowledge her purity.

How to write history, policy

an unteachable gift of nature:

farmer prophesies better than poet

two diapasons cleared mutes wrongs

nameless, "not mine" comes from

the sage calling fig fig

shown neither pity nor shame:

still with that flare on

horseback spurs its story afoot

never so overbearing or sure

entirely letters sealed with gypsum

shall when pharos crumbles reveal

"built for those at sea."

Or 6 nine's of material

light and fire from long

habit of greeting everyone, a

diffusion of warmth cold from

snow or flowers conceived scented

intimate in a whorl of

soul, received body always One-

its active Necessary unstopped modes

manifest of a source over

what change and chance bring-

unfaced and seeing all faces.

With two pupils to one

eye in the Eastern library

of 20,000 books one saw

the advantage of 4 tones-

a briefer cut to felicity.

Her lot among the poor

-a sacrifice of dough-rises

of itself: bread, not arrogance.

Different trees, different birds, different

songs, fish leap, float, mountains

rise, water dries, what for

who knows, when a doctor's

paradise does not run up

the price of his herbs.

Too full for talk, 4

tones of black glisten, healall

of black night, dark, light,

no more than a sound

can be painted, or wind

in the hollow of hand-

don't reveal for my sake

your church open for meditation:

dividing or returning actually, literally

He still is not, is

only as word to a

voice timed One in its

order to happen His singular.

Escaped conceptions clouds darken hang

without violence, orioles dart and

the rare flower opens, spring's

green snow the moon above.

Wistaria plights flute song unbroken,

Mayfly larvae launched rice husk

on sea. Three days rain

and the cold thank god

Who persists saying, no, nature.

Nature says, this wet, vine.