Theolatry I found Degrading, and its premises, unsound. Its trivia create A still life in her style: the paperweight Of convex glass enclosing a lagoon, The verse open at the Index (Moon, Moonrise, Moor, Moral), the forlorn guitar The human skull and from the local Star A curio: Red Sox Beat Yanks 5-4 On Chapman's Homer, thumbtacked to the door My God they died young. I was brought up by dear bizarre Aunt Maud, A poet and a painter with a taste For realistic objects interlaced With grotesque growths and images of doom. Here, tucked away by the Canadian maid, I listened to the buzz downstairs and prayed For everybody to be always well, Uncles and aunts, the maid, her niece Adele, Who'd seen the Pope, people in books, and God. Here was my bedroom, now reserved for guests. A preterist: one who collects cold nests. Sadly they Dissolve in their own virtues and recede, But certain words, chance words I hear or read, Such as "bad heart" always to him refer, And "cancer of the pancreas" to her. I've tried So often to evoke them that today I have a thousand parents. TV's huge paperclip now shines instead Of the stiff vane so often visited By the naive, the gauzy mockingbird Retelling all the programs that she had heard Switching from chippo-chippo to a clear To-wee, to-wee then rasping out: come here, Come here, come herrr' flitting her tail aloft, Or gracefully indulging in a soft Upward hop-flop, and instantly (to-wee) Returning to her perch-the new TV. There's A picture window flanked with fancy chairs. White butterflies turn lavender as they Pass through its shade where gently seems to sway The phantom of my little daughter's swing. It is now stout and rough it has done well. The setting sun Bronzed the black bark, around which, like undone Garlands, the shadows of the foliage fell. I had a favorite young shagbark there With ample dark jade leaves and a black, spare Vermiculated trunk. Maybe some quirk in space Has caused a fold or furrow to displace The fragile vista, the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith on its square of green. I cannot understand why from the lake I could make out our front porch when I'd take Lake Road to school, whilst now, although no tree Has intervened, I look but fail to see Even the roof. Whenever I'd permit, Or, with a silent shiver, order it, Whatever in my field of vision dwelt- An indoor scene, hickory leaves, the svelte Stilettos of a frozen stillicide - Was printed on my eyelids' nether side Where it would tarry for an hour or two, And while this lasted all I had to do Was close my eyes to reproduce the leaves, Or indoor scene, or trophies of the eaves. My eyes were such that literally they Took photographs. Was he in Sherlock Holmes, the fellow whose Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?Īll colors made me happy: even gray. And then the gradual and dual blue As night unites the viewer and the view, And in the morning, diamonds of frost Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed From left to right the blank page of the road? Reading from left to right in winter's code: A dot, an arrow pointing back repeat: Dot, arrow pointing back.A pheasant's feet! Torquated beauty, sublimated grouse, Finding your China right behind my house. And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate: Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass Hang all the furniture above the grass, And how delightful when a fall of snow Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so As to make chair and bed exactly stand Upon that snow, out in that crystal land! Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque, A dull dark white against the day's pale white And abstract larches in the neutral light. CANTO 1 I was the shadow of the waxwing slain By the false azure in the windowpane I was the smudge of ashen fluff- and I Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
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