Rosmarie Waldrop

Hölderlin Hybrids III: Evening Sun

for Sophie Hawkes

1

On a balcony onto the Seekonk stands. And full of thoughts of winter. My friend. And drunk with red wine I. Think of the power. Of a single word. Like for example “fact.” When I know what matters. Is between.

*

But how with gnarled hands hold the many and how? The sun and shadow of Rhode Island? Let alone the earth?

*

Down swoops the hawk. From the sky over Providence. The sky over my head. Down to the leaves inward curled on the ground. But not like buds. Yellow. A cat is buried here and the leaves. Swirl up in the wind.

*

In the hour of the hawk. What is meant by: I think? Or even: I sit under the clouds in which. Rain gathers weight. I sit in my mother’s shawl which is. Threadbare. In my head I sit. By the river Euphrates. Strange like water the skies of the dead.

*

And high from the branches of the maple. Like a prelude to snow. White feathers.

2

But music. Quickens the house down into its shadows. So trembles air in the sun and shape of the tree blurs as if through a flame seen. Swarms of monarch butterflies stir and brush your cheeks. In celebration. In memory.

*

Almost visible the words of the song. Leave the singer’s mouth and rise up into the sun. Which goes crazy instead of down.

*

Flood, storms, fires. But a tank won’t be stopped by a word. Not even if you shout it from the middle of the road, with hands thrown forward and fingers spread out.

*

Nor by music. Though its power is great. Like the heat of noon it slants between body and soul. Difficult, then. Unaccustomed as we are to beauty. To know which is effect and which cause.

*

Not merely as a sailor is present in a ship am I. In my body. Intermingled.

3

My father thought he had the gift to read the stars. To know if the light in a person’s eyes. Had gone out. To hypnotize. I stayed awake. Weak in the knees am I. Not a spiritual woman. And pulled toward the earth.

*

He said, you have to look from afar: what children we are, so gravely at play. In wornout light, in afterglow. Yet fire present is in words.

*

Why is why we try to read. The stone, the wood and grass, the cloud and lightning and air. And the ancients and poets. And the frogs croak in the swamps.

*

And to stand. Sky around your shoulders high up on a mountain. Or balcony. And know you must cast. Like so many shadows. Your words onto the distance. Or paper. But will they span?

*

And the next morning you go to the bakery and ask for a loaf of rye. This too is work and without it the dream crumbles inside its glass case. And we must travel the ocean just to see it.

4

With great force our bodies are pulled out of our mothers. And ever since, we walk like almost orphans. With a scar on the brain.

*

And remember childhood among strings and puppets. Crutches. Knees under the chin tucked. And toy warriors with lance and shield and red badge to ensure courage.

*

Which we need to live in three dimensions. Of dry air. Or wet. Among gauges for measurement made of wire and string. That my father had looked at before.

*

And tapped with his finger to make sure. They were steady, not broken. And hitched his pants against gravity and tried to discern. The tether between particle and wave.

*

Tea has dribbled on his book. The letters under the drops enlarge till a wavy grey absorb the excess. If however too deep you plunge, he thinks. Into thought. You can’t rest till you get to the bottom.

5

Let us take our time, Sophie, fitting bones to the earth. Though they are turning visible inside the flesh, and our blood. No longer overflows and spills.

*

Much work still to be done. And the smell of ripe peaches. And Lung Chin tea. And lungs full of words. And being an opaque body that intercepts the rays of the sun.

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