VERSE WRITTEN IN ENGLISH
UPON LIFTING YOUR EYES
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The way, upon lifting your eyes, by chance you saw in the window a little sky of snow flying to somewhere as though avoiding the glance. (New Quarterly XX-4) |
BY CRAMOND SHORE
The Road
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The road crosses wet ground, raised on a causeway, over buried ditches or pits, near the spread of grasses and heather, and moss-grown stones in an unfamiliar field, under unending rain, through the wet wind, during the period of dormancy in seeds, on a dark night when months and years are numbered. |
The Tide
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The tide begins at four, and at six the stones are covered with water and the way to the shore is gone. And he got up and went knowing the rightness of the way where the birds gather in the wake of the wind across the restless waves breaking over the stones. |
Coming to the Water
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With the pain warping the tongue where the light depends on the wind coming to the water watching the light and listening to the wind under the smart of the language. (Published as a sequence in Partisan Review, LIII-1; Ambit 123; parts had previously appeared in Cumberland Poetry Review, Country Life, Mattoid, Cencrastus) |
THE WAY LEAVES CRACKLE
| For Tim Graham |
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The way leaves crackle, snow crunches on the ears, The way the dog scrabbles at the rustling leaves and the snow. He drags me to smells I cannot sense. He knows the smell I have and do not know. Back in the heart of the city, I swallow pills, sell my book, file my letters And take an old lady's dog out. For a walk. Once a week, on Wednesdays, I converse with someone, Who, selectively, takes notes — I, as they tactfully put it, Am seeing someone. (Pacific Quarterly Moana, 6-2, Antigonish Review, 65, The Yearbook of American Poetry, Beverly Hills, CA, 1985) |
AUTUMN
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The world is a house As cold as ice — Impossible to keep warm. Behind the wall A sick old man trembles Between white sheets. I am slowly freezing In this crypt of a house. Can he survive? I hear his rasping cough; No medicine can help him now. Winter is closing in. Translated from the Russian by the author (New Statesman, 16 September 1983) |
DER STROM*
1.
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To restrain the wavering leaves between woodlands the pre-dawn rippling of the grasses between fields between woodlands and fields to avoid the approach of the horses to pass the horses by between meadows between woodlands and meadows and fields unhurriedly under bridges under the tent of the heavens |
2.
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Yielding letting fall the bright waves of her hair betraying her beautiful tresses |
3.
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Between green fields beneath the extending tent of the sky Translated from the Russian by the author *Der Strom (The Stream) — a song by Schubert (Author's Note). (Raritan Review, XXVII-3) |
AUTUMN IN ENGLAND
1.
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The dawn chorus — have you noticed — is no longer heard: gone, they are all gone, back into the trees and bushes of the woodland, to moult and rest, make ready for next spring. Milk-bottle tops are safe now that the tits have left who used to pierce them when they needed the extra energy to feed their young. I miss these birds — I never did begrudge them their badly needed portions of the cream, thinking how they work eighteen hours a day in order to provide for their large broods — and feeling privileged to be of use to them. |
2.
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"O mournful season that enchants the eye!" A time of extra work for gardeners: those in city parks are busy raking out the leaves that choke margins of ponds and lakes; on country estates they sweep the drives and mention, matter-of-factly, different arbour species shed their leaves at different times ("a man who could devise a fluid which, injected into the trees, would make their foliage fall, would be a millionaire," opines the gardener's boy). The walnut and the chestnut were among the very first to go this autumn here; beech, and London plane tree, and swamp cypress followed. The elms still hold: their various shades of yellow attract the eye among the conifers.. But it of course depends how much they're sheltered: the sycamore that stands here, in the open, is now completely bare, whereas the other nearby the house beside the river still has a few leaves. And then, what kind of autumn we get should likewise be considered: thus, last year it was sun and frost, the trees' pattern was different: this chestnut, for example, which now has taken some three months, then shed most of its foliage on just one morning, after a frosty night, within three hours of sunrise — and a sumptuous glittering circle of its own leaves formed on the ground about it. |
3.
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The path is slippery, covered with rotting leaves; as I come near, moorhens shoot out of the rushes and race across the water. It is sometimes hard to shuffle your feet through all those layers of red and yellow scales, piled densely on your way. Some thought half-stirs, some recognition dawns as inter-city trains speed by and leave silence behind — but, then, it's quickly filled by the indigenous sounds of the river. |
4.
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Necks outstretched, wings vibrant, Whooper Swans flew overhead, calling each to each, so clear and loud — the wintering flocks above the Round Pond. Far away was their registered address — in Arctic Russia, in desolate tundra regions, pools and marshes, nearby gigantic undeviating rivers in northern forests, thousands of kilometres distant from here... And then another flock, And yet another, crying overhead.
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BRUNSWICK SQUARE
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Here in this park where five years ago I ran in the early morning, brushing A branch in white blossom with my hand, The leaves fall now, abandoning their boughs, Swirl gently, with light motion gliding downwards, And lie upon the ground or stand upright, Held by the living greenness of the earth. 2. I walk towards the square and sweat in the heat.Tomorrow I have to collect a new pair of glasses From the optician’s across the road. I had a haircut at the local barber’s, and people say now the thin patch is much less obvious. I think more often of sleep – And with greater terror and despair. 3. Having parted from her friends, at the corner,She turned to the left; the wind of spring around her knees wrapped tightly her green dress – and her coat, unbuttoned, violently flapped against her nylon stockings. 4. The old man who has been selling papersaround this precinct for nobody knows how long has aged. He stumbles more and more. His cry is even hoarser and less clear than when I first heard it thinking he was shouting, “Spiders!” On this November night, cold by London standards, I buy a paper which I don’t want, giving him an extra fivepence. “Well done,” he says – and passes on his way. 5. There are some buildings – council blocks – round hereThat look like ships, with thick-set porthole windows And storeys tapering towards the roof. For some strange reason, it’s on rainy days That they seem sailing – heading south, Then down the Thames, to tack nor’-eastward there – And further on, towards the Baltic Sea.
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NEAR DAWN
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I ran along a narrow country lane At the first light, towards the sunrise. Gloom Was drifting restlessly, as if it grudged To go away. A dunnock or a titlark Flew suddenly ahead — or rather darted, Covering some five yards in one long bound. And then it waited, and as I approached Again flew forward; and there was another Already waiting next to it — they seemed To play a kind of game... The clouds were reddening. Everything looked strange. Wind blew. Corn swayed. Mist lifted. The birds were gone — And awesomely the molten sun arose.
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AND IN THE SUMMER
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And in the summer the soft grass in your garden, with its bench, its view over the city lights below, and the shrubbery near the fence where once I kissed a girl; and the light shining on the white table on the porch when the garden was dark, in the very heart of the city, the flowers which remained open at night, and the house, your husband's photograph on the side-board, and your daughters, your grandchildren playing tennis on the lawn. And now the house and the garden are sold. The summer is over. Here the trees are swept by the wind, the wind which sways the large grasses and throws deep unquiet shadows. The wings of the flowers are falling, and the long and narrow leaves are wet. The perishing of the branches is near. (Arc 34, Cyphers 17) |
WALKING THE HILLS OF JUDAEA
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Walking the hills of Judaea with the |
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Walt Whitman |
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Walking the hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle God by my side father I said and gave a start upon hearing my voice on the windy beach in Pirita by the monument to a sunken ship at Kadriorg by the Mermaid seamen and officers ten times eighteen names the sacred number so many lives only one death may God rest their souls in peace on the hills of Judaea with the beautiful may rest in peace on the bottom I said father and did not recognise my voice pushing off on Finnish sledges in the crisp December night just wait till father comes home the three kopeck coin for a soft drink was always given me now no matter how you comb it still can be seen sympathy laughter impatience of the doctors the first question I've got the right coins but the machine's broken in the lively snapshot at the monument when young together with mother with the beautiful gentle a cut-off half God by my side cried father and could not hear my voice my head out of the window of the railway carriage walking the hills of Judaea (Iron 45) |
DECEMBER, 31, 1977
| For Chris Newman |
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And in this foul weather, when my throat is dry and life passes by, passes by without the foot of verse — the ship is driven on the rocks, the father's daughters are not kind, and horses twitch, and scuff their hooves, look down and listen to the night. (Pacific Quarterly Moana 6-2, Cencrastus 8) |
FROM SEXTUS PROPERTIUS
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Where did I come from, who were my forebears, with what cults of household gods, you ask in the name of our friendship. If you are cognizant, Tullus, of the Perugian sepulchres, cemeteries of the Italian fields in the time of our troubles, strife when the townsmen of Rome were tearing the city apart (for me the ashes of Tuscany bring a particular pain: there the remains of my neighbour are lying not covered by earth, there his bones are scattered, desolate under the sky) — Umbria, contiguous, on the very edge of that plain, Umbria, rich with its vineyards, gave me my birth. (Ambit 162, Chicago Review 36-2) |
HOMAGE TO HORACE
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See how the rivers are halted, gripped by the ice, and in candour mountains are standing; below them see how the forests are weary. Bring in the logs for the crackling fire, and pour out the vintage wine, and be warmed, and the worries leave to the gods. Once they break up furious winds and the maddened spume of the sea, then the beech tree will be assuaged, and the cypress cease from its fretting. Be grateful, boy, for what may be tomorrow, flee from the search for the future, do not repudiate love and dances of summer, while whiteness is still so far from your boyish hair, when the fields and sweet calls of night must be sought at the trysting hour, in the time of the hasty youthful embraces, of running, laughing and teasing and hiding, pour into life to the brim ful- filment and relish of love. (New Quarterly VIII-1, Country Life, December 22, 1983) |
IN WHAT BRIEF-SPOKEN GRASS
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In what brief-spoken grass On the north of the earth Is the cold wind Brushing your name? The gusts of wind Bend the unyielding sounds. Your grass is firm, Like breath forced from the throat. Who wants to feel the taste of grass, To bend the grass, Who treads on the unbending grass Of foreign names, Who touches, who tries out the words With the infirm hand, infirm lips? Your grass stands up In all its height. Up to the height of grass The hard hot sounds are to rise And freeze against the northern wind. From syllables my strength I draw, I breathe out the name In its entire height, Sound following sound — And now, already, my throat begins to burn And, even as it burns, to ask for breath.
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HOW THE SNOW’S DRY PRICKLES LASH ACROSS
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How the snow’s dry prickles lash across The lips and how the frost with iron band Constricts the temples, I’m beginning now Quite to forget in this unwintry land Whose speech has room for everything except The gnash of cold and rolling “r” in words: Russia, frost, December, January, Organ of utterance and the threat it risks, Throttle, and blizzard, and the creaking trees, Shudder in the breast around the heart, Burning reddened fingers, blundering In the nor’wester, and the vaporous breath Inside the door, farewells, the rime that runs Down eyebrows, throat and scarf, rightness and truth, Fatherland, overcoat, the traitor snowdrifts, Peril, fur-wrap, birth and mortality, Metre and rhythm, warning and rank terror, Frolic, severity and martyrdom, A country’s degradation and foredooming, Tyrant, prison-barracks, rattling fetters, Incarceration, empire, spirit, road, Nostrils, metropolis where burrows squirm, The firmament and, at short range, the storm.
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SPARROWS
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And all the sparrows came greedy for crumbs like poets for words — as impertinent and as vulnerable. (Mid-America Poetry Review VI-1) |
WHEN I CAME BACK FROM JOGGING
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When I came back from jogging, John Heath-Stubbs (An expert ornithologist, mind you) Remarked to me: “Some joggers in Australia, The radio says, have lately been molested By magpies.” I was frightened and enquired Further of him: “Why do you think, O John, You great bird-expert, they attacked the joggers?” “Because I think,” he answered, “they were looking For some material with which to line Their nests – and the dishevelled joggers’ hair Must have appeared to them to be just right.” “John,” I enquired further, “I’m half-bald: What do you think then – would these birds be tempted By my scant bits of hair – will they attack me?” “No,” he answered, having thought, “I guess Your head will not attract them – and besides, The Australian magpie is much more aggressive, Belonging to a different family, The Piping Crows, or Cracticidae.” (Overland 103) |
ALONG THE BRIEF WAY
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How a poem is born from a casual glance, from an awareness of death, from a feeling of shame — as a play of wings, an over-generous reward, along the brief way where cities are full of parks. (Poetry Canada Review 7-4) |
TO FEAR THE OPAQUE GROUND
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To fear And hear And dance To glance Swelling from life into death like a cluster of grapes, Taking the vault of the sky as perpetual reward. (Poetry Canada Review 7-4, Country Life, 19 January 1984) |
FROM HORACE
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What richly perfumed boy with a good figure flirts with you in an arbour of roses, for whom do you now bind up your yellow hair? How often will he repine, for broken faith and fickle gods and harsh waters in dark winds — unused as he is to them — who now thinks you all pure gold and hopes you'll always be there, always ready for love. How unaware he is of the treacherous breeze!.. Wretched are they who never tried you out, for whom you are still glittering. As for me, I have hung up my soggy clothes votive to the God of the Sea. (Ariel 32-4) |
A MIXTURE OF DECIDUOUS TREES AND CONIFERS
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A mixture of deciduous trees and conifers Shadows the window. Some birds crisscross between the various trees That have now shed so much of their foliage. I count the weeks between the autumnal equinox And the winter solstice and discover We are at the midpoint — I with one Who died in sleep when seasonable gales Could waken a dead man. And so there is not much that's left of him — Just what myself and a few other people Hold in our minds. When I recall his voice or his loose, baggy trousers, Or his tobacco's smell, or handshake grip — And watch him stroll off among the trees. (The Mid-America Poetry Review VI-2) |
