Sadness
After reading Marianne Moore’s “Marriage”
Again he hurts:Not the woodpecker
banging its head on wood
which it does not feel
but the raccoon chewing off
its third paw because
it does not know a trap
when it sees one.
Or maybe the hunchback
ringing the bells of Notre Dame
Ding-dong.
But maybe really the skunk,
middle-aged not by its wits
nor prowess nor quickness
but by its smell:bad—
offputting would-be tricksters
and feeders and friends,
covering his eyes at the movies
when they kissed,
covering his ears at the mushy stuff
that discolors his soft-center soul,
plastic blow-up woman suggesting itself.
Seems he seemed
upon bathing
a good catch:Samson
of foreign trace but do dads care
when all else has failed
indulging expectations is their job,
seems:but his riddle
unfair, arcane,
has what to do with a bride?
Honeycomb in a lion’s carcass—
foreshadowing sweet death—
Not until years later
does he understand, having heard
her melodious voice
singing through tears,
“think of me,
think of me fondly,
when we say good-bye”
as nighttime beckons,
but he extricated,
caught again:seems
Samson slow to learn,
a “basalt panther” with cat eyes
“entirely graceful,”
best kept at length
for her murmur unavoidable
which fascinates, and she feeding
—bad food evidently—
slipping into Sheol
much against her will
fighting every lick
submitting to nothing—
he embodying the words
of the poet:“the jungle for her
the sea for me,”
his loss debilitating
source of strength offended
to oiled seabird “wings”
flight reduced to broodless brooding
special assignment, undercover agent,
a member of the “crippled class,”
gathering plenty to think about
till the trumpet blows.
Blinding to the needs about,
yet what the wind carries
hearing:from the sea
nothing ever new, sea creatures
inveigling love, deserving
of love, but of life?
They sting, hunt, love first
themselves:swearing
if they do
of motive deeply personal
enfolding the wisdom
to know:To seek
the truth has motive
love or gossip—
love or revenge—
love or subversion—
they in him and he in them
bringing out the best or worst—
Look at me!
I invite or command
dizzy and angry with reading
the same veiled or implied
by poets
winning prizes
meaning:I should say the same
yet as each life, each moment,
is a window to eternity,
some open to the light
and some to slipping, slipping away—
As I read I wish as I unwrap the poem
to delight in finding treasure if I do
and as I live I wish to be loved
for enduring difficulties
I messed up yet survived,
(“moonlight and love songs
never out of date”)
and like Balaam:sunken hope
burbling at the second visit
(“a fight for love and glory”)
up-starting desire
(“hearts full of passion”)
that I prize
and shy
(“a case of do or die”).
One must have a heart
of gold:coins under the floorboard,
stocks and bonds trading—
to parallel a heart
of glory:vestment and chapeau,
a prize gracing the cover of one’s own
that one accepts not as a compliment
but as apotheosis
or remedy
as Balaam let peek
as he stood toe-to-toe
and checked again
Yahweh’s answer
that he knew already
and found his donkey
in better stead than he.
One must have the heart
of a child:trust and curiosity,
to hold wealth and glory
in an open palm
to share with all deserving,
and one must have the heart
of a keeper:sensitive and humble,
to hold love
in an open palm
without dropping it down a hole.
Thus I chew
rather than earn sentence of death
like Balaam cautious on the hilltops
but slipping in the disappointment
downslope
my paw the third—
grownupness
quavering:grasping at and shuddering
suppressed desire
for glory and for wealth.
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