One poem before I get into a group of three
which deal with mythology then.
OK, this is a poem I wasn't going to read.
It seems too philosophical and heavy.
But the interesting story behind it
again is actually those things of life
that must relate back to life or else they've
become completely sterile.
And it happened again in Iowa.
This fellow called me up one night, and he said,
I'd like to go out with a tape recorder in a boat on this lake
and record the screeches of the hawks
as they come over the lake at night.
And I thought that was kind of a groovy idea.
I've never been out in a boat at night with a tape recorder
trying to get the sound of the hawks.
And this seemed to be strange enough and wonderful enough.
So we went out, but none of the hawks
didn't feel like they were aiming to come and play
for us and the tape recorder.
Man again trying to seduce nature with mechanical objects
and it doesn't work.
Nature will have to come at her own bidding.
We were out there for three hours,
floating around close to this complete dam ledge.
The water was floating and it was just like a 200-foot drop.
And actually, the only part of the evening I could salvage
was something we didn't go there for, to try
to test how close we could come to the edge
without the current pulling us over, the boat over the edge.
"Canoe moving, or only water moving,
we feared tumbling where water weight surrender,
to ask of us its own silence.
A hawk screeched and dipped black wings.
All our life-long is like that, floating
in metaphors beyond our shores, while water carries off
salvation faster than the myth can dream escape.
There, fear subsists in air, hovering
in a dimension of flesh.
Voices, mother.
We tugged on faltering oars toward the brink,
some final illumined news.
Oars churned deeply beyond reflections.
Our faces rippled darkly, then drowned.
This is the grave of bloated fish, where we give excuse
for the shyness of flesh.
We eyed each other in cartoon silence,
knowing there is a limit we cannot edge,
wanting an uncertainty to run from,
something sure to drift back to."