Well, I'm going to read--
I'm breaking out of that manuscript now.
And I'm breaking into something else temporarily.
I'm going to read one section from a long poem which
has been in progress for seven years, of which five parts are
done.
And it will not be done, I suppose,
for another four or five years.
It is called-- the whole thing is called "Mountains and Rivers
Without End."
And this particular section I'm going to read now
is called "The Market."
The specific references, the market references here,
are to the Crystal Palace market in San Francisco,
the public market in Saigon, the public market in Kathmandu,
and the market along the Ganges in Benares.
Saigon is the most beautiful city in Asia,
or at least it was.
It was the only city in Asia where
you could get good French bread anywhere you wanted, too.
Part of the city, downtown, the countryside--
John Muir, up before dawn, packing pears
in the best boxes, beat out the others to market--
the Crystal Palace on the morning milk run train.
Me, milk bottles by bike, Guernsey milk, 6% butter fat,
raw, left to rise natural, $0.10 a quart.
Slipped on the frost turning into a driveway
and broke all nine quarts.
That was when we had cows.
The feathery hemlock out back by manure pile
where one cow once lay with milk fever--
transfusions and worries until the vet
come, we do this still dark in the morning.
Part one--
To town on thin, high-wheel carts,
squat on the box-top stall, papayas, banana, sliced fish,
grated ginger, fruit for fish, meat for flowers,
French bread for ladle steamer, tea
giant rough glazed earthware for brass shrine bowls.
Push through fish, bound pullets lay on their sides, wet slab,
watch us with glimmering eye, slosh water,
a carrot, a lettuce, a ball of cooked noodle,
beggars hang by the flower stall, give them all some.
Strong women, dirt from the hills in her nails,
valley thatch houses, palm groves for hedges,
rice field and thrasher, white rice,
dongs and piastres to market, the changes,
how much is our change?
75 feet hoed rows equals one hour explaining power steering,
equals two big crayfish, equals all the buttermilk you can
drink, equals 12 pounds cauliflower,
equals five cartons Greek olives,
equals hitchhiking from Ogden, Utah to Burns, Oregon,
equals aspirin, iodine, and bandages,
equals a lay in Naples, equals beef, equals lamb ribs,
equals Patna long-grain rice, eight pounds,
equals two kilograms soybeans, equals a boxwood geisha comb,
equals the whole family at the movies,
equals whipping dirty clothes on rocks three days,
some Indian river, equals piecing off beggars two weeks,
equals bootlace and shoelace, equals a large box
of petit-fours, chou-crémes, equals barley threshing--
mangoes, apples, custard apples, raspberries, equals a Christmas
tree, equals a taxi ride--
carrots, daikon, eggplant, green peppers, oregano,
white goat cheese, a swordfish, a salmon, a handful of silvery
smelt in the pocket.
Whisky in cars out late after dates, old folks
eating cake in secret, breast milk enough,
if the belly be fed.
And wash down, hose off the aisles,
reach under fruit stands, green gross rack,
meat scum on chop blocks, bloody butcher concrete floor,
old knives sharpened down to scalpels, brown wrap paper
rolls, stiff push broom back, wet spilled food.
When the market is closed, the cleanup comes, equals--
Billygoat pushing through people,
stinking and grabbing a cabbage, arrogant, tough, he took it,
they let him.
Kathmandu-- the market.
I gave a man 70 paise in return for a clay pot of curds.
Was it worth it?
How can I tell?
Part three--
They eat feces in the dark on stone floors,
one-legged animals, hopping cows, limping dogs, blind cats,
crunching garbage in the market, broken fingers, cabbage head
on the ground.
Who has young face, open pit eyes,
between the bullock carts and people,
head pivot with the footsteps passing
by, dark scrotum spilled on the street, penis
laid by his thigh, torso turns with the sun.
I came to buy a few bananas by the Ganges while waiting
for my wife.