The last poem I'd like to read is
the title poem from my new collection,
"The Cap of Darkness."
And it's dedicated to Robinson Jeffers.
I think one of the most fortunate things about growing
up in Southern California was that, at least when
I was in school, the high school curriculum contained
the work of Robinson Jeffers, whom I think
is one of the most important 20th century poets and one who
was very much destroyed by the critics,
especially Yvor Winters of his time.
One whose philosophies are still too advanced for I
think for most people.
So he becomes a kind of muse or inspiration
for all of us who feel it in some way.
We are talking to deaf ears at times.
"The Cap of Darkness"
"He walks on the desert at night, which is a cool place.
Moisture condensing on the succulent green bodies
of saguaro and cholla.
Alone, he should be aware of the city street just a mile away,
and the city beyond that street, the violence of hot bodies.
But he is dreaming of a place where paradoxical landscapes
come together.
I repudiate the bad voices of my times.
And I repudiate the weak voices whose own lyrics are
better than their judgments.
So I walk in the desert wearing the cap of darkness,
which I need only in the city.
But like a reverse hero, perhaps that
is what a woman is, a reverse hero,
I walk naked and unarmed in the city,
putting on the protective cap of darkness
only when I am alone in the desert.
How else would I have any honor, for I am fighting the unknown.
The invisible.
The ignorance of vision.
I do not need the beautiful, beautiful, silvery
invisible helmet to meet the Bostonian academic fashion
mongers, who worship fortune on the stock market
or the names of old families.
I do not need it to fight fake zen
masters, or arrogant Quakers, or even the key holders
to old university gates.
No, my battle is with the ghost themselves,
who have positioned the false singers
in their ancestral houses and given them position, money,
and power.
The ghost of greed is a rational man
with a good body, a sharp brain, and a very comfortable life.
He offers me a place in one of these old brownstones,
if I will accept his other converts.
But I will never convert to ghost life,
even though my battle out here on the desert
is with ghosts and half form beings,
wearing the cap of invisibility which covers my silvery
moon like hair without anything but a book or a weapon
and an orange for temptation.
Birds, birds with gold wings.
He walks in the desert at night where silence is an ally.
The city has muggers, rapers, rapists,
and murderers, who edit periodicals, run contests,
and serve themselves banquets.
Peace, peace, I counsel.
No battles are worth the self-destruction.
But on the desert there is a kind father
who must be repudiated, and a sad mother who must be buried,
a jealous sister who will steal the silvery helmet,
and an inadequate lover who will unknowingly give power
from his false use of moonlight and his ignorance of the sun.
Alone, alone.
Not peace, but the battle with fashion, conducted in a place
where glittering cities rise and fall
with the breath of a sleeping person.
Who is that person?
The sleeping one, whose breath patterns so much.
The man who walks on the desert at night, so
close to the city, not knowing the city itself,
but himself becoming the blazing lights,
the dark buildings with scattered illuminated windows.
And I standing there invisible, even though the helmet of night
now belongs to a thief, knowing the truth.
Seeing the city and the desert as one,
finally accepting the sand as my carpet.
The light as my hair, the snakes as companions,
living in a city of cactus, which holds all the moisture
needed for existence."