Now, for the following book, which is Rivers and Mountains,
I'm going to read a section from a very long poem called
The Skaters, which is in four parts.
I'm going to read part of the second section, which
kind of stands by itself.
"Once there was a point in these islands,
coming to see where the rock had rotted away,
and turning into a tiny speck in the distance.
But war's savagery-- even the most patient scholar,
now could hardly reconstruct the old fort exactly as it was.
That trees continue to wave over it.
That there is also a small museum somewhere inside.
That the history of costume is no less fascinating
than the history of great migrations.
I'd like to bugger you all up, deliberately
falsify all your old suck-ass notions
of how chivalry is being lived.
What goes on in beehives.
But the whole filthy mess, misunderstandings
included, problems about the tunic button, et cetera.
How much of any one person is there.
Still, after bananas and spoonbread
in the shadow of the old walls, it
is cooling to return under the eaves in the shower that
probably fell while we were inside,
examining bowknots, old light-bulb sockets,
places where the whitewash had begun to flake.
With here and there an old map or illustration.
Here's one for instance-- looks like a weather map--
or a coil bit of wallpaper with a design of faded hollyhocks,
or abstract fruit and gumdrops in chains--
But how is it that you are always indoors peering it
too heavily canceled stamps through a greasy magnifying
glass?
And slowly the incoherencies of day
melt in a general wishful thinking of night
to peruse certain stars over the bay.
Cataracts of peace pour from the poised heavens
and only fear of snakes prevents us
from passing the night in the open air.
The day is definitely at an end."
Excuse me.
Old heavens, you used to tweak above us, standing like rain
whenever a salvo--
old heavens, you lying there above the old, but not ruined,
fort, can you hear, there, what I am saying?
For it is you I am parodying, your invisible denials.
And the almost correct impressions
corroborated by newsprint, which is so fine.
I called you there, but I do not think that you will answer me.
For I am condemned to drum my fingers on the closed
lid of this piano, this tedious planet, earth
as it winks to you through the aspiring, growing distances,
a last spark before the night.
There was much to be said in favor of storms
but you seem to have abandoned them in favor of endless light.
I cannot say that I think the change much of an improvement.
There is something fearful in these summer
nights that go on forever--
We are nearing the Moorish coast, I think, in a bateau.
I wonder if I will have any friends there.
Whether the future will be kinder to me than the past,
for example, and am all set to be put out,
finding it to be not.
Still, I am prepared for this voyage, and for anything else
you may care to mention.
Not that I am not afraid, but there is very little time left.
You have probably made travel arrangements,
and know the feeling.
Suddenly, one morning, the little train
arrives in the station, but oh, so big
It is!
Much bigger and faster than anyone told you.
A bewhiskered student in an old baggy overcoat
is waiting to take it.
'Why do you want to go there,' they all say.
'It is better in the other direction.
And so it is.
There people are free, at any rate.
But where you are going no one is.
Still there are parks and libraries to be visited,
'La Bibliotheque Municipale,' hotel reservations and all that
rot.
Old American films dubbed into the foreign language.
Coffee and whisky and cigar stubs.
Nobody minds.
And rain on the bristly wool of your topcoat.
I realized that I never knew why I wanted to come.
Yet I shall never return to the past, that attic,
its sailboats are perhaps more beautiful
than these, these I am leaning against,
spangled with diamonds and orange and purple stains,
bearing me once again in quest of the unknown.
These sails are life itself to me.
I heard a girl say this once, and cried,
and brought her fresh fruit and fishes, olives
and golden baked loaves.
She dried her tears and thanked me.
Now we are both setting sail into the purplish evening.
I love it!
This cruise can never last long enough for me.
But once more, office desks, radiators--
no!
That is behind me.
No more dullness, only movies, and love and laughter, sex
and fun.
The ticket seller is blowing his little horn-- hurry
before the window slams down.
The train we are getting onto is a boat train,
and the boats are really boats this time.
But I heard they heaven say-- is it right?
This continual changing back and forth?
Laughter and tears and so on?
Mightn't just plain sadness be sufficient for him?
No!
I'll not accept that any more, you bewhiskered
old caverns of blue!
This is just right for me.
I am cozily ensconced in the balcony of my face
Looking out over the whole darn countryside,
a beacon of satisfaction I am.
I'll not trade places with a king.
Here I am then, continuing but ever
beginning my perennial voyage, into new memories, new hope
and flowers the way the coasts glide past you.
I shall never forget this moment
Because it consists of purest ecstasy.
I am happier now than I ever dared believe anyone could be.
And we finger down the dog-eared coasts--
it is all passing!
It is past!
No, I am here, bellow the coasts,
and even the heavens roar their ascent
As we pick up a lemon-colored light horizontally projected
into the night, the night that heaven was kind enough to send,
and I launch into the happiest dreams, happier once again,
because tomorrow is already here.
Yet certain kernels remain.
Clouds that drift past sheds read it
in the official bulletin.
We shan't be putting out today.
The old stove smoked worse than ever
because rain was coming down its chimney.
Only the bleary eye of fog accosted one
through the mended pane.
Outside, the swamp water lapped the broken wood step.
A rowboat was moored in the alligator-infested swamp.
Somewhere, from deep in the interior of the jungle,
a groan was heard.
Could it be--?
Anyway, a rainy day-- wet weather.
The whole voyage will have to be canceled.
It would be impossible to make different connections.
Anyway the hotels are all full at this season.
The junks packed with refugees returning from the islands.
Sea-bream and flounder abound in the muddied waters--
They in fact represent the backbone of the island economy.
That, and cigar rolling.
Please leave your papers at the desk as you pass out, You know.
'The Wedding March.'
Ah yes, that's the way.
The couple descend the steps of the little old church.
Ribbons are flung, ribbons of cloud
And the sun seems to be coming out.
But there have been so many false alarms--
no, it's happened!
The storm is over.
Again the weather is fine and clear.
And the voyage?
It's on!
Listen everybody, the ship is starting,
I can hear its whistle's roar!
We have just time enough to make it to the dock!
And away they pour, in the sulfurous sunlight,
to the aqua and silver waters where
stands the glistening white ship and into the great vessel
they flood, a motley and happy crowd chanting and pouring down
hymns on the surface of the ocean--
Pulling, tugging us along with them,
by means of streamers, golden and silver confetti.
Smiling, we laugh and sing with the revelers
but are not quite certain that we want to go--
the dock is so sunny and warm.
That majestic ship will pull up anchor who knows where?
And full of laughter and tears, we sidle once again
with the other passengers.
The ground is heaving under foot.
Is it the ship?
It could be the dock--
and with a great whoosh all the sails go up--
hideous black smoke belches forth from the funnels
smudging the gold carnival costumes
with the gaiety of its jet-black soot
And, as into a tunnel the voyage starts only,
as I said, to be continued.
The eyes of those left standing on the dock are wet
but ours are dry.
Into the secretive, vaporous night with all of us!
Into the unknown, the unknown that loves us,
the great unknown!
[APPLAUSE]