I have a long poem called "Maxims in Limbo."
It's too long to read to you, but I'd
like to read some sections just to start off with this evening.
They'll introduce a number of the themes
that I'll pick up in other poems as I go along.
The poem is introduced by a quotation
from Dante, the fourth canto of The Inferno.
It's where Dante puts all his favorite poets.
And Dante's lines go, "Thus we went on as far as the light,
talking of things that were fitting for that place,
and of which it is well now to be silent."
Now, the poem is made up of many very short sections.
They're maxims and haiku-like poems.
And I've tried to create a fabwork, a network of themes
and images, but I'm afraid some of that
will be lost since I have to skip through it.
"Maxims in Limbo."
"The happy father comes to resemble his children.
The man who attempts to change his wife
dooms himself to remain the same.
I write these crazy poems in order to live a saner life.
In a time of despair, eat bountifully.
In a time of joy, also eat bountifully.
It is a noble thing to give one's life for one's country,
and nobler still to spare one's country such grief.
The happy man continuously seeks out new ways
to keep things the same.
The first tenet of the rational man is that man cannot live
by reason alone.
Ripped stalks and stubble make colder the cold field.
You observe me, and lo, I am enhanced.
In the land where the poet rules,
flowers grow only when watched.
The most painful sins to repent for
are those one wishes one had committed.
When discipline fails, wait for inspiration.
When inspiration fails, take that as your theme.
Obey your wife when she asks the impossible--
you will improve yourself.
When a father's glance lingers on his daughter in the sun,
even the sea shutters.
In the best of possible worlds, only the brave marry and die.
The happy poet proclaims the circle,
wishing only for what he has.
When your wife becomes secretive,
invent something to confess.
In his element, the fish is almost weightless.
It has no need to dream.
The tender husband holds to a central truth, silences help.
When the father feeds his son, both laugh.
When the son feeds his father, even the sea shudders.
Words are a kind of surface, like the ruffled lake.
Beneath, the silent fish feel always at home.
The spider redesigns his web in the land where the poet rules.
The change is not perceived by the court fly.
Ask the impossible of your wife, she deserves no less
for having chosen you.
When the sea shutters, mother and daughter
release their pet gull with a broken wing.
Freely, the sun leaves home.
Someone has planned all this, neither mother nor father.
The stone says, 'I am the cause of the foam of the stream.'
'Without me', says the stream, 'the stone would never be
smooth.'
'I am the cause of the silence that follow,' the thunder says.
The silence says what the poet says that it says.
At his slide, the otter's skeleton
lies perfectly exposed by the sun.
My children swing on the lawn.
Not even a small wind stirs in the willow tree.
It is noon.
The fish are not eating, but a boy
stands on a stone casting his line.
If I could return now, I would find him.
Is that again the wind in my dream
or the tanks in the wet moss woods
the instant before they can be heard?
Picture a circle with wind in which hands separate and touch.
Even without faces, these hands are ours.
Blue mist purples the distant hills.
Having slept well, I can discern the grazing shape
of the unicorn.
When the father dies, the son becomes mortal.' "