This poem was written when I heard a fellow poet Manon was
going to make an anthology of poems
about opera, which as far as I know, is stalled now anyway,
but even before being asked to be in it which in fact I
wasn't, I decided to write a poem incorporating
some memories of different operas in it.
Title of this is in French, it's called,
"Avant de quitter ces lieux," which
is a title of an aria from the opera Faust
meaning before we leave this place.
There are some allusions also to other operas, mostly French.
"They watch the blue snow, it is the fifth act in someone else's
life, but here on Midway Island reefs and shoals
interfere with that notion.
That nothing is so compact is the idea
of a season is to be allowed, is the note for today at least.
It is Tuesday morning, they sing a duet
of farewell to their little table unto themselves
as they were when they sat at it.
Noon intersects with fat birds, the rhythm
of dishes in the cupboard, my love he seems to say,
is this the way it is for you, then we
shall have to leave the shabby surroundings for others,
but first I want to a plant a kiss like a star
on your forehead.
The ships are knocking together at the quayside,
the lanyards struck.
There is more moving than we were intended
for as we clear out nodding to the caryatids we pass,
perhaps they will sing to us.
But in a summer house somewhere in Russia,
a clematis soaks up the heat.
One can think without breathing of the blue snow that
invades the fields, a curse some obscure ancestor once let fall
and now it's the custom duly serenaded each season
before the apples rust and the idea of winter
takes over to be followed in short order by the real thing.
If all of us could lead lives of resurrecting things out
of the newspaper filing them on pin cushions, but no.
There is a father and mourning to be dealt with,
and after that the students arrive.
The rhythm is broken up among them,
that was a cold year, but not the last it will be remembered.
Why is that you always ask me this and this?
Is there no question behind the heiress
of how we now meet seconding each other's projects,
our emotions, or is that too weak as a question?
Those strong enough as an affirmation, so that we again
go out from each other.
One shades one's eyes automatically
though the sky is dark.
We have no place to go, the 15th major situation.
And if God decrees we like each other
someday we will meet on a stone up there
and all will not be well, but that is useful.
Great rivers run into each other and graves have split open.
The tyranny of dust plays well there is so little to notice,
besides we have always known each other.
Except for that it was automatically the century
before this one.
Thus we are made aware of the continuity of times that were
and time itself is revealed not as a series of rooms,
but as a single corridor stretching
into the truth and Alpine pasture with a few goats
and in the distance a hovel.
It is high noon.
Dinorah who has lost her goat sings the mad scene
for which her life has been in preparation.
Sings it out of daylight, out of the outcropping
of rock overhead, out of the Edelweiss and cowslips.
Now it is the turn of the mountain god,
but he refuses to play.
The blue snow returns, shopfronts are boarded up.
Still one should never be in a hurry
to end, to contrast the ending with the articulations that
have gone before.
True, these are merely space, but one
in which lives can take on a single and sparing sharpness
that is an education in itself.
This is one life as we thought it over,
and there are other songs some too true to mention.
Others of little weight optional,
cut for most editions, but waiting silently in place
where they are expected.
The story falls, mountains conspire, Brooks hesitate,
the storm endures."