WEBVTT

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This poem was written when I
heard a fellow poet Manon was

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going to make an
anthology of poems

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about opera, which as far as
I know, is stalled now anyway,

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but even before being asked
to be in it which in fact I

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wasn't, I decided to
write a poem incorporating

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some memories of
different operas in it.

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Title of this is in
French, it's called,

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"Avant de quitter
ces lieux," which

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is a title of an aria
from the opera Faust

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meaning before we
leave this place.

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There are some allusions also
to other operas, mostly French.

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"They watch the blue snow, it is
the fifth act in someone else's

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life, but here on Midway
Island reefs and shoals

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interfere with that notion.

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That nothing is so
compact is the idea

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of a season is to be allowed,
is the note for today at least.

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It is Tuesday morning,
they sing a duet

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of farewell to their little
table unto themselves

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as they were when
they sat at it.

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Noon intersects with
fat birds, the rhythm

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of dishes in the cupboard,
my love he seems to say,

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is this the way it
is for you, then we

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shall have to leave the shabby
surroundings for others,

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but first I want to a
plant a kiss like a star

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on your forehead.

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The ships are knocking
together at the quayside,

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the lanyards struck.

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There is more moving
than we were intended

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for as we clear out nodding
to the caryatids we pass,

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perhaps they will sing to us.

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But in a summer house
somewhere in Russia,

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a clematis soaks up the heat.

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One can think without
breathing of the blue snow that

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invades the fields, a curse some
obscure ancestor once let fall

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and now it's the custom
duly serenaded each season

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before the apples rust
and the idea of winter

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takes over to be followed in
short order by the real thing.

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If all of us could lead lives
of resurrecting things out

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of the newspaper filing them
on pin cushions, but no.

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There is a father and
mourning to be dealt with,

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and after that the
students arrive.

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The rhythm is broken
up among them,

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that was a cold year, but not
the last it will be remembered.

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Why is that you always
ask me this and this?

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Is there no question
behind the heiress

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of how we now meet seconding
each other's projects,

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our emotions, or is that
too weak as a question?

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Those strong enough as an
affirmation, so that we again

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go out from each other.

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One shades one's
eyes automatically

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though the sky is dark.

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We have no place to go,
the 15th major situation.

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And if God decrees
we like each other

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someday we will meet
on a stone up there

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and all will not be
well, but that is useful.

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Great rivers run into each other
and graves have split open.

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The tyranny of dust plays well
there is so little to notice,

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besides we have always
known each other.

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Except for that it was
automatically the century

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before this one.

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Thus we are made aware of the
continuity of times that were

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and time itself is revealed
not as a series of rooms,

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but as a single
corridor stretching

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into the truth and Alpine
pasture with a few goats

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and in the distance a hovel.

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It is high noon.

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Dinorah who has lost her
goat sings the mad scene

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for which her life has
been in preparation.

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Sings it out of daylight,
out of the outcropping

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of rock overhead, out of
the Edelweiss and cowslips.

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Now it is the turn
of the mountain god,

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but he refuses to play.

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The blue snow returns,
shopfronts are boarded up.

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Still one should
never be in a hurry

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to end, to contrast the ending
with the articulations that

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have gone before.

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True, these are
merely space, but one

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in which lives can take on a
single and sparing sharpness

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that is an education in itself.

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This is one life as
we thought it over,

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and there are other songs
some too true to mention.

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Others of little
weight optional,

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cut for most editions, but
waiting silently in place

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where they are expected.

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The story falls, mountains
conspire, Brooks hesitate,

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the storm endures."

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