And so, 30 years ago, I published Death Tractates,
and it's just celebrated its 30th year.
So I'm going to read the first poem.
And I wrote this book because there
were very few-- there was very little literature about women
mourning for women.
"First Tractate"
A tractate is just a little essay.
"That the soul got to choose.
Nothing else
got to but the soul
got to choose.
That it was very clever, stepping
from Lightworld to lightworld
as an egret fishes through its smeared reflections--
Through its deaths--
for it believed in the one life,
that it would last forever.
When she had just started being dead I called to her.
Plum trees were waiting to be entered,
the swirling way they have,
each a shower of
What.
Each one full of the hope,
and of the repetitions--
When she'd been dead a while
I called again.
I thought she was superior somehow
because she'd become invisible,
because she'd become subtle
among the shapes--
and at first she didn't answer; everything answered.
Tell now red-tailed hawk--
for we have heard the smallest thing cry out beneath you--
have you seen her?
Red hawk-- thrush walking up the ragged middle--
have you seen her?
Mockingbird with your trills
and scallops, with your second mouth
in your throat of all things
tell us--
where is she whom we love?
I closed my eyes and saw the early spring,
pretty spring, kind of a reward;
I opened them and saw the swirling world,
thousands of qualified
pinks, deer feeding
on the torn changes
and I wanted to go back 'from whence' I came.
Up the coast,
along sandbanks and spillways,
the argued-about bays, spring came forth
with its this and that, its I can't
decide, as my life had
before she died-- preblossoming--
cranesbill, poppy--
and I wanted to go back 'from whence' I came.
Heart that can still see our heart
Heart that will not let us rest
February evening--
young mothers in the drugstore with valentines
all of which needed to be used.
Packages of plain or lace ones
stuck together.
And the mothers
proud of themselves for remembering,
the valentines slumped down so the red
merely looked promising
but pressing up bravely anyhow--
the awkwardness of what's here,
ceaselessly trying to arrange itself;
I went out in the night, I called out,
I felt along the edges of the panel--
without her,
everything seemed strange to me in this world;
just the taste of oranges--
imagine!
And all of this compared to her seemed bulky.
For weeks this was true.
As if only being dead were the right amount.
Only being dead were fragile enough
for what the earth had to say.
Clumsy.
For a while.
Clumsy.
For a while it was too much to go on living.
Roadside acacias--
All unzipped,
like meaning.
The ostinatos of the birds.
Magnolias-- dogs'-tongues-- curved
to spoon up rain.
Too much shape.
Even that which was only suspected
of having it-- the iris
that lay in the ground with their eyes of fate.
And then the other voice said
You who long for things
who can't understand borders
who like to spread your magic and your blame
forgive yourself.
She'd given you an impossible task--
she said to follow and you intended to.
But you'd come to a place in the forest
Where there weren't any tracks--"