Collected Poems

SUJATA BHATT was born in Ahmedabad, India. She grew up in Pune (India) and in the United States. She received her MFA from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. To date, she has published seven collections of poetry with Carcanet Press. She received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Asia) and the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award for her first collection, Brunizem (1988). Subsequent collections include Monkey Shadows (PBS Recommendation, 1991), The Stinking Rose (shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize, 1995), Point No Point (1997), Augatora (PBS Recommendation, 2000), A Colour for Solitude (2002), and Pure Lizard (shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize, 2008). She received a Cholmondeley Award in 1991, the Italian Tratti Poetry Prize in 2000, and the German Literature Award, Das neue Buch, in 2008. She has translated poetry from Gujarati and German into English. She has been a Lansdowne Visiting Writer at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, a Visiting Fellow at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, and more recently was Poet-in-Residence at the Poetry Archive in London and at the Heinrich Böll Cottage on Achill Island, Ireland. Her work has been widely anthologised, broadcast on radio and television, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. She divides her time between Germany and elsewhere. Also by Sujata Bhatt from Carcanet Press

Brunizem Monkey Shadows The Stinking Rose Point No Point: Selected Poems Augatora A Colour for Solitude Pure Lizard SUJATA BHATT

Collected Poems Acknowledgements

Some of these poems have been revised, while others appear in a different order than in the original books.

I am immensely grateful to Urmi Bhatt, Bharat Pathak, Michael Schmidt and Helen Tookey for their helpful comments.

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Carcanet Press Limited Alliance House Cross Street Manchester M2 7AQ

www.carcanet.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85754 997 3

The publisher acknowledges financial assistance from Arts Council England

Typeset by XL Publishing Services, Exmouth Printed and bound in England by SRP Ltd, Exeter Contents

BRUNIZEM (1988)

I The First Disciple Sujata: The First Disciple of Buddha 3 The Peacock 4 Iris 5 Buffaloes 6 (Udaylee) 7 The Doors are Always Open 8 (Shérdi) 9 Swami Anand 10 For Nanabhai Bhatt 12 Nachiketa 14 Kalika 16 For My Grandmother 17 Muliebrity 17 Reincarnation 18 Lizards 20 The First Meeting 21 Something for Plato 22 The Difference between Being and Becoming 23

II A Different History A Different History 24 She Finds Her Place 25 The Kama Sutra Retold 26 Menu 28 Parvati 29 Looking Through a French Photographer’s Portrayal of Rajasthan with Extensive Use of Orange Filters 31 Oranges and Lemons 33 The Women of Leh are such – 34 Paper and Glass 35 Another Act for the Lübecker Totentanz 36 What Is Worth Knowing? 37 Another Day in Iowa City 39 Living with Trains 40 Baltimore 43

CONTENTS v The Woodcut 44 The Puppets 45 Pink Shrimps and Guesses 46 Looking Over What I Have Done 47 Hey, 47 Search for My Tongue 48

III Eurydice Speaks Marie Curie to Her Husband 56 The Garlic of Truth 57 Wanting Agni 59 Eurydice Speaks 62 Mein lieber Schwan 63 Written after Hearing about the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 64 3 November 1984 66 You Walk into This Room and 67 Mappelmus 67 The Undertow 68 At the Marketplace 70 Metamorphoses II: A Dream 71 Saturday Night on Keswick Road 74 The Writer 75 Sad Songs with Henna Leaves 76 Tail 77 Go to Ahmedabad 78 To My Muse 81 Brunizem 83 Well, Well, Well, 84

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991)

I The Way to Maninagar

The Langur Coloured Night 91 The Stare 93 Maninagar Days 96 The Daily Offering 101 The Glassy Green and Maroon 102 Ajwali Ba 104 Nanabhai Bhatt in Prison 107 vi COLLECTED POEMS Kankaria Lake 110 A Different Way to Dance 113 What Happened to the Elephant? 116 Red August 118 Understanding the Ramayana 121 Devibahen Pathak 125

II Angels’ Wings Angels’ Wings 131 Mozartstrasse 18 133 Yellow October 138 Wine from Bordeaux 139 A Story for Pearse 142 Groningen: Saturday Market on a Very Sunny Day 147 Counting Sheep White Blood Cells 148 The Mad Woman in the Attic 150 The Fish Hat 152 The Echoes in Poona 155 Walking Across the Brooklyn Bridge, July 1990 158

III Until Our Bones Prevent Us from Going Further The Sea at Night 160 Another Portrait of Bartolo 161 Rooms by the Sea 163 Franz Marc’s Blaue Fohlen 164 Sunlight in a Cafeteria 165 Portrait of a Double Portrait 166 White Asparagus 167 Distances 168 The Rooster in Conil 169 Just White Chips 171 Beyond Edinburgh 172 Love in a Bathtub 174 Belfast, November 1987 175 29 April 1989 177 The Need to Recall the Journey 178 At the Flower Market 182 Sinking into the Solstice 183 Until Our Bones Prevent Us from Going Further 184 What Does One Write When the World Starts to Disappear? 187

CONTENTS vii THE STINKING ROSE (1995)

I Freak Waves The One Who Goes Away 191 We are Adrift 194 Although She’s a Small Woman 195 Point No Point 196 ‘Man Swept out to Sea as Huge Wave Hit Rock’ 198 When the Dead Feel Lonely 199 How Far East is it Still East? 200 The Three Sisters 202 The Wild Woman of the Forest 204 Polish-German Woodcarver Visits Vancouver Island 205 Victor, Whiskey, Juliet, 2 2 3 207 Salt Spring Island 209 Your Sorrow 210

II New World Dialogues The Light Teased Me 211 Cow’s Skull – Red, White and Blue 212 Skinny-dipping in History 213 Parrots 215 What Does the Flower of Life Say, Frida Kahlo? 216 Chutney 217 Nothing is Black, Really Nothing 218 The Blue Snake Who Loves Water 221 Pelvis with Moon 223 It Has Come to This 224

III The Stinking Rose The Stinking Rose 225 Ninniku 227 (Russown) 229 Garlic in War and Peace 231 Mars Owns this Herb 232 A Touch of Coriander 233 Bear’s Garlic at Nevern 234 Frightened Bees 237 Ther is No Rose of Swych Virtu 238 viii COLLECTED POEMS The Worm 238 A Poem in Three Voices 239 A Brahmin Wants the Cows to Eat Lots of Garlic 241 If You Named Your Daughter Garlic Instead of Lily or Rose 242 Self-Portrait with Garlic 243 Allium Moly and Odysseus 244 Instructions to the Artist 245 A First Draft from the Artist 246 The Man in the Artist’s First Draft Speaks 247 The Good Farmer 248 A Wintry July in Bremen 249 Rosehips in August 250 If a Ghazal were like Garlic 251 Garlic and Sapphires in the Mud 252 The Pharaoh Speaks 253 It Has Not Rained for Months 254

IV Old World Blood An India of the Soul 256 A Gujarati Patient Speaks 257 (Shantih) 259 Genealogy 261 Black Swans for Swantje 262 One of the Wurst-Eaters on the Day After Good Friday 264 Fate 265 Orpheus Confesses to Eurydice 267 Jealousy 269 Kaspar Hauser Dreams of Horses 270 Ophelia in Defence of the Queen 272 Monsoon with Vector Anophelines 273 More Fears about the Moon 274 Lizard, Iguana, Chameleon, Salamander 276 Sharda 278

V (Riyaj) The Voices 280 Consciousness 282 Translation: Meditation on a Poem by Hasmukh Pathak 283 First Rain 286 Sruti 287

CONTENTS ix Water 288 Frauenjournal 291

AUGATORA (2000)

I Augatora Looking Up 295 Squirrels 296 The Dream 298 Augatora 300 Durban: A Visit to the Botanical Gardens 302 A Memory from Marathi 303 The Virologist 305 Barcelona 306 Gazpacho 307 After Dinner in Conil 308 Your Postcards 309 A Swimmer in New England Speaks 310 The Snake Catcher Speaks 313

II History is a Broken Narrative Surus to Hannibal 314 Partition 315 Diabetes Mellitus 316 The Pope, Tito and the WHO 316 After the Earthquake 317 Voice of the Unwanted Girl 318 History is a Broken Narrative 320 New Orleans Revisited 324 The Shirodkar Suture 326 A Room in Amsterdam 327 Honeymoon 328 Jerusalem 330 The Woman they call Abuela 331 Łódź 333 Green Amber in Riga 334 Language 335 Jane to Tarzan 337

x COLLECTED POEMS III The Hole in the Wind The Hole in the Wind 340

IV The Found Angel: Nine Poems for Ria Eïng The Found Angel 349 Birthday Totem Pole 352 The Snail-Ear 353 Stingray 354 Vogelfrau 355 Broom, Wind and Bird: Zeitwanderer 356 The Fox and the Angel 357 A Black Feather 358 Beeswax and Snakeskin Head 359

V Ars Poetica Is it a Voice? 360 Skintight with Ice 361 The Mammoth Bone 362 My Mother’s Way of Wearing a Sari 363 A Poem Consisting Entirely of Introductions 366 This Room is Part of the NYC Subway System 367 Montauk Garden with Stones and Water 368 Equilibrium 368 A Detail from the Chandogya Upanishad 369 Poem for a Reader who was Born Blind 370 The Circle 371 The Multicultural Poem 372 Meeting the Artist in Durban 376 Ars Poetica 378

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002)

Self-Portrait as Aubade, 1897 383 Self-Portrait Done with Red Chalk, 1897 385 Self-Portrait as My Sister, 1897 386 Self-Portrait with Coppery Red Hair, 1897/98 387 Self-Portrait in Front of Window Offering a View of Parisian Houses, 1900 388 Two Girls, Two Sisters, PB to CW, 1900 389

CONTENTS xi Black Sails, PB to RMR, September 1900 390 A White Horse Grazing in Moonlight, 1901 393 Your Weyerberg Gaze, CW to RMR, 1901 394 No Road Leads to This, CW to RMR, 1901 396 The Washing on the Line, 1901 398 Two Girls in a Landscape, 1901 399 Icicles Hang from the Reeds of Our Roof, CW to PB, February 1902 401 You Kissed My Eyelids, PB to RMR, March 1902 402 Elsbeth, PB to CW, July 1902 405 Self-Portrait with Scratches, 1903 406 Self-Portrait with Blossoming Trees, 1903 408 Two Girls: The Blind Sister, 1903 409 Self-Portrait in Front of a Landscape with Trees, 1903 410 Two Girls in Profile in a Landscape, charcoal, 1903/04 412 In Her Green Dress, She is, 1905 413 Self-Portrait with Your Jaw Set, 1905 414 You are the Rose, CW to RMR, 1905 415 A Red Rose in November, PB to CW, 1905 417 Don’t Look at Me like That, CW to PB, 1905 420 Runic, PB to CW, 1905 421 Self-Portrait with an Oversized Hat and a Red Rose in the Right Hand, 1905 422 Self-Portrait with a Necklace of White Beads, 1906 423 Self-Portrait with a Wreath of Red Flowers in Your Hair, 1906 424 A Colour for Solitude, PB to RMR, 1906 426 Self-Portrait on My Fifth Wedding Anniversary, 25-5-06 429 Self-Portrait as a Nude Torso with an Amber Necklace, 1906 431 Self-Portrait as Anonymous, 1906 433 You Spoke of Italy, PB to RMR, 1906 434 Is there More Truth in a Photograph?, PB to her sister HB, 1906 436 Self-Portrait as a Life-Sized Nude, 1906 437 Self-Portrait as a Standing Nude with a Hat, 1906 438 Self-Portrait Wearing a Blue and White Striped White Dress, 1906 440 Self-Portrait with Yellowish Green, 1906 441 Two Girls: One Sitting in a White Shirt, the Other, a Standing Nude, 1906 442 Two Girls: Nude, One Standing, the Other Kneeling in Front of Red Poppies, 1906 443 xii COLLECTED POEMS Two Girls with their Arms Across their Shoulders, 1906 444 Self-Portrait on a Hot Day in Paris, 1906 445 Self-Portrait as a Mask, 1906 447 Self-Portrait with a Hat and Veil, 1906 448 Self-Portrait, Frontal, with a Flower in the Right Hand, 1906/7 449 A White Horse Grazing in Moonlight, a retrospective view of 1901, PB to OM 451 Otto with a Pipe, PB to OM, 1906/07 452 Self-Portrait with a Lemon, 1906/07 453 Self-Portrait with a Sprig of Camellia Leaves, 1906/07 455 And What Will Death Do?, 1906/07 456 Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in the Left Hand, PB to CW, 1907 457 Who has Just Died? CW to PB, 1908 459 Through the Blackness, CW to PB, 1915 461 21 November 1916, CW to PB 463 The Room Itself is Dying, CW to RMR, circa 1921 467 Ruth’s Wish, CW to RMR, 1936 469 16 April 1945, CW to PB 470 Was it the Blue Irises? 472 Clara’s Voice 473 Lines Written in Venice 474 Fischerhude, 2001 477 Worpswede, 2001 478

PURE LIZARD (2008)

I A Hidden Truth A Hidden Truth 483 The Fourth Monkey 484 Two Monkeys 485 The Crow, his Beak, and a Girl 486 Nine Poems in Response to Etchings by Paula Rego The Crow’s House 487 The Crow and his Cat 487 A Tube of Paint 488 The Night Crow 489 Sewing on the Shadow 489 Flying Children 490 Wendy and the Lost Boys 490

CONTENTS xiii Mermaid Drowning Wendy 491 Wendy’s Song 492

II Telemann’s Frogs What is Exotic? 493 Pure Lizard 494 Storm 495 Bhagavati 496 Coffee 499 Good Omens 501 Only the Blackest Stones 505 Parvati Temple, Poona 508 Whenever I Return 509 Telemann’s Frogs 512 Buddha’s Lost Mother 515 Gale Force Winds 516 Living with Stones 518 Piece Caprice 520 Whose Ghost Is This? 523 Hyacinths 524 Jasmine Tastes Bitter 525 Suji 525 Monkey Woman 526 Lightning 527 In the End 528 Korean Angel 529 kikku no sekku 532

III Sad Walk The Imagination 534 She Slipped Through the Suez Canal 536 The Light that Unfetters the Soul 537 And look: the olives ripen, the lizards stretch 538 Three Poems from South Korea Bamboo in Gyeongju 539 King Munmu 540 Because of the Moon 541 Finding India in Unexpected Places 542 Six Entries from a Witch’s Diary 543 Zinzirritta 545

xiv COLLECTED POEMS Incessant 546 Unexpected Blackness 547 Sad Walk 549

IV Solo Piano Radishes 551 Jane Eyre in the Lab 552 Nine Poems in Response to Lithographs by Paula Rego Girl Reading at Window 556 Loving Bewick 556 Crumpled 557 Jane in a Chair with Monkey 557 Jane’s Back 557 Bertha 558 Biting 558 The Keeper 559 Come to Me 560 Four Poems in Response to Paintings by Paula Rego The Cadet and his Sister 561 The Maids 562 The Soldier’s Daughter 563 The Policeman’s Daughter 563 Portrait of a Young Man in his Study, Venice, 1528 565 The Old Man Who is Not 566 Felice Beato Enters Sikander Bagh 567 The Smell of Lilacs 568 328 Mickle Boulevard, Camden, New Jersey 572 Abstractions 574 Circling Over Medellín 575 A House of Silence 577 Devibahen and Harilal in Pennsylvania 578 Green Acorns 580 He Farms for Beauty 582 Phytoremediation 585 Do Not Use the Word ‘Erosion’ Lightly 586 Solo Piano: After Listening to Philip Glass 588

Notes 591 Index of Titles 599 Index of First Lines 608

CONTENTS xv For Michael, Jenny Mira Swantje, and Nachiketa – my luck in life Brunizem 1988

I The First Disciple

Sujata: The First Disciple of Buddha

One morning, a tall lean man stumbled towards me. His large eyes: half closed as if he were seasick; his thick black hair full of dead leaves and bumble-bees grew wild as weeds and fell way below his hips. His beard swayed gently as an elephant’s trunk. “I’m hungry,” he muttered. I took him home, fed him fresh yogurt and bread. Then, I bathed him, shaved his face clean and smooth, coconut oiled his skin soft again. It took four hours to wash and comb his long hair, which he refused to cut. For four hours he bent his head this way and that while I ploughed through his hair with coconut oil on my fingers. “And how did you get this way?” I asked. “I haven’t slept for years,” he said. “I’ve been thinking, just thinking. I couldn’t sleep or eat until I had finished thinking.” After the last knot had been pulled out of his hair, he slept, still holding on to my sore fingers. The next morning, before the sun rose, before my father could stop me, he led me to the wide-trunked, thick-leafed bodhi tree to the shady spot where he had sat for years and asked me to listen.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 3 The Peacock

His loud sharp call seems to come from nowhere. Then, a flash of turquoise in the pipal tree. The slender neck arched away from you as he descends, and as he darts away, a glimpse of the very end of his tail.

I was told that you have to sit in the veranda and read a book, preferably one of your favourites with great concentration. The moment you begin to live inside the book a blue shadow will fall over you. The wind will change direction, the steady hum of bees in the bushes nearby will stop. The cat will awaken and stretch. Something has broken your attention; and if you look up in time you might see the peacock turning away as he gathers in his tail to shut those dark glowing eyes, violet fringed with golden amber. It is the tail that has to blink for eyes that are always open.

4 COLLECTED POEMS Iris

Her hand sweeps over the rough grained paper, then, with a wet sponge, again. A drop of black is washed grey, cloudy as warm breath fogging cool glass. She feels she must make the best of it, she must get the colour of the stone wall, of the mist settling around twisted birch trees. Her eye doesn’t miss the rabbit crouched, a tuft of fog in the tall grass. Nothing to stop the grey sky from merging into stones, or the stone walls from trailing off into sky. But closer, a single iris stands fully opened: dark wrinkled petals, rain-moist, the tall slender stalk sways, her hand follows. Today, even the green is tinged with grey, the stone’s shadow lies heavy over the curling petals but there’s time enough, she’ll wait, study the lopsided shape. The outer green sepals once enclosing the bud lie shrivelled: empty shells spiralling right beneath the petals. As she stares the sun comes out. And the largest petal flushes deep deep violet. A violet so intense it’s almost black. The others tremble indigo, reveal paler blue undersides. Thin red veins running into yellow orange rills, yellow flows down the green stem. Her hand moves swiftly from palette to paper, paper to palette, the delicate brush swoops down, sweeps up, moves the way a bird builds its nest. An instant and the sun is gone. Grey-ash-soft-shadows fall again. But she can close her eyes and see red-orange veins, the yellow swept with green throbbing towards blue, and deep inside she feels indigo pulsing to violet.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 5 Buffaloes

The young widow thinks she should have burned on her husband’s funeral pyre. She could not, for her mother-in-law insisted she raise the only son of her only son. The young widow sits outside in the garden overlooking a large pond. Out of the way, still untouchable, she suckles her three-week-old son and thinks she could live for those hungry lips; live to let him grow bigger than herself. Her dreams lie lazily swishing their tails in her mind like buffaloes dozing, some with only nostrils showing in a muddy pond.

Tails switch to keep fat flies away, and horns, as long as a man’s hand, or longer keep the boys, and their pranks away. It is to the old farmer’s tallest son they give their warm yellowish milk. He alone approaches: dark-skinned and naked except for a white turban, a white loincloth. He joins them in the pond, greets each one with love: “my beauty”, “my pet” – slaps water on their broad flanks splashes more water on their dusty backs. Ears get scratched, necks rubbed, drowsy faces are splashed awake. Now he prods them out of the mud out of the water, begging loudly “Come my beauty, come my pet, let us go!” And the pond shrinks back as the wide black buffaloes rise.

6 COLLECTED POEMS The young widow walks from tree to tree, newly opened leaves brush damp sweet smells across her face. The infant’s mouth sleeps against her breast. Dreams stuck inside her chest twitch as she watches the buffaloes pass too close to her house, up the steep road to the dairy. The loud loving voice of the farmer’s son holds them steady without the bite of any stick or whip.

(Udaylee)

Only paper and wood are safe from a menstruating woman’s touch. So they built this room for us, next to the cowshed. Here, we’re permitted to write letters, to read, and it gives a chance for our kitchen-scarred fingers to heal.

Tonight, I can’t leave the stars alone. And when I can’t sleep, I pace in this small room, I pace from my narrow rope-bed to the bookshelf filled with dusty newspapers held down with glossy brown cowries and a conch. When I can’t sleep, I hold the conch shell to my ear just to hear my blood rushing, a song throbbing, a slow drumming within my head, my hips. This aching is my blood flowing against, rushing against something – knotted clumps of my blood, so I remember fistfuls of torn seaweed rising with the foam, rising. Then falling, falling up on the sand strewn over newly laid turtle eggs.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 7 The Doors Are Always Open

Everywhere you turn there are goats, some black and lumpy. Others, with oily mushroom-soft hair, sticky yellow in Muslim sand shaded by the mosque. Next door there’s a kerosene smeared kitchen. We share a window with the woman who lives with goats. Now she unwraps some cheese now she beats and kneads a little boy and screams “Idiot! Don’t you tease that pregnant goat again!” I look away: outside the rooster runs away from his dangling sliced head while the pregnant goat lies with mourning hens. Her bleating consolations make the children spill cheesy milk and run outside. Wet soccer ball bubbles roll out from a hole beneath the lifted tail. The goat licks her kids free, pushing, pushing until they all wobble about. We’ve counted five. Hopping up and down, we push each other until we see the goat pushing her kids to stand up, until mothers call us back to thick milk.

8 COLLECTED POEMS (Shérdi)

The way I learned to eat sugar cane in Sanosra: I use my teeth to tear the outer hard chaal then, bite off strips of the white fibrous heart – suck hard with my teeth, press down and the juice spills out.

January mornings the farmer cuts tender green sugar cane and brings it to our door. Afternoons, when the elders are asleep we sneak outside carrying the long smooth stalks. The sun warms us, the dogs yawn, our teeth grow strong our jaws are numb; for hours we suck out the russ, the juice sticky all over our hands.

So tonight when you tell me to use my teeth, to suck hard, harder, then, I smell sugar cane grass in your hair and imagine you’d like to be shérdi shérdi out in the fields the stalks sway opening a path before us

BRUNIZEM (1988) 9 Swami Anand

In Kosbad during the monsoons there are so many shades of green your mind forgets other colours.

At that time I am seventeen, and have just started to wear a sari every day. Swami Anand is eighty-nine and almost blind. His thick glasses don’t seem to work, they only magnify his cloudy eyes. Mornings he summons me from the kitchen and I read to him until lunch time.

One day he tells me “you can read your poems now” I read a few, he is silent. Thinking he’s asleep, I stop. But he says, “continue”. I begin a long one in which the Himalayas rise as a metaphor. Suddenly I am ashamed to have used the Himalayas like this, ashamed to speak of my imaginary mountains to a man who walked through the ice and snow of Gangotri barefoot a man who lived close to Kangchenjanga and Everest clad only in summer cotton. I pause to apologise but he says “just continue”.

10 COLLECTED POEMS Later, climbing through the slippery green hills of Kosbad, Swami Anand does not need to lean on my shoulder or his umbrella. I prod him for suggestions, ways to improve my poems. He is silent a long while, then, he says “there is nothing I can tell you except continue.”

BRUNIZEM (1988) 11 For Nanabhai Bhatt

In this dream my grandfather comes to comfort me. He stands apart silent and in his face I see the patience of his trees on hot typhoid days that promise no rain.

His eyes the colour of a crow’s feather in children’s mud, yet filled with sharp mountain-top light.

I’m sure this was the face the true bald man, Gandhiji saw when he confessed about the Harijan girl, the six-year-old he adopted and tried to educate. I’m sure these were the eyes the true hermaphrodite, Gandhiji saw while he explained how this girl cared too much for clothes, how one day she went and had her hair bobbed, the latest fashion, she said. It was too much. She had to be set straight, the sooner the better. So he had her head shaved to teach her not to look in mirrors so often. At this point Gandhiji turned towards my grandfather and allowed, so softly: “But she cried. I couldn’t stop her crying. She didn’t touch dinner. She cried all night. I brought her to my room, tucked her in my bed, sang her bhajans, but she still cried. I stayed awake beside her.

12 COLLECTED POEMS So this morning I can’t think clearly, I can’t discuss our plans for building schools in villages.” And my grandfather looked at him with the same face he shows in my dream.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 13 Nachiketa for my brother

The bird was fat-brown limp feathers, half-deflated limp dull brown and seemed to be sweating all the time. And Nachiketa carried it around in a floppy straw hat fluttering orange ribbons with his mother’s sunny rice-paddy green silk scarf inside, nestling the sticky claws and half-coma-shut eyes. Yes, Nachiketa, five years old and frowning, held the straw hat nest all day, walked through the house from balcony to balcony, upstairs and down from terrace to garden and back again.

Did you know that long ago Nachiketa visited great Yamaraj? Yes, long ago Nachiketa travelled through jaundiced grass past choleraed cows, past black-lunged horses standing beneath leprosied trees. And great Yamaraj was not home. So Nachiketa waited. Hungry. Nachiketa sat on the dark doorstep in sunless heat. Nachiketa waited for three days. Hungry.

Then, Yama arrived delighted with Nachiketa’s patience, and Yama arrived ashamed to have been an absent host. And so of course there were three boons to be granted, three wishes to be had. Take your three wishes and please leave, this is no place for curious children, no place for the alive and Karma unfulfilled. But Nachiketa stood still. Not wanting but asking.

14 COLLECTED POEMS Not wanting a thing but asking all. And great Yamaraj relented saying, oh all right, all right I’ll tell you.

The first time Nachiketa returned from the house of Yama, his skin was yellow and he slept in an incubator for a month. The second time Nachiketa returned from the house of Yama, he found the bird wheezing and croaking by the dirt road. The eighth time Nachiketa visited the house of Yama I followed, cursing every god, every being every spirit that could possibly exist. I followed cursing until Nachiketa returned safe again.

Each time Yamaraj gives Nachiketa a different fact, fresh secrets… But what did he feed Nachiketa? And what did Nachiketa drink with great Yamaraj? Sometimes I dream Yama’s hand brushing against Nachi’s shirt when he reached for a plate of something.

I walk about bored, I walk about wishing I had such secrets – While Nachiketa sits in the garden by the sunflowers with the straw hat in his lap. He sings all afternoon while the bird wheezes back and he continues singing even when the bird does not move.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 15 Kalika

In the morning, while Kalika combs her seven-year-old daughter’s glossy tangled hair, she looks at her face in the mirror; red-eyed, worn out, she feels she has grown into a mangy stranger overnight. Her daughter’s face: wide open eyes so much more like her mother’s who died last night in a diabetic coma.

As Kalika parts the hair in the centre, a straight line curving down the back of her daughter’s head; she remembers, five years ago blisters on the back of her mother’s head grew and grew, never healing, her mother’s scalp cracked and bleeding until the doctor shaved off the waist-length thick grey hair and tightly bandaged the head.

As Kalika watches her daughter open the door the sun falls on the bright red ribbons flowering at the ends of the freshly made braids, and there is her mother in a red sari, walking towards the sound of temple bells. Green herbs, white jasmine in her hands, tiny red blossoms woven in her coiling hair.

Later, tearing out sticky cobwebs from corners in the high ceiling, while jabbing at fleeing spiders with a long-handled broom, Kalika winces, glances out the window and sees her daughter on the lawn struggling with her doll’s matted hair.

16 COLLECTED POEMS For My Grandmother

Aaji, there was an eleven-year-old girl who sat on our doorstep during the feast of your mourning. She would not cry or eat sleep or speak. Now they make dolls who do all of those things.

And I could not explain about my taut four hours of sleep in the closet, on the floor with your softly dying clothes.

Muliebrity

I have thought so much about the girl who gathered cow dung in a wide, round basket along the main road passing by our house and the Radhavallabh temple in Maninagar. I have thought so much about the way she moved her hands and her waist and the smell of cow dung and road-dust and wet canna lilies, the smell of monkey breath and freshly washed clothes and the dust from crows’ wings which smells different – and again the smell of cow dung as the girl scoops it up, all these smells surrounding me separately and simultaneously – I have thought so much but have been unwilling to use her for a metaphor, for a nice image – but most of all unwilling to forget her or to explain to anyone the greatness and the power glistening through her cheekbones each time she found a particularly promising mound of dung –

BRUNIZEM (1988) 17 Reincarnation

The wise old men of India say there are certain rules. For example, if you loved your dog too much, in your next life you’ll be a dog, yet full of human memories. And if the King’s favourite daughter loved the low-caste palace gardener who drowned while crossing the river in a small boat during the great floods, they’ll be reborn, given a second chance. The wise old men of India say one often dreams of the life one led before.

There’s a lion sprawled out beside his cubs. His thick mane tangled with dry grass, his head droops: dusty stooping dahlia. Then with a shudder, a sudden shake of his head he groans and growls at four whimpering cubs. (He’d let them climb all over his back if only he weren’t so hungry.) The lioness is already far away hunting in the deepest part of the valley: a tall dark forest. Red-flowered vines, gold-flecked snakes encircling every tree. Tall ferns, fringes of maidenhair edging broad leaves. But now the lioness steps out into a vast clearing. She lifts her head towards the east, the west: sniffing, sniffing. Her eyes stare hard,

18 COLLECTED POEMS urgent, she walks as if her raw swollen teats, pink and not quite dry, prickle and itch and goad her on. She’s lean enough, afraid her cubs might die. Now there’s clear water flowing rapidly, rippling over rocks, the lioness stops, drinks, her quick long tongue licks, laps up the water. Now the lioness is wading through, swimming, her long golden tail streams through rushing waves; torn, bruised paws splashing. A quiet breeze as if the earth were barely breathing. Fallen leaves, still green, and tangled vines swirl in the water, the lioness circling. Nearby monkeys, squirrels, even birds remain hidden, silence A dead bull elephant rots: bullet-pocked, tuskless.

You hold me, rock me, pull me out of my dream, (or did I dream you?) The fur lingers on your skin, your body has not forgotten how to move like a cat. Look, the sun spills golden over the walls, you grow tawnier with the dawn. Shivering haunches relax, the slow licking begins gently over the bruises.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 19 Lizards

It’s a loud darkness tonight, filled with the hard noise of breath after angry breath. I stare at the blank wall, dingy and lizard-green – it needs to be repainted some other colour, you say, off-white, yellow, anything but this green.

I learned to stare at the walls in Maninagar in the summertime when the lizards come inside. Nights they lingered on the walls, followed thick insects across the ceiling while I squirmed in bed entwined with shadows of leaves and lizards. Their black eyes: round mustard seeds glistened. And I stared at them, felt them secretly snickering. I stared, trying not to blink, afraid they would plop in bed with me.

Tonight when you look at me with your hard unblinking eyes, the noise of flies and mosquitoes gnaws through my ears. That’s when my dreams become lizards: delicate feet walk up my neck over my forehead, through my hair, I can feel their long slender tails trail across my skin almost like those moist tendrils the wind blew across my face the other day. My dreams come and touch us, like soft paintbrushes thick with colour, like fingers wet with paint. And we can still finger paint, why not? Let’s finger paint with all your tongues and lips and sperm across our hips.

20 COLLECTED POEMS The First Meeting

When I run past the uncounted trees, groves of mango, eucalyptus – how the grass slips beneath my feet, how the wind circles up my legs, (invisible snake I can’t escape) how the kingfisher-blue sky grows sunnier each second as I run up the hill almost blinded, run down the other side, my tongue dry, to the lake where the sky is trapped, tamed blue. But closer, it is clear water. As I drink green snakes swim up to the surface, I recoil amazed, run back faster, faster.

When I get home he’s there: King Cobra tightly curled up in a corner. He looks tired. “Come inside, close the door, don’t run away,” he seems to smile. “I live in your garden. I chose it because of the huge purple-golden dahlias. I’ve never seen such tall stalks, such plump flowers, and the mice!” “What do you want?” I ask afraid his sunken hood will expand. “Oh you needn’t worry, you needn’t worship me as all the rest do. Please don’t change. Everywhere I go people pester me with their prayers, their hundred bowls of milk a day. There’s only so much milk I can drink. I won’t be caught and have my teeth pulled out. I won’t be stuffed in a basket and commanded to rise, wave after wave, to ripple around the straw rim. As if their baskets could contain me,

BRUNIZEM (1988) 21 as if their bulging pipes could move me. Oh I am sooo tired…” he sighs. “What do you want?” I ask. “I want to live in your garden, to visit you, especially those nights you sing, let me join you. And once in a while, let me lie around your neck and share a bowl of milk…”

Something for Plato

He holds out his lips, this wreck of a rhinoceros: dried-up gravel skin, limping with a crooked spine – but who knows, maybe he’s happy kept like this in the Delhi zoo. Here he walks like a fat man in a crisp red sports jacket who doesn’t think of himself as fat – he’s so pleased with the virile cut of his new sports jacket…

Flabby cracked lips shudder open, showing us a sharp triangular smiling tongue. He keeps lifting up those thick scabby rough lips, wobbling with such a tender gesture, an emotion so strong the lines around his neck are suddenly delicate – so graceful – he could be a young flamingo, a weeping willow, leaving no doubt that he wants to be caressed. There’s plenty of grass around him but he won’t have it, he wants to be hand-fed, wants his forehead stroked. He’ll put up with having his horn pulled at, pretend his head can be jerked around by the scrawny schoolboys – as long as they feed him, the tips of their fingers arousing and soothing his mouth.

22 COLLECTED POEMS The Difference Between Being and Becoming

So where does the body house the soul? Locked in the attic, wings whirring against glass? No. These doors and windows are always open.

As children we lived outside. Beyond the house the well was cool black stones inside rings of wet black soil. And inside that, a clear round mirror? But steps lead down to water funny as jambu juice. We reach in up to our elbows; I drink so the water runs down my shirt.

Then, we’d run beyond the well to a neem tree, Durga’s tree. Sullen narrow leaves scatter soft yellow berries, sticky limbollis everywhere. We gather some in our pockets, suck on the hard seeds. The pulp tastes almost like sugar cane except for the slight bitterness each time I swallow.

Then, we’d roam beyond the neem tree, close to the tall hedge where a huge hibiscus sways thrumming throbbing with the hummingbird inside.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 23 II A Different History

A Different History

Great Pan is not dead; he simply emigrated to India. Here, the gods roam freely, disguised as snakes or monkeys; every tree is sacred and it is a sin to be rude to a book. It is a sin to shove a book aside with your foot, a sin to slam books down hard on a table, a sin to toss one carelessly across a room. You must learn how to turn the pages gently without disturbing Sarasvati, without offending the tree from whose wood the paper was made.

Which language has not been the oppressor’s tongue? Which language truly meant to murder someone? And how does it happen that after the torture, after the soul has been cropped with a long scythe swooping out of the conqueror’s face – the unborn grandchildren grow to love that strange language.

24 COLLECTED POEMS She Finds Her Place

Oh but he wanted a wife, Shileyko did – a wife, not a poet, so he burnt Anna’s poems in the samovar.

And I yelled at you when all you did was spill some tea (quite accidentally) over my poems.

Now outside in the snow I’m looking for the tallest pine tree, the one whose sly wisdom I need. Now outside in the snow I’m thinking of Anna. Over there it’s always dark. The sky if not grey, is black. The snow thigh high slowly grows waist deep. But the tall woman, her dark shawl pulled taut, walks on anyway. The tall woman walks alone, deeper into the woods among a crowd of trees she finds her place and looks at the moon as if it were her little sister finally come home.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 25 The Kama Sutra Retold

Then Roman Svirsky said, “it is illegal in Russia to write about sex so it is important for Vasily Aksyonov to write about it –”

You laugh, but I want to know how would we break the long silence if we had the same rules?

It’s not enough to say she kissed his balls, licked his cock long how her tongue could not stop.

For he thinks of the first day: she turns her head away as she takes off her T-shirt blue jeans, underwear, bra. She doesn’t even look at him until she’s in the lake, the clear water up to her neck yet unable to hide her skin.

They swim out to the islands but he doesn’t remember swimming; just brushing against her leg once, then diving down beneath her thighs staying underwater long enough for a good look, coming up for air and watching her black hair streaming back straight, then watching her step over the stones, out of the water.

26 COLLECTED POEMS She doesn’t know what to say. He wishes they were swans, Yeats’s swans would not need to speak but could always glide across other worlds; magical, yet rustling with real reeds.

The sun in her eyes so they move closer to the pine trees. When he touches her nipples he doesn’t know who is more surprised (years later he remembers that look, the way her eyes open wider). He’s surprised she wants him to kiss her nipples again and again because she’s only 17 he’s surprised her breasts are so full, She’s surprised it feels so good because he’s only 17 she’s surprised he can be so gentle yet so hard inside her, the way pine needles can soften the ground. Where does the ground end and she begin? She must have swallowed the sky the lake, and all the woods veined with amber brown pathways;

for now great white wings are swooping through her thighs, beating stronger up her chest, the beak stroking her spine feathers tingling her skin,

BRUNIZEM (1988) 27 the blood inside her groin swells

while wings are rushing to get out, rushing.

Wet, black, invisible-shadow-sheer from mulberry flavoured silk –

And he wanted his oysters served on these black stockings with open violets –

And he wanted dry dry wine with oysters on this invisible silk –

While outside, the hearts of Pacific waves that never return to the sea –

And as he drinks, Pacific froth lingers on salty on his cheeks and lips –

While the bridge breathes red and gold shadow silk strong and steady silk: red, gold, red –

And as he slips oysters in his mouth his lips turn gold: breathe red silk –

While outside, Pacific waves slap up, splashing legs, thighs, making wet these black stockings –

And he turns to the dry sheer dry wine, a soft sip after each silky oyster –

28 COLLECTED POEMS Parvati

If this myth is alive for me then why isn’t it for you? How does a myth stay alive? How many people does one need in order to keep a myth alive?

Do you know what it feels like to pick green tea leaves that grow on the other side of the path across from the guava trees – to pick green tea leaves moments before the water boils?

I don’t know why I turn to Parvati, daughter of the Himalayas – but I do. “Parvati, oh Parvati where is the mountain today, where did you take it away? Parvati oh Parvati, hide the tea leaves while they’re still growing – don’t let them come near Darjeeling.

Parvati why did you let Twinings take everything?

Parvati I must confess I like Twinings the best.

Do you wash your hair everyday? Do you have enough shikakai?”

In the first story she was taking a bath, washing her hair, becoming drowsy in the soft water, she was slow, she dawdled in order to regain all her energy all her shakti-fragrant self for Shiva.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 29 Those whose blood flows to the rhythm of om whose souls resound om, om, clear om, underwater om, om spontaneously without ever meaning to say it – That om caught Parvati and kept her alive, and keeps her always bathing always braiding her hair.

I must have breathed om, however accidentally, because Parvati stops me. We argue. Why should I fight with her? But I do. Why can’t she even protect the tea leaves?

Heathen. Pagan. Hindu. What does it mean, what is a pagan? Someone who worships fire? Someone who asks Parvati to account for the Industrial Revolution.

30 COLLECTED POEMS Looking Through a French Photographer’s Portrayal of Rajasthan with Extensive Use of Orange Filters

What has happened over here? Has the day turned orange? Or am I looking at these men through flames? Such loud crackling colours of wood, as if fifty warriors were burning on their funeral pyres, as if fifty widows were running in to join the saffron fire.

I am here on one side and the turbanned men are standing on the other side. They stand stiff jaws tight unaccustomed to watching someone take aim at their heads. Somehow they don’t notice the fire but look calmly beyond the flames to the horizon. And as I focus on their eyes I too begin to see the cacti sprouting in miles and miles of sand. As I follow their eyes I find footprints of men and camels leading to the sky.

Next the women tall and straight-backed odhanis draped over their heads the young girls with large brass pitchers balanced on their heads are on their way home from the well.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 31 Mirrors embroidered on peacock-green skirts are swinging around their ankles. Hurry, the women are moving briskly, their faces are turned away and the odhanis hide their profiles. There is also yellow fog or is it smoke? Orange mist hissing out of the bushes so I can not see the real sky.

Now here are some pictures of children playing. A boy laughing through yellow fog, tiger-coloured: his skin is gold, if gold could breathe. His eyes, black lakes with moons inside. The little girls of four and five in their short dresses squat so you see their white underwear. By the time they are ten their skirts are long enough to hide their thighs. Sometimes the men cannot help smiling at the little ones who walk up bold and curious, the children who gaze long at the camera.

32 COLLECTED POEMS Oranges and Lemons

The second time I came alone to say a farewell of sorts, I wanted one more look at her handwriting.

I was prepared for solitude, a floating amputated quietness circling my wrists – but not this song, not this

Oranges and lemons Sold for a penny All the schoolgirls Are so many…

They rush in breathless climbing up behind me, ahead of me, up the warehouse steep Dutch staircase to Anne Frank’s room. Schoolgirls, mostly schoolgirls ages 13–16, they whisper about the important things – staring everywhere: at windows, corners, the ceiling. Staring at the paper, her patient paper, her brown ink. And a few linger behind, preferring to squint through the netting, as if expecting something to happen down by the other houses, the trees –

The grass is green The rose is red Remember me When I am dead…

And a few linger behind, whispering about the important things.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 33 The Women of Leh are such – for Jürgen Dierking

The women of Leh are such – that one night over there, some 3,600 metres high, not far from Tibet, where the Zanskar glitters all day, and at night, the stars, not to be outdone, seem to grow larger, let themselves sink down closer to the mountains – while the moon always disappears by midnight, cut off by the horizon, always on the other side of some huge rock – one night in that place I dreamt and I saw Gertrude Stein selling horseradishes and carrots. There was no mistaking those shoulders – but she fit in so well with her looking-straight-at-you eyes. And yet, even the traditional Ladakhi hat she wore could not disguise her face. She said jooley to my jooley with the others, all lined up along the main street – she slapped the head of a hungry rowdily exploring dzo and I walked back, several times, back and forth, pretending I couldn’t decide what to buy. Then she turned aside to talk with the tomato seller, still keeping an eye on the dzo – it was hard to believe but there was no mistaking that poise.

34 COLLECTED POEMS Paper and Glass

Kite-paper-blue sky and the inky blue sea can’t stand it, sloshes up, spills on, spits at and shreds the paper sky. And the sky droops down, drags in the anger spinning sea. And I watch dizzy with dreams of you. Dizzy, for there’s nothing to drink.

At first, I feared snakes. But there are only skeletons of fish, slivers of glass and seashells. Seaweed dries fast, turning feathery, then leaping up to catch the wind.

I grow dizzy without fresh water, without you, I simply watch dolphins zig-zagging stitching the horizon in place.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 35 Another Act for the Lübecker Totentanz

Bubble gum pink, rubber duck pink tulips with petals half-open like perfect page-boys with petals that never fully opened – so what a relief when after an entire week they finally begin to wither.

At first a slow spiralling out, a violet streaking through then, a rush of coiling tentacles in every direction – maroon and blue fur, furry orange stamens fermenting peat with basil and thyme fragrance difficult to breathe maroon powdery furry fragrance. Not tulips anymore, not even dying tulips but giant snapdragons gone haywire, angry starfish trying to hatch something different.

36 COLLECTED POEMS What Is Worth Knowing?

That Van Gogh’s ear, set free wanted to meet the powerful nose of Nevsky Avenue. That Spain has decided to help NATO. That Spring is supposed to begin on the 21st of March. That if you put too much salt in the keema just add a few bananas. That although the Dutch were the first to help the people of Nicaragua they don’t say much about their history with Indonesia. That Van Gogh collected Japanese prints. That the Japanese considered the Dutch to be red-haired barbarians. That Van Gogh’s ear remains full of questions it wants to ask the nose of Nevsky Avenue. That the vaccinations for cholera, typhoid and yellow fever are no good – they must be improved. That red, green and yellow are the most auspicious colours. That turmeric and chilli powder are good disinfectants. Yellow and red. That often Spring doesn’t come until May. But in some places it’s there in January. That Van Gogh’s ear left him because it wanted to become a snail. That east and west meet only in the north and south – but never in the east or west. That in March 1986 Darwinism is being reintroduced in American schools. That there’s a difference between pigeons and doves, although a ring-dove is a wood-pigeon. That the most pleasant thing is to have a fever of at least 101 – because then the dreams aren’t merely dreams but facts.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 37 That during a fever the soul comes out for fresh air, that during a fever the soul bothers to speak to you. That tigers are courageous and generous-hearted and never attack unless provoked – but leopards, leopards are malicious and bad-tempered. That buffaloes too, water-buffaloes that is, have a short temper. That a red sky at night is a good sign for sailors, for sailors… what is worth knowing? What is worth knowing?

38 COLLECTED POEMS Another Day in Iowa City for Andrei Voznesensky

“My father’s been to your country,” I begin – But you interrupt, saying you want to go to India… while I wonder how your shirt is the same blue as the blue dresses painted on the glossy wooden Russian dolls my father brought home one day.

Your shirt brought back memories of my mother angry at the government for sending all our bananas to Russia. Sturdy memories of Russian dolls and no bananas – no bananas but Russian dolls, one inside the other endlessly – and the last doll, always my favourite, a hard seed, a bright secret that would never open although I could look through those small small black eyes.

Tonight how I focused on your shirt, your emphatic hands. How I listened to you with snow falling, with snow covering all the tired hoof-prints in my soul I can not explain – and my noisy dreams of Akaky Akakyvich searching for his overcoat would make you laugh.

There’s no way I could’ve told you all this in public, in ten how-do-you-do minutes.

So later, when you paused to ask me: “Don’t you want to visit my country?” with such questioning sadness – I was ready to take off my shoes, ready to jump out of the car, let’s go, I wanted to say, let’s go for a walk, let’s go for a swim, let’s take the next flight out of here.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 39 Living with Trains

Wherever I go there are trains burning through my fingers.

These are the days of green light, insane lime green.

First there’s the hot silence on railroad tracks just after the train has whistled by rushing on.

And the lime-green light is tangled and woven through the train’s whistle.

That’s the silence I want between my eyes.

Then there’s the smell of old trains, old metal, old narrow tracks, heavy male sweat and that smell of tar and coals burning rubber and matches that go into the smell of this train’s whistle on lime green hours.

That’s the smell creeping into my silences.

Then there’s the hushed riddle of old towns, the names don’t matter but try to choose a continent where the trains are still themselves.

On summer nights the train’s whistle wants to make you sooty wants to make a sooty dance through your silence.

Can’t you take the soot, don’t you like this soot?

Well, have some sooty birds and some sooty water too. Don’t misunderstand, I used to climb the rooftops balancing on the burning noon shingles just to watch the trains go by. The soot on my eyelids elegant as piano black.

Elegant as a dance of lithe black sheep dogs, young sprigs and sharp teeth through insane lime green.

40 COLLECTED POEMS Wherever I go there are trains burning through my fingers.

Those wooden benches in the second class compartment grimy with soot and sweat and filled with the tired smell of hungry children. That’s the noise rushing beneath my eyelids. And the train’s whistle is tangled and woven through.

What is this sound this colour this smell that cuts up my feet? Walking along the tracks forever for no reason.

How can the smell of tar be so comforting? And the noise of wheels on tracks and sun on tracks and sharp cinders slapped through wind loving windows.

And this train, this Deccan Queen leans into the mountain leans lullabying into my brain. Lanterns flashing fireflies whistling on deeper into the mountain spiralling up through my brain.

Wherever I go there are trains burning through my fingers.

Children running up and down the train screaming while the train slid through caves, rocking and slipping down and the train scream darkening while children run up and down.

Then Aaji was waiting at the station with fresh ivory-coloured milk in a real milk can. We had to change tracks, get on another train but we drank the milk in sleepy gulps on the empty dawn platform while trains gurgled and wheels sneezed and whistles curled up mute and tight.

All afternoon we counted telephone poles and mango trees and crows. And the children selling berries: jambus and bors at the village stations. All afternoon we counted the stations.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 41 It was in East Berlin that all the trains reminded me of all the trains in India. Old wood, old paint, old tracks drumming against wheels.

And the whole time I wanted to take photographs (forbidden) of these railway stations. Later as we stared at the cemented land it grew dark, the wind kicked slowly and the trees on Unter den Linden smelled of 1966 Ahmedabad.

We turned sniffing, sniffing, surprised and circling the wind until I jumped to grab some Linden leaves.

Aaji, in my dreams why do you still walk along the old railroad tracks by the Ahmedabad textile mill holding my mother’s hand?

42 COLLECTED POEMS Baltimore

I’m still living in that evening when the air around the bushes was greyish purple, the hedges drooping like thirsty blood-hounds – no flowers, nothing lovely as I walked and walked, the dry grass choking and rasping, poked through my sandals, here and there a few green lawns. Well now it’s summer I thought, so let me do something new I thought. There was nothing lovely,

then the fireflies swirled out, lime and mustard sparks streaking only the lucky blades of grass.

For the rest of that summer I waited for everything – the rest of that summer spiralled into one dry evening; the rest of that summer I understood less and less while loving Kierkegaard more and more and waiting, always waiting for something that should be, something I wanted to be as sudden as fireflies.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 43 The Woodcut

For days I touch the block of pine wood, pressing its hard edge against my forehead.

Uncertain for days while it rains I walk through wet pine needles. Water-softened pine cones flatten under my feet.

I follow the crooked wrenched roots, past torn clumps of moss, blue-grey feathers, white wisps of cat fur, and everywhere the sticky leaves, yellow leaves like the sliced skin of frogs cover fallen logs, cover a squirrel’s skull.

For days I touch the block of pine wood, pressing its hard edge between my breasts.

Then remembering your harshness

I cut the first quick stroke sharp in the wood.

44 COLLECTED POEMS The Puppets for Yeats, Hannes and Jutta

The puppets on every window-sill, every shelf in the puppet-maker’s house are waiting patiently, urgently, they’re thinking of the cradle – especially the two in the corner, the woman growing out of and in to the honest-looking man who stands like a great wave, a great snake’s hood behind her. This miracle they’ve seen before about to be repeated, this miracle they’ve tried to follow in their minds… for the first time they feel trapped. If only the skin around their souls would tear open. They’re not afraid of the splinters, the chipped paint – because wood-groans, like whale sounds, already move deep through their whorls. If only they could follow the miracle with more than their minds, with more than memories of watery roots with more than the patience or wisdom that came with metamorphosis with more than following, more than copying the puppet-maker and his wife – No. They must find their own miracle.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 45 Pink Shrimps and Guesses

Hey, are you there already, already am I your mother?

Today I tried to imagine your nose, your eyebrows, the shape your legs will take. Whether you’ll climb trees easily, whether you’ll cry easily.

Today I wanted you to talk to me. Tell me what you want. Tell me, because I don’t know. Give me a hint at least. When I look at the sky can you smell the birds? When I slip does your heart beat faster? Do you like red peppers? When I hear the birds can you taste the sun on their feathers? Tell me what you want. Shall we meet face to face in nine months, shall we? Or would you rather forget about it? I want to ask you how it feels in there. Do you mind if I run, what are you thinking, do my dreams keep you awake, do I taste good already, can you trust me?

46 COLLECTED POEMS Looking Over What I Have Done

I am kind to some of these poems only because I wrote them when you were still here.

Hey,

your photographs of Indian temples are incomplete. Where’s that man I saw every day laughing at the clean Brahmin’s children who were afraid of him? Where’s that man with the swollen elephant leg who sits by the pillar crawling with gods and flies?

BRUNIZEM (1988) 47 Search For My Tongue

Days my tongue slips away. I can’t hold on to my tongue. It’s slippery like the lizard’s tail I try to grasp but the lizard darts away.

(mari jeebh sarki jai chay) I can’t speak. I speak nothing. Nothing.

(kai nahi, hoo nathi boli shakti.) I search for my tongue.

(parantu kya shodhu? Kya?)

(hoo dhodti dhodti jaoo choo.) But where should I start? Where? I go running, running,

(nadi keenayray pohchee choo, nadi keenayray.) reach the river’s edge. Silence

(akedum shant.)

(neechay pani nahi, oopur pakshi nahi.) Below, the riverbed is dry. Above, the sky is empty: no clouds, no birds. If there were leaves, or even grass they would not stir today, for there is no breeze. If there were clouds then, it might rain.

48 COLLECTED POEMS (jo vadal hoat toh kadach varsad aavay,)

(jo varsad puday toh nadi pachee aavay,)

(jo nadi hoy, jo pani hoy, toh kaeek leelu leelu daykhai.) If the rains fell then the river might return, if the water rose again I might see something green at first, then trees enough to fill a forest. If there were some clouds that is.

(jo vadla hoat toh.) Since I have lost my tongue I can only imagine there is something crawling beneath the rocks, now burrowing down into the earth when I lift the rock.

(jyaray patther oopadu) The rock is in my hand, and the dry moss stuck on the rock prickles my palm. I let it drop for I must find my tongue. I know it can’t be here in this dry riverbed. My tongue can only be where there is water.

(pani, pani,)

(hujee yad chay paylee chokri.)

(“thunda pani, meetha pani,” bolti bolti aavti.)

BRUNIZEM (1988) 49 (mathay kallu matlu, hathma pittulno pyalo.)

(oobhaylee gaadi baju aavti.)

(bari taraf hath lumbaveenay pani aapti.)

(unay hoo, ateeshay tarsi,)

(mota mota ghuntada layti pee jati.)

. (hujee yad chay paylee chokri.) Even water is scarce. There was a little girl who carried a black clay pitcher on her head, who sold water at the train station. She filled her brass cup with water, stretched out her arm to me, reached up to the window, up to me leaning out the window from the train, but I can’t think of her in English.

You ask me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue. I ask you, what would you do if you had two tongues in your mouth, and lost the first one, the mother tongue, and could not really know the other, the foreign tongue. You could not use them both together even if you thought that way. And if you lived in a place you had to speak a foreign tongue, your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth

50 COLLECTED POEMS until you had to spit it out. I thought I spit it out but overnight while I dream,

(munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha,)

(may thoonky nakhi chay.)

(parantoo rattray svupnama mari bhasha pachi aavay chay.)

(foolnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh)

(modhama kheelay chay.)

(fulllnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh)

(modhama pakay chay.) it grows back, a stump of a shoot grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins, it ties the other tongue in knots, the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth, it pushes the other tongue aside. Everytime I think I’ve forgotten, I think I’ve lost the mother tongue, it blossoms out of my mouth. Days I try to think in English: I look up,

(paylo kallo kagdo)

(oodto oodto jai, huhvay jzaday pohchay,)

(ainee chanchma kaeek chay.) the crow has something in his beak. When I look up

BRUNIZEM (1988) 51 I think:

(aakash, suraj) and then: sky, sun. Don’t tell me it’s the same, I know better. To think of the sky is to think of dark clouds bringing snow, the first snow is always on Thanksgiving. But to think:

(aakash, aasman, aabh.)

(mathay mota kalla kagda ooday.)

(kagdanay mathay suraj, rojéroj suraj.)

(akepun vadul nahi, atelay varsad nahi,)

(atelay anaj nahi, atelay rotli nahi,)

(dal bhat shak nahi, kai nahi, kooch bhi nahi,)

(matra kagda, kalla kagda.) Overhead, large black crows fly. Over the crows, the sun, always the sun, not a single cloud which means no rain, which means no wheat, no rice, no greens, no bread. Nothing. Only crows, black crows. And yet, the humid June air, the stormiest sky in Connecticut can never be

(aakash)

52 COLLECTED POEMS (chomasama jyaray varsad aavay)

(aakhee raat aakho dee varsad puday, vijli jai,)

(jyaray ma rasodama gheenay deevay rotli vanti)

(shak halavti)

(Ravindrasangeet gaati gaati)

(saonay bolavti) the monsoon sky giving rain all night, all day, lightning, the electricity goes out, we light the cotton wicks in butter: candles in brass. And my mother in the kitchen, my mother singing:

, ... (mon mor megher shungay, ooday cholay dikdigontair panay…) I can’t hear my mother in English.

III

In the middle of Maryland you send me a tape-recording saying (“huhvay aa ake vat toh kahveej padshay,)

(bhalaynay bahr kootra bhasay, bhalay dhobi aavay,)

(bhalay shakvali aavay, maray aa vat toh kahveej padshay.)

BRUNIZEM (1988) 53 (bhalay tapali aavay, bhalay kagda kaw kaw karay,)

(bhalay rickshano avaj aavay,)

(maray tanay aa vat toh kahveej padshay.”) You talk to me, you say my name the way it should be said, apologising for the dogs barking outside for the laundryman knocking on the door, apologising because the woman selling eggplants is crying door to door (reengna, reengna) But do you know how I miss that old woman, crying (reengna, reengna)? It’s all right if the pedlar’s brass bells ring out, I miss them too. You talk louder, the mailman comes, knocking louder, the crows caw-caw-cawing outside, the rickshaw’s motor put-put-puttering.

You say (Sujubahen, huhvay tamaray matay tabla vagadu choo.) you say: listen to the tablas, listen:

(dha dhin dhin dha)

(dha dhin dhin dha) listen (dha dhin dhin dha)

(dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhin)

54 COLLECTED POEMS (dha dhin dhin dha)

(dhinaka dhinaka dhinaka dhinaka)

(dha dhin dhin dha)

(dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhin)

I listen I listen I listen

(dha dhin dhin dha)

I hear you I hear you

(dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhinaka dhinaka dhin) listen listen listen Today I played your tape over and over again

(dha dhin dhin dha)

(dhinaka dhinaka dha)

I can’t (dha)

I can’t forget I can’t forget

(dha dhin dhin dha)

BRUNIZEM (1988) 55 III Eurydice Speaks

Marie Curie to Her Husband

The equations are luminous now. They glimmer across my page, across the walls across the pillow where your forehead should be. You would’ve smiled at the shape of your graph which I completed test tube by test tube. You’ve managed to slip inside me, managed to curl your length tightly within my chest. I want to remind you of periwinkles, narcissus, wisteria, iris, laburnum; the cows that plodded over to sniff, the handlebars we clutched while bicycling past so many trees, so many skies and grasses. Reaching shelter in the dark, each night we’d go inspect our magic lights, glowing hot yellow and green, yellow and blue, caught in rows and rows of bottles. I now crave grey, crave rain: days like the one that killed you keep me in the laboratory and the lecture halls. Pierre, this afternoon at one thirty I continued your lecture at the Sorbonne. This afternoon you tossed around in my chest. Your beard streamed in my veins, my blood. You thrashed, your legs knocking against my ribs while I analysed the progress that has been made in physics. But at night, I still count in Polish.

56 COLLECTED POEMS The Garlic of Truth

(cham cham vaghar)

(rai methi lasann gheema ladta ladta ladhaai…) Mustard seeds popping in hot butter, crushed garlic whispering urgent, pungent messages while fenugreek seeds help amber the butter. Today I use a wooden spoon turmeric stained, we let the garlic take over the house before opening the windows. Let the mustard seeds fly as far as they dare – days later we might find some on the sofa. Days later the roof will wake up breathing garlic.

(cham cham vaghar)

(rai methi lasann gheema ladta ladta ladhaai…) The crooked insect broke its legs inside my ear while ma strained garlic pulp out of the herbal oil before she poured it warm-thickly down my ear and put me to dream with sleep. Oh that sleep with garlicked oil in my ear gave me such dreamy truth, such truthful dreams.

Once upon a time, truth stood with a capital ‘T’ like this: Truth. When people laughed the ‘T’ slumped and wished it were part of an undiscovered tiger instead. Not that anyone knew what it meant: Truth or truth, big deal.

Thatched roof, peat smell all the way down my shirt. If there were thoughts

BRUNIZEM (1988) 57 in my head I didn’t know it. Bicycle wheels want to try forever. Indigoed wet bog-land light, the same light curled inside my hair, the same light beneath the cow’s tongue.

Prayag swallows a clove of garlic every day. A single clove every day a strong crescent… but this may not work for you.

And Truth went indigo with the clouds, and Truth went inside the smoking peat that didn’t finish burning.

Don’t you need more garlic? But this can’t be enough! Oh let me peel some more ‘cause I’m itching to take off all the rice paper cocoon skins because now I’m in the mood to sliver garlic slices all day.

So this is the land and this is the light I described so precisely five years ago without once seeing it. And here is the North Sea to make sure I stay surprised.

Paula Becker would you have dared to try garlic?

The true Jains, the true Brahmins, the orthodox-orthodox prefer truth without garlic.

But you funny how you got such pleasure after work, shoes off, no shirt, chopping up garlic while listening to the news while I kneaded chapati dough…

58 COLLECTED POEMS Wanting Agni

She lies beneath marigolds, tulsi, roses and roses beneath the shade of a neem tree whose leaves have fallen over the roses over her – Then, it’s time she’s carried out on a bed of bamboo: a kathi that’s more like a crooked ladder. The roses and roses and neem leaves still scattered over her – By now she’s just like dry wood, her long straight legs the same neem-wood colour and her heart which is beginning to smell, is turning dark, is turning into the neem-bitter-sour smell.

There are six young men with thick hair always falling in their eyes, six young men with enough muscle to please who carry the kathi high on their shoulders. So high that I don’t even see her white sari bundled up shape underneath which she is becoming neem, neem green and brown.

Not allowed to watch I watched thinking, that’s how I want to leave one day.

The six young men keep walking beyond the neem trees, beyond the trails into some open and useless field. They keep walking with their heads held still and high despite all the hair falling into their eyes. They walk a rocking smooth and lilting walk, an elephant rolling walk that cradles her as she turns into the smell of neem trees.

Not allowed to follow I followed thinking, that’s how I want to become one day.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 59 2

If they want to bury me my scalp will be afraid, if they do an autopsy my soul will be stuck in the fluorescent lights watching watching with hydrochloric acid-shame and embarrassment. But if I’m taken away on bamboo and roses and neem and placed on more wood then Agni, the good god of fire will come rushing towards me, laughing as if tickled by all the saffron. The same Agni who would not touch the fire-strong and pure Sita, returns again and again – The same Agni, worshipped by prostitutes in Bombay as they cleanse themselves, leaping over flames between customers – That Agni returns again and again even for me.

I came to look at Paula Becker’s grave but spent more time staring down at a freshly dug-up pit, a new hole waiting for someone. You said you want to be buried further north, close to the sea. I said nothing but tried to think of the most beautiful – a delicately cut, licked and embroidered by moonflowers and sunflowers gravestone for you.

It’s when I walk past graveyards and walk through graveyards or when I see peat preserved humans in books and museums that I long for the neem trees of Poona the fresh bitter green and salt smell sometimes just like the smell on the wet hair under your arms – yes the warm hair behind your ears smells

60 COLLECTED POEMS of neem after I kiss you there and there and pull you deep inside there where you and I begin to smell of crushed neem leaves. So the tall gravestones insisting that we pause a little make me stop and wish for a neem tree, and wish I’ll burn with fragrant wood – these tall gravestones make me look at the trees.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 61 Eurydice Speaks

Orpheus, I tell you I’m not in hell, this place is called Maine. All winter the cold wind burns my face, and I sweat, wading through all this snow. But it’s spring now: sounds of snow melting, water dripping off eaves, flooding crocuses and jack-in-the-pulpits. Pussy willows, cattails, forsythia suddenly awaken junipers tipped with pale new shoots. The wind flings pine cones my way. Now walking along the coast I follow seagulls with my camera, seagulls skimming waves and I focus on their bills in the foaming water, they dip their bills, I focus, they rise with limp silver flashing in the sun as others come swooping down, I turn circling with my camera while waves rise and crash upon rocks flinging salty seaweed and mollusks; chipping seashells upon cliffs waves crash and leave small pools of fish stranded… Orpheus, I want to stay here with the smooth pebbles, I want to stay here, at the ocean’s edge I have found someone new – no god, but a quiet man who listens.

62 COLLECTED POEMS Mein lieber Schwan

Everyone must keep away – don’t come too close, don’t touch it because your fingers are too thick. Your blistered fingers will snarl the silken eyelids smudge the colours, smear the light, your sweaty fingers will suffocate the gently breathing idea. So Psyche learned, so Elsa learned.

Psyche, Elsa – I see them long-necked, long-haired and quite fed up – ready to change into rivers, birds, anything ready to look for a new country, anything to keep from turning around with questioning hands, always moving as if they were swimming as if the wind were constantly blowing around them.

Psyche, Elsa – They who were most unconscious as if their minds were overflowing with truth, they who seemed to have no questions couldn’t help probing

just as young Wagner sincere anarchist, yes Wagner, a sincere anarchist, dreamed of one nation bound with violins curled around trumpets curled around young white necks curled around thick swords curled around blue ribbons, red roses, and feathers, feathers to cushion every fall.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 63 Written after Hearing about the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

Here, a child born in winter rarely survives. Bibi Jamal’s son died. She pounds hard dough, kneads in yak milk, quickly kneads in fat, rolls the dough out round and flat. Her older co-wife cooks the bread. Bibi Jamal can’t speak of it yet.

It’s cold enough. Birds have come inside. Her co-wife sleeps, thick feet by the fire in the yurt’s centre. On the fire’s other side Bibi Jamal weaves diagrams of Darjeeling into a carpet: Hills sprouting tea leaves, rivers in froth down mountains, and there must be red, she feels, red skirts flowing through fields, ripe pomegranates broken open in some garden. With such green with such blue Himalayan sky there’s always red.

Nothing like the granite, treeless mountains she knows.

Bibi Jamal’s thread never breaks, even as she dreams of Darjeeling. And her husband, already on the Hindu Kush, doesn’t know how her breasts ache with milk.

She can include his voice slicing through miserable gusts; caravanserai well-water strawberry on his tongue. So she listens: snow visits,

64 COLLECTED POEMS her husband pitches his black tent. She spots nearby a slouched snow leopard. It moves, makes her jump, stops for a minute, noses the air, steals away through sharp sword grass. Her husband remains safe in his black tent. He’ll be beyond the Khyber pass soon. She draws green thread through her fingers.

What do you know of Bibi Jamal? Her husband, napalmed, ran burning across the rocks. Crisp shreds of skin, a piece of his turban, a piece of his skull were delivered to her. She only stared, didn’t understand, muttered, “Allah Allah Allah Allah is great. But, where is my husband? Allah Allah Allah.” She’ll ask you when she understands.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 65 3 November 1984

I won’t buy The New York Times today. I can’t. I’m sorry. But when I walk into the bookstore I can’t help reading the front page and I stare at the photographs of dead men and women I know I’ve seen alive.

Today I don’t want to think of Hindus cutting open Sikhs – and Sikhs cutting open Hindus – and Hindus cutting open

Today I don’t want to think of Amrit and Arun and Gunwant Singh, nor of Falguni and Kalyan.

I’ve made up my mind: today I’ll write in peacock-greenish-sea-green ink I’ll write poems about everything else. I’ll think of the five Americans who made it to Annapurna without Sherpa help. I won’t think of haemorrhageing trains I’ll get my homework done.

Now instead of completing this poem I’m drawing imlee fronds all over this page and thinking of Amrit when we were six beneath the imlee tree his long hair just washed just as long as my hair just washed. Our mothers sent us outside in the sun to play, to dry our hair. Now instead of completing this poem I’m thinking of Amrit.

66 COLLECTED POEMS You Walk into This Room and

Look how you turned on the ceiling fan – it’s too high, see how it shakes and trembles. You walk into this room with your hot ideas and the ceiling fan has to work harder to cool down the room for us. You walk into this room with your crazy eyes and the ceiling fan wants to fly loose. It dreams of becoming a spider lily.

Mappelmus

How I enjoyed missing you today walking through the rain and not wanting an umbrella through puddles and slushing yes, sliding through Mappelmus how I enjoyed missing you today while drinking tea and washing out pantyhose – everything and I the colour of Mappelmus. Come back soon but how I enjoyed missing you today.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 67 The Undertow

There are at least three languages between us. And the common space, the common dream-sound is far out at sea. There’s a certain spot, dark far out where the waves sleep there’s a certain spot we always focus on, and the three languages are there swimming like seals fat with fish and sun they smile, the three languages understand each other so well.

We stand watching, jealous of the three languages, wishing we could swim so easily. But the waves keep us back, the undertow threatens; so we take one word at a time. Take ‘dog’ for example,

(kootro) in Gujarati, Köter in Low German Hund in High German, like hound in English.

Dog (kootro) Köter Hund

hound dog Köter (kootro)

(kootro kootro kootro)

The waves come chasing the dogs on the beach the waves come flooding the streets listen to the seals swimming through the bookstores, listen the words spill together,

68 COLLECTED POEMS the common sounds:

kö kh ga sh ksh ß spill together

spill together filling our shoes, filling our love with salt.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 69 At the Marketplace

Look at the young jade-coloured artichokes! Shall we have some for dinner? Yes? No? But wait. Look, there’s fish in the next stall – Oh to eat raw fish and raw onions and fresh lemon juice and more raw fish – juicy salt. Eating raw fish it doesn’t matter if it’s raining – cold, and the umbrella is blown aside – Eating raw fish makes you feel like a mermaid through your legs – Juicy salt. I always crave sea salt, sour salt, strong eel salt.

Now there are purple sea horses all over her and she is becoming a mermaid with artichoke skin. Purple sea horses that he branded last night – on her neck, shoulders, thighs: acrobatic purple, elegant tattoo tails plunging deep into eel salt. Sea horses are sucking on her salt and she is talking like a mermaid, reasoning like a mermaid; sea horses growing fuller and dark fat purple and she eats another raw herring, swallowing like a mermaid.

70 COLLECTED POEMS Metamorphoses II: A Dream for Eleanor Wilner

Deep in the forests of New England: Vermont, Maine? Somewhere over there I lost the trail and wandered all day. I circled around and around the hills. Then, late in the afternoon, the woods suddenly gave way to a garden and a house.

As I knocked on the door it opened to a dark hallway which led to a room, marigold bright with the afternoon sun. And there was a woman in the middle of the room surrounded by silk: the green of grasshoppers at dawn, the dun of horses and hay beneath a blue hyacinth sky.

She sat hunched over her work. The room, hushed, as if in awe of her concentration. And oh how the needle moved like some delicate silver fish it rushed swiftly through the waves in her hands. I lingered by the doorway, watching, not wanting to disturb her.

She weaves branches that move with the shadows of birds. Evergreen woods and ferns: long fronds softly stir and nudge lupine, moist fronds invite a worm to seek a home in there while acorns the colour of acorns roll down the hills of her tapestries.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 71 Suddenly she looked up and smiled as if she knew I’d be coming. For a long time I sat beside her watching, listening to the mysterious silk which cannot be torn. Watching it soft as a newborn animal’s naked skin come alive in her hands; everything breathes in the tapestry and someone whispers.

When I looked up again I could see moths fluttering against the window-pane. “It is late,” she said as we gathered up the silk “but you must come back tomorrow.”

The second day she led me to her garden. Beyond the familiar azalea and blue phlox, the gooseberries and mulberries, beyond the apple trees there were tall vines weighed down with golden eggplants. Dark blue cauliflowers fanning their elephant-ear leaves against slender red asparagus, orange lettuce, and oh, the bell peppers had grown long white beards. I stood there amazed while she said: “Come look at the flowers growing beside the pond. There’s something in the water over here that makes them good to eat.”

How can I describe this flower? Some strange mix of lotus and rose: The stem, poised like a dancer waiting for the music to begin. Leaves of a rose, only larger. The thorns, longer

72 COLLECTED POEMS to match the sturdy lotus stalk, and the flower the size of a woman’s head slightly raised, petals open.

I, too, stood waiting for the music to begin, but she said “come on”, pulling me along as she filled a wide basket she put into my hands. Then, in the kitchen, she brought out her knife, (the blade a blur of silver) she cut these fruits into perfect circles, triangles, ovals, hexagons – explaining how each one had to be cut a certain way because if it’s cut the wrong way it won’t nourish us as well. And then she showed me how to remove the petals, enormous, from the lotus-rose. And how to serve wild black rice: caviar from the earth on a bed of purple-red petals.

Now each day I climb through the woods to visit her. The path I make slowly grows more visible. Each day I learn how to hold the threads of silk: taut yet slack enough for a supple weave. And when our eyes tire towards dusk, we go outside and water that garden infused with the lotus-rose.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 73 Saturday Night on Keswick Road

The children outside my window are now louder than the traffic. Motorbikes race by but the children laugh louder.

Inside I’m trying to read, inside a freight train has fallen over the cliffs and now burns. Does not stop burning. The trees are also burning with my cargo. I can smell the sweet green wood turn black while I’m trying to read the smoke hides the words still, I’m trying to read.

But the children, the children, their voices blow the cinders away from my stinging eyes, keep the rest of the mountain from burning.

74 COLLECTED POEMS The Writer

The best story, of course, is the one you can’t write, you won’t write. It’s something that can only live in your heart, not on paper.

Paper is dry, flat. Where is the soil for the roots, and how do I lift out entire trees, a whole forest from the earth of the spirit and transplant it on paper without disturbing the birds?

And what about the mountain on which this forest grows? The waterfalls making rivers, rivers with throngs of trees elbowing each other aside to have a look at the fish.

Beneath the fish there are clouds. Here, the sky ripples, the river thunders. How would things move on paper?

Now watch the way the tigers’ walking shreds the paper.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 75 Sad Songs with Henna Leaves

Sing me sad songs and I’ll be happy sing me happy songs and I’ll be sad; give me good-luck and I’ll want to die give me bad-luck and I’ll live.

But I try to follow the Bhagavad Gita where it says: Become like the turtle. When it is time to work, use your eyes to see and your ears to hear. When your work is finished, withdraw your senses and turn within.

But how can I when the lines in my palms are getting deeper, sharper, as if someone comes everyday and secretly, bloodlessly, goes over them with a knife. The lines in my palms are getting deeper as if that means anything – What do I believe? How can I say that the patterns in my palms mean more than they mean?

Sometimes, we understand this world through (dukkha) – Sanskrit word, Pali word,

meaning sorrow

meaning suffering, misery,

meaning pain –

So Gautama Buddha said.

But also decorates her palms, colours my palms

76 COLLECTED POEMS with tiny henna leaves – dark red-veined brown tendrils bind my fingers.

even comes smelling of hot chapatis

and water sprinkled on dusty stones.

Tail

Meaningless black marks cover my page, they stretch and grow into a cat.

The cat demands trees, a whole forest of wood to sharpen her claws, and squirrels.

Black marks twist into branches, tiny buds dot the twigs. Three squirrels swirl up the trunk of an Oak. The cat pretends her eyes are blind stones, pretends she is a stone among stones. The squirrels know and refuse to come out. Then, it starts snowing slowly softly large flakes begin covering the black marks.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 77 Go to Ahmedabad

Go walk the streets of Baroda, go to Ahmedabad, go breathe the dust until you choke and get sick with a fever no doctor’s heard of. Don’t ask me for I will tell you nothing about hunger and suffering.

As a girl I learned never to turn anyone away from our door. Ma told me give fresh water, good food, nothing you wouldn’t eat. Hunger is when your mother tells you years later in America the doctor says she is malnourished, her bones are weak because there was never enough food for the children, hers and the women who came to our door with theirs. The children must always be fed. Hunger is when your mother is sick in America because she wanted you to eat well. Hunger is when you walk down the streets of Ahmedabad and instead of handing out coins to everyone you give them tomatoes, cucumbers, and go home with your mouth tasting of burnt eucalyptus leaves because you’ve lost your appetite. And yet, I say nothing about hunger, nothing.

78 COLLECTED POEMS I have friends everywhere. This time we met after ten years. Someone died. Someone got married. Someone just had a baby. And I hold the baby because he’s crying, because there’s a strange rash all over his chest. And my friend says do you have a child? Why not? When will you get married? And the bus arrives crowded with people hanging out the doors and windows. And her baby cries in my arms, cries so an old man wakes up and yells at me: How could I let my child get so sick? Luckily, just then someone tells a good joke.

I have friends everywhere. This time we met after ten years. And suffering is when I walk around Ahmedabad for this is the place I always loved this is the place I always hated for this is the place I can never be at home in this is the place I will always be at home in. Suffering is when I’m in Ahmedabad after ten years and I learn for the first time I will never choose

BRUNIZEM (1988) 79 to live here. Suffering is living in America and not being able to write a damn thing about it. Suffering is not for me to tell you about.

Go walk the streets of Baroda, go to Ahmedabad and step around the cow dung but don’t forget to look at the sky. It’s special in January, you’ll never see kites like these again. Go meet the people if you can and if you want to know about hunger, about suffering, go live it for yourself. When there’s an epidemic, when the doctor says your brother may die soon, your father may die soon – don’t ask me how it feels. It does not feel good. That’s why we make tea with tulsi leaves, that’s why there’s always someone who knows a good story.

80 COLLECTED POEMS To My Muse

Come on, take off your turban, let’s lie in this field of tall grass; come on, take off your turban, cover me with your softly flowing hair, your long beard, let’s sleep face to face, mouth to mouth in this field of yellow, violet veined flowers, open-mouthed flowers. Let’s sleep deep within this tangled field.

“And the poems?” you ask. I don’t know, I let them go as they please. Some have turned into water, the water that rains down every monsoon, the water that turns the earth green every year. “The poems?” you wonder. Yes, some have turned into water. Others, thick clusters of green bamboo rain drenched the slender shoots, the long leaves so wet and the ground reddish brown earthworms swollen with rain water coil and uncoil, twist and reel in the mud beneath the bamboo green.

And oh, how the wind comes to dance with the bamboo stalks, how the wind comes to sing with the bamboo leaves.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 81 Listen, sounds almost like the rustle of Mysore silk. Listen rustling somewhere maybe a woman in Mysore silk is swirling faster, and faster her sari billows out while the bamboo tops nod yes, yes.

Come on, take off your turban, and I’ll comb out your hair. “But the poems?” you insist. I don’t know I let them grow as they please. Wanting the bamboo forest, thick the stalks, tall wanting them green enough, strong enough for the wind – even Krishna, Dionysus’s older brother, understood, Even Krishna-Govind-Govind-Gopal said he wouldn’t cut a single stem for his flute.

82 COLLECTED POEMS Brunizem for Michael

Brunizem, I say and brummagem. I have the jack of hearts in my pocket – yes he was waiting for me on a shelf in a thrift shop. But he is more than the jack of hearts and he kissed me. I still keep the card in my pocket. Brummagem, I say and brunizem.

The other night I dreamt English was my middle name. And I cried, telling my mother “I don’t want English to be my middle name. Can’t you change it to something else?” “Go read the dictionary.” She said.

I’ve been meaning not to mean anything for once. I just want to say, “brunizem!” I feel brunizem when this man kisses me I want to learn another language.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 83 Well, Well, Well,

How can I tell you about it without using those words again? I need words like witch, power, maybe even gypsy – I don’t know. But I need witch. Will you grant me that?

Blood-salty egg yolks soft boiled 3 minutes, the colour of Africa on my wall map.

These mornings it takes 5 minutes to figure out where I am.

Sometimes bone marrow is pure. Pure and innocent and clean. Sometimes bone marrow is delicious. Delicious and pure and innocent. They taught the 4-year-old girl to suck out the young goat’s fresh marrow. After that she refused to sleep alone.

When night spiders crawl on brown gypsy skin they leave silver trails behind. You try to brush it away thinking it’s bits of spider silk. But it’s deeper. You can’t wipe it off. Your skin will soak it up, your blood will keep it,

Arno Peters has rediscovered the world. On his map Africa is a large ochre-ripe papaya. America lurks in detergent green shadows. I know I’ve made the mistake of loving America too much.

Afterwards she wanted to eat tomatoes and raw onions. Then numbers made too much noise

84 COLLECTED POEMS around her forehead, and if she closed her eyes she could see the insides of books she’d read.

Chew on pine needles and look at the moon. Then you’ll know what to do. If you taste the difference between topology and topography it’ll make all the difference.

When I say witch I can’t have you thinking of Medea or Macbeth or Salem. I can’t have you thinking at all. After she swallowed the bone marrow she could control the blood in her brain. If she wanted a silent nothing she could make it in her brain.

What is magic? What is freedom? His favourite leather jacket, gentle grey, that he gave her, has power. When she smells it she finds the words she needs. Slowly the jacket is beginning to smell of her, so when he wears it again he’ll smell of her and he’ll know exactly what to do, exactly where to go.

Sometimes if you get lost in America you’ll see freedom: Silver threads hanging from trees, wet silver around that horse’s mouth.

He told her to put the ‘h’ back in Ostertorsteinweg. So she did. She does so everyday: Magic Osterthorsteinweg on clean envelopes.

If the tomato is rot then I’ll always imagine rotten tomatoes. Although rot isn’t pronounced like rot. Although rot can be red as red bursting ripe fat red

BRUNIZEM (1988) 85 as spurting red as ready to be cut up and cooked immediately red. That’s rot.

When he discovered she was a witch it was easier. Then she could feel at home with him. And as for him, well, he was looking for a witch who would speak to him. She was surprised.

When she brings Iowa April maple leaves indoors her brain refuses to sleep, her bone marrow makes different blood. Then all night she hears Osterthorsteinweg and Hölderlin. All night she understands the parts of Hölderlin that I don’t understand.

I’ve fallen through the cracks of vocabulary lists. Below all grammar rules. And then what? Can there be anything without grammar? Well, there are tomatoes growing everywhere. My fingers smell of their leaves.

When the witch spoke to him, when she touched his hands he got some magic, he got what he was looking for. Although she had no intention of giving him any. It just happened. For a while she was cautious, uncertain. Then she let him have all the magic he needed.

Where is the common ground? Arno Peters decided to trim Europe down into pink bits.

I’m trying to figure out how the waters stay apart.

What does it mean to feel at home? Sometimes when you walk into a house and wander through the rooms until you feel the doors

86 COLLECTED POEMS and windows snug around you, when you walk across the wooden floors and feel blood clots in your throat then you know it’s the wrong house.

What if it’s the wrong country?

He knew how to make pictures with her magic. And so it was good. When she had to leave Osterthorsteinweg her magic wanted to turn into a lioness. When she had to leave her magic became distraught and out of focus so he gave her his leather jacket. The next day when she woke up she was in the wrong bed, she was in the wrong country. It took her 5 minutes to figure it out with reason and logic. But there’s no freedom in logic. No logic to freedom. No magic in logic.

How can she feel at home in so many places? How do gypsies know when to leave?

If you brew tea in the strong teapot with the good force in your fingers and the long thoughts in your head during the silver season then…

They taught the 4-year-old girl to pick tea leaves. They needed tender young fingers to break off the most delicate leaves. They taught the 4-year-old girl to massage the legs of 80-year-old men and tired pregnant women. They needed tender young fingers to ease out the burning muscles. Afterwards they fed her the young goat’s fresh marrow.

BRUNIZEM (1988) 87 Once while backpacking up the Appalachian trail somewhere in Massachusetts I met freedom. She was tall, 5’ 10” and had long white hair. She said she was almost 60. It was the end of August. She’d been on the trail since Georgia and was headed for Maine. She was alone. I thought she was a dream. But I can show you how she moved, how she bent her head when she combed her hair.

That’s why Arno Peters had to change the map. That’s why I took the word witch.

There are magic coins in the leather jacket. Something burns whenever she touches them. If she buys anything with those coins she’ll lose the power. She wears a turquoise blouse to cool her blood. She wears silk to cool her magic, her logic ….

88 COLLECTED POEMS Monkey Shadows 1991

I The Way to Maninagar

The Langur Coloured Night

It was a cry to awaken the moon.

A sound to make the moon shout back.

It was the truth from a young langur.

It was a cry shining with moonlight, a cry resounding against white stone verandas.

It was the langur mirrored in that moon in the pond – and the moon’s face doubled in the eyes of the langur.

It was the langur poised grim-faced stiff-haired between leaps.

It was a cry to breathe life into the moon, the stones…

It was the langur just frozen, silver-jewelled with the moon.

It was the langur on his way to a tree.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 91 It was a cry meant for no one but the moon – dear friend of the langur who reveals the hiding places of dogs, cats and even snakes.

It was the langur doing whatever he wanted to do

now that everyone is asleep.

92 COLLECTED POEMS The Stare

There is that moment when the young human child stares at the young monkey child who stares back –

Innocence facing innocence in a space where the young monkey child is not in captivity.

There is purity clarity there is a transparence in this stare which lasts a long time…

eyes of water eyes of sky the soul can still fall through because the monkey has yet to learn fear and the human has yet to learn fear – let alone arrogance.

Witnessing it all one can count eyelashes one can count the snails in the grass while waiting for eyes to blink waiting to see who will look away first.

Still the monkey looks at the human not in the same way he would look at leaves or at his own siblings.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 93 And the human looks at the monkey knowing this is some totally other being.

And yet, there is such good will such curiosity brightening their faces.

I would like to slip inside that stare, to know what the human child thinks what the monkey child thinks at that very moment.

Remember, the human child is at that age when he begins to use words with power but without the distance of alphabets, of abstractions.

Mention bread and he wants a slice, buttered and with honey – immediately.

Mention the cat and he runs over to awaken her.

The word is the thing itself.

Language is simply a necessary music suddenly connected to the child’s own heartbeat.

94 COLLECTED POEMS While the young monkey child grows at a different rate, looks at a tree, a bush, at the human child and thinks… Who knows what?

What remains burning is that moment of staring: the two newly formed heads balanced on fragile necks tilting towards each other, the monkey face and the human face absorbing each other with intense gentleness ….

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 95 Maninagar Days

They are always there just as pigeons or flies can be always there and the children have to fight them off, especially during those hot May afternoons when they dare to jump down from the trees into the cool shaded spots, the corners between the canna flower beds still moist from the morning’s watering.

Monkeys in the garden – I’m talking about rhesus monkeys the colour of dirt roads and khaki and sometimes even of honey. Rhesus monkeys that travel in small groups, extended families; constantly feuding brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins screaming through the trees – while the grandmother sits farther away sadly, holding on to the sleepy newborn. Somehow they manage to make peace before every meal.

Now and then a solitary langur: the Hanuman-monkey, crossing the terrace with the importance of someone going to the airport. A lanky dancer’s steps with black hands, black feet sharp as black leather gloves and black leather shoes against the soft grey body. Sharp and yet delicate as if they were brushstroked in with a Japanese flourish. And black-faced too, with thick tufts of silver grey eyebrows,

a bushy chin. So aloof he couldn’t be bothered with anyone.

96 COLLECTED POEMS Some people live with rhesus monkeys and langurs in their gardens. To these children the monkeys are as normal and common as dogs. And yet, the monkeys remain magical.

The children feel closer to the monkeys, although they never really play together, although the monkeys probably hate the children: those three children, two girls and a boy who are all a bit afraid of the full-grown-to-their-prime males that stretch themselves and stretch themselves to the height of wisdom and fatherly wit.

The monkeys are not at all cuddly like toys. No. They are lean twirls, strong tails, fast shadows abrupt with yellow teeth. The monkeys are not so innocent the elders warn, not so content with their daily routine for they are turning into urban thieves, imitating and even outdoing the crows:

One day a tall monkey leaped down on the clothesline and stole a blinding white shirt. Another day, a very muscular monkey bounded out of the neighbour’s house with a huge rock of golden gur, solid raw sugar. The boy was impressed. His mother would have difficulty carrying such a load.

Still, the children treat the monkeys as if they were children newly arrived from a foreign country, unable to speak the language yet.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 97 And the children’s grandmother comes out to the front door from time to time. Just awakened from her afternoon nap, now she readjusts her thin white sari and squints against the sun watching over them all – And the faint May breeze that struggles through the monkey crowded branches is Hanuman’s breath. How could you know it, how could you miss it unless you had lived in such a garden.

Monkeys in the garden. They are always there, usually in the gulmohar trees chewing on the sour rubbery leaves and the even more delicious bright scarlet-orange flowers: petals sparkling as sliced blood oranges, water-plump green stems…

The monkeys have become everything to the children, although the children are not aware of it yet, and one summer the children can’t help learning everything from them: their noise, their shadows, their defiant stare, the way they shake their heads, the curve of their elbows their weight on the trees… In fact, without the monkeys the trees begin to look a little barren to the children.

Oh there are days when the monkeys refuse to come down from the gulmohar trees and that makes the children jealous and unhappy. Oh there are days when the monkeys never intrude, never interfere with the children’s favourite hide-outs.

98 COLLECTED POEMS Peaceful days, one would think with the monkeys chatter-reclining and nibbling, dozing and basking, jabbering and lice-picking safe above in the gulmohar trees while the children run about exhausting one game after another right below. Peaceful hours one would think. But the children are jealous for they too love to eat the gulmohar flowers and leaves.

Invariably they try to convince the monkeys to throw some flowers down and then, that failing, invariably they try to persuade the monkeys to come down into their garden (maybe with some flowers) and then, that failing, they are simply angry, so angry at the monkeys, they terrify them off into the neighbouring gardens.

Oh with monkeys like that the children believe in Hanuman. In their secret wishes the children reinvent the perfect monkey: Hanuman, wild and fierce and loyal and gentle…

One day the boy defended his sisters single-handedly with a stick like a sword he chased the whole band of monkeys not up the trees but to the back of the house: a complete disappearance. Then there was such silence the girls were afraid – where had all the birds gone? And the neighbour’s dog? A few minutes later the boy returned running, chased by the monkeys, and the stick like a sword was in the hand of the angry leader…

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 99 Monkeys in the garden. Some people have monkeys in their dreams, monkeys in their nightmares, monkeys crossing their shadows long after they have stopped being children long after they have left such a garden.

100 COLLECTED POEMS The Daily Offering

It was more animal-purple than plant-purple, a long sheath of a bud that might blossom into an octopus instead of a lotus, the child thought as she asked her grandmother to buy it.

The lotus was for Krishna, a luxury for the grandmother. The girl was tired of the daily offering of tulsi and mogra from their garden. For once she wanted something magnificent.

That evening the grandmother showed the child how to wrap the bud in a wet cloth to keep it fresh through the hot night and to prevent it from opening too soon.

The next morning, minutes before the puja while the grandmother straightened things out the girl rushed to the room where the sleeping lotus lay. Gently, she lifted it and slowly started to peel off the damp cloth. As she did so, turning it over on her lap the petals slipped off, one by one at first a pause and then a downpour of petals in her arms – the heavy purple softness stunning her into an awed sadness.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 101 The Glassy Green and Maroon

Cinderella had glass slippers I used to believe in because my mother has always worn glass bangles of a special kind – made as I thought from similar glass.

Ma’s bangles are thick maroon and dark, they are green glints and unbreakable I think because she can wear them all day: whether she scrubs out clothes or dishes, the glass bangles stay on. Afraid of ruining her gold wedding bangles she somehow trusts the glassy green and maroon. Every day, broom in hand she sweeps out the dust from the verandah, from our doorsteps, while the glass bangles catch the morning sun, the afternoon sun…

Then finally, when she raises her arms to undo the scarf protecting her hair, how the glass bangles glisten, loyal year after year above her small wrists – bands of lingering light illuminating her who would otherwise remain hidden with her work.

102 COLLECTED POEMS Nowadays I can’t find such sturdy bangles – not in Ahmedabad, not in Delhi. The glass snaps like raw spaghetti, like dry twigs from termite emptied trees, like rusty barbed wire, rusty tin shack neighbourhoods where tin roofs creak against their crookedness break against the slightest movement from the wind, from a dog’s tail, from a child who walks out the door. The glass snaps the bangles break.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 103 Ajwali Ba for my father’s mother

This is a story that I have heard so many times, always told by my father during dinner always told as a sort of preface to some new philosophical point he wants to make.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve heard this story so often that now I no longer hear the words my father repeats. Instead, the scene unfolds in my mind, deep within my soul’s eye it flickers, jerking like an old black and white silent film.

It’s past midnight almost 1:00 a.m. and my grandfather is about to enter the house. He has spent the day working as usual with the poor, trying to help the shunned Harijans.

He has opened the door to his own house to find my grandmother blocking his way. Orthodox Brahmin Ajwali Ba asks him first to bathe outside with a bucket of cool water somewhere near the orchard before coming in.

104 COLLECTED POEMS He is too tired, he pleads. But she insists, standing just out of his reach so he can’t pollute her with his slightest touch. Even if his long white shirt dusty from the roads but more filthy to her from being touched by other castes – unclean to her especially because of those outcastes… even if his shirt were to brush against her sari, it would send her fuming off to take another bath and then to wear fresher clothes. Knowing all this he stands on the threshold.

She will not change her rules. ‘Then, I’ll sleep in the garden,’ he decides as he leaves.

Now there is a pause while Nanabhai steps into the darkness of the garden, and Ajwali Ba stands inside listening to the dark house where their children sleep oblivious to everything.

A few minutes later, let’s say about ten minutes later, she rushes out of the house, runs across the courtyard, leaps down the steps leading to the mango orchard and joins him.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 105 This is the part I like best. I like to think of her, still a young woman, racing down the steps with the same haste I felt running down those steps at eight, at seventeen, at twenty-six…

We’ll never know what made her change her mind. Perhaps she doesn’t know herself. But I can feel her sweeping gesture her brisk strong arms tearing into the air – and crescent eyebrows that I’ve inherited and her impatience to understand him…

My father’s narration ends here at the spot where they lie beside each other. But the film continues playing in my mind: Now they are together, Nanabhai and Ajwali Ba. He surely slept, exhausted dreamless. And she?

I see her alert, thoughtful. Knowing she can’t sleep she doesn’t even bother to close her eyes.

I see her staring at the sky enjoying a private game of untangling the stars and counting them into their correct constellations.

106 COLLECTED POEMS Nanabhai Bhatt in Prison

At the foot of Takhteshwar hill there is an L-shaped house hidden from the road by five mango trees planted by Nanabhai Bhatt.

Huge crows swoop over the L-shaped terrace, red-beaked green parrots fight over the mango trees. Some years the monsoons sweep away too much. It is 1930, 1936… It is 1942: Nanabhai sits writing for a moment while my grandmother gives orders to everyone.

The next day, he lands in prison again: thrown in without a trial for helping Gandhiji, for Civil Disobedience.

One semester in college I spent hours picturing him: a thin man with large hands, my grandfather in the middle of the night, in the middle of writing, between ideas he pauses to read from Tennyson, his favourite –

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 107 A hand that can be clasped no more – Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door.

What did he make of the northern trees? The ‘old yew’, the chestnut… and the strange season of falling leaves that comes every year – Did he spend hours trying to picture it all?

I know that as a student in Bombay he saved and saved and lived on one meal a day for six months just so he could watch the visiting English Company perform Shakespeare…

And I spent hours picturing his years in prison: Winter 1943; it is dark in his cell. He is sixty years old. I see him sitting cross-legged on the floor and I wonder what he knew by heart, I wonder which lines gave him the most comfort.

108 COLLECTED POEMS That semester was endless with a restless Baltimore March when the tight buds on the forsythia teased our blood. And I, impatient to get on with other writers had to slow down to study that same poem.

So much information swallowed like vitamins for finals –

and yet, I paused at every turn wondering which parts he had loved.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 109 Kankaria Lake

Sometimes the nine-year-old boy finds it difficult to believe this is water.

It is more like skin; a reptile’s skin – wrinkled and rough as a crocodile’s and green.

Bacterial green, decomposed green – opaque and dull.

As if the lake were a giant crocodile he couldn’t see the ends of.

Kankaria Lake is on the way to the Ahmedabad Zoo. Sundays he always walks across the bridge over the lake.

In the distance he can see a small park bordered by the water – dry grass struggles to grow against the scummy lake. The park seems always deserted.

Sometimes a gardener or a homeless man or a wandering storyteller would fall asleep on the grass too close to the lake – and soon enough the newspapers would report about how the crocodiles had devoured yet another careless man.

110 COLLECTED POEMS The boy thinks he would like to witness such an event.

But then, would he try to save the man?

He’s not sure.

Or would he just watch to see how a crocodile eats?

Would the man’s legs go first or the arms or the stomach?

The boy imagines the lake overpopulated with crocodiles who never have enough to eat – for he doesn’t believe any fish could live in such water.

There are hardly any trees near the lake; no friendly monkeys who would throw fruits down to the crocodiles, as they do in one old story ….

Kankaria Lake had also become the most popular place for suicides – That was a fact which felt more like science-fiction to him.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 111 On those Sunday afternoon family outings he stops in the middle of the bridge and leans out towards the lake, now and then sticking his legs out through the railing hoping at least one crocodile will surface, raise its head.

But no. Nothing ever happens. Sometimes the wind pokes the lake, making murky ripples. But the crocodiles prefer to remain hidden below. How do they breathe? He worries.

In the end he was always marched off disappointed to the zoo where he faced sullen animals sometimes crouched far away in the darkest part of the cage, frightened in their festering skins.

112 COLLECTED POEMS A Different Way to Dance

It is June. A record-breaking hot night. Sizzling insects spatter against the windshield as we drive south from Boston. My mother has stretched out on the back seat. Her eyes half-closed, a little bored her head begins to nod with sleep.

Then she sits up abruptly:

(aray paylo hathi jai!)

(hathi jai!)

Hey, there goes an elephant! An elephant’s going by! She shouts pointing at the largest elephant I’ve ever seen –

chained inside an open truck.

He is a grey shadow in a black truck, hurtling through indigo New England night haze.

We look and look, desperately craning our necks, wishing there were more light – and we are not sure whether we’ve actually seen the expression in his eyes or the delicate pink curled inside the tip of his trunk.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 113 There he goes shuffling his feet to his own Blues – his trunk flies up to the right to the left, extending the song, greeting the night air…

‘Follow that truck!’ My mother points, ‘Follow that elephant!’

We follow him as if he were the god, Ganesh himself.

Sometimes Parvati dreams of her son’s face: the little boy Ganesh who had greenish brown eyes – huge eyes reminding her of coriander leaves and sliced ginger root floating in water in a deep wooden bowl.

Her little boy Ganesh had a small nose, straight eyebrows, thick knots of curly hair before Shiva interfered.

Parvati even remembers the shape of the newborn Ganesh she bore, bent flower stalk elbows, the chest flushing red – the almost transparent skin she first oiled and the ripe melon soft fontanelle, the spot she stroked everyday, always checking just to be sure…

114 COLLECTED POEMS Sometimes the elephant head of Ganesh dreams of the life among elephants it knew before Shiva interfered.

How comfortable it was to walk on four legs. To be able to speak with mountains, to guess the mood of the wind… and there was the jungle, cool mud, dripping leaves, the smell of wood – sandalwood, teak. The smell of trees allowed to grow old the smell of fresh water touched by deer the smell of his newly found mate the smell of their mounting passion –

None the less everyday that elephant head of Ganesh reveals a secret: a new way to eat, another direction for language a different way to dance…

In the early morning through greyish pink mist, and in the evening through long shadows, smudged blue, see how his one tusk balances those human knees, how the elephant ears guide the human toes until Parvati smiles Shiva steps aside, and the elephant trunk sways removing all that stands in the way – the elephant trunk swings from side to side hiding away the memory of Shiva’s raised hand, hiding away the knife-slashed soul, that throbbing wound it carries since leaving its first life.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 115 What Happened to the Elephant?

What happened to the elephant, the one whose head Shiva stole to bring his son Ganesh back to life?

This is the child’s curiosity the nosy imagination that continues probing, looking for a way to believe the fantasy a way to prolong the story.

If Ganesh could still be Ganesh with an elephant’s head, then couldn’t the body of that elephant find another life with a horse’s head – for example?

And if we found a horse’s head to revive the elephant’s body – Who is the true elephant? And what shall we do about the horse’s body?

Still, the child refuses to accept Shiva’s carelessness and searches for a solution without death.

116 COLLECTED POEMS But now when I gaze at the framed postcard of Ganesh on my wall, I also picture a rotting carcass of a beheaded elephant lying crumpled up on its side, covered with bird shit vulture shit –

Oh that elephant whose head survived for Ganesh –

He died, of course, but the others in his herd, the hundreds in his family must have found him. They stared at him for hours with their slow swaying sadness… How they turned and turned in a circle, with their trunks facing outwards and then inwards towards the headless one.

That is a dance a group dance no one talks about.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 117 Red August

Some days Jyoti’s house smells as if the walls had been washed with ghee – butter melted inside out – that is, butter strained through a cheesecloth. ‘It reeks. It stinks,’ her children say, offending Jyoti who sits exhausted and shrivelled up in a dark curtain-shielded corner, unnoticed as a black spider on a broken umbrella.

But today the sun pours in. It is August. The monsoon rains are coming to an end. Now and then Jyoti pauses to admire her hands – the henna has left her palms stained dark the colour of red-orange red-brown earth glistening like wet clay horses, the ones from Kathiawad, from Kutch – newly formed and soft.

Throughout the day Jyoti stops in the middle of every chore to take a deep breath – and she smiles as the henna scent grows.

All the women and the girls in this neighbourhood have filigreed serifs, miniature tapestries of flowering vines spilling around each finger, and tiny dots for hummingbirds…

118 COLLECTED POEMS Why do they want this? Not all of them are brides. Some are little girls of four and five – others, middle-aged women sitting beside their teenage daughters. And all this embroidery with henna mud takes hours to complete while they sit immobilised with their palms outstretched.

But Jyoti doesn’t care for such designs. It’s a waste of time, she says, slapping the henna paste thick across her palms, each fingernail hooded because it’s the colour she wants and the scent.

The scent of torn herbs and leafy plants where animals have lain hidden, licking their musky newborn…

Now Jyoti’s hands are red blades swooping through the kitchen.

I was about to say swooping down like birds with impatient beaks

or like goldfish, restless in someone’s garden pond.

But that is not fair. Her hands are more themselves.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 119 Blistered, scratched – the skin so raw for so long that now she’s used to the sting of lemon, of salt.

Her hands look more like the insides of muscles,

now her fist looks more like her heart –

open wounds

whipped horses with twitching ears now galloping now tearing across the grass –

120 COLLECTED POEMS Understanding the Ramayana

When they bowed to us in their sparkling robes I didn’t want them to leave –

that day felt scorched from the beginning; unbearably hot as if it were perpetually noon.

No cool imlee scented Poona breeze, so we had retreated into the shadows cast by our house.

We were tired, almost bored when we saw them unfasten the latch to the gate like thieves and slip through into our garden before anyone could stop them.

We were only children then still we admired the fitted yet comfortable sleeves partly covering their furry arms – arms which were a slightly different brown from ours.

And I envied the tailor who had stitched such earnest headdresses – a tailor who I thought was privileged to be designing clothes for such creatures.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 121 Sita, I stared at the longest. She was so refined, the way she folded up her hands for namaste, while the slant of her neck told us everything about a disciplined suffering. And the swift darting of her eyes between Rama and Lakshman required no words.

So it didn’t matter that none of them could speak. We could even have done without the whiny drone of the narrator who also directed them, waving his hands about with such force as if that would sharpen Sita’s emotions.

It didn’t matter that now and then we glimpsed a looped up tail motionless as if drugged to sleep beneath their costumes.

Their tails were fanned by swishing hems when they leaped – Sita flying away in fear; Rama flying in for a fight to save her.

Bright pink and orange frills speckled with blue-green sequins and outlined with silver threads, zig-zagging stars – bright frills would flutter up revealing the quiet tail – its power dormant and forbidden to take any part in the actions of Prince Rama or Princess Sita.

122 COLLECTED POEMS We felt relieved to know the narrator hadn’t chopped off or even shortened the glorious question marks curling behind their backs.

Only Hanuman allowed to use his tail was the most joyous and felt perfectly cast.

Monkeys more humane than anyone – But it relieved me to see a flash of pride, of anger cut through their meek faces. Or was it only acting?

Where had they been found? And how had they learnt the meaning of The Ramayana that well?

So absorbed were we as if we had never heard this saga before, that we didn’t mind the withered, small-pox scarred face of the man who owned them; we didn’t pay much attention to the chains around the delicate monkey feet – preventing them from jumping very far.

In the end our only regret was that we couldn’t join them when they were dragged away by their worn out master.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 123 We stood in the middle of the garden watching them leave – our hands hanging limp by our sides.

They seemed to disappear into haloes of swirling dust.

The gate clanged shut and the heat descended like a curtain forcing us back into the shade.

124 COLLECTED POEMS Devibahen Pathak

How did the tea taste that morning? Was she nervous? Or was it a simple decision, something that had to be done?

The girl gulps down her milk this morning. She is twelve years old. It is 1938. One day she’ll be my mother – But for now she watches her own mother get dressed.

I imagine my grandmother, Devibahen Pathak, praying as always to Govinda, her little brass Krishna forever solid forever the playful child she bathed and dressed every day. Devibahen’s forehead stays cool with a brown paste of sandalwood. Was she quiet that day? Was she worried?

(chaal, chaal! Sapat payhri lay!) Let’s go! Put on your slippers! She must have said even in those days using the word sapat adapted from the Portuguese.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 125 I imagine the Ahmedabad sun, salty on the T.B. coughed up spittle stained, betel nut leaf slimy streets – A city where the water still tastes salty; land that was once beneath the sea.

Now it is 1938. Devibahen has decisions to make. Decisions about money she didn’t have, about a small lump of gold she inherited, gold she wanted worked into a necklace… It was a way to give the gold a more useful shape. Something to present to her daughter when she came of age. Something for her daughter’s daughter’s daughter… The design had to be chosen, the shape of the links on the chain – and finally, the shape of the pendant. What should the ruby define?

She imagined this necklace of deep yellow gold, warm around the neck and heavy as a small snake, the links are chiselled grains of rice carved full and geometrically rounded to catch the sort of shadows a snake’s spine would invite.

She who understood snakes, who respected cobras and would lead them away from her garden with a prayer and a burning lantern; this wise woman, my grandmother must have remembered snakes while she spoke with the goldsmith.

126 COLLECTED POEMS And then she had to choose a shape for the pendant. She didn’t hesitate, my mother reports, for her it was clearly the geometric sun, a wheel for life and luck, a four-petalled flower twisting out of a circle, in turn encircled by a hexagon – for her it was clearly the sacred swastika that only appears in red. She had it held together with a ruby to remind us of the goodness within red.

But it is 1938 and the goldsmith reminds her of the latest news:

(aray bahen, tamnay khabar nathi…?)

Oh bahen, don’t you know…?

Still she didn’t hesitate, my mother shows me with a look how she dismissed his worries with her faith.

And in the heart of Devibahen’s mind snakes moved, bluish black darting through the grass – and in the mind of Devibahen’s heart wheels turned but the swastika remained sacred, beloved, untouched by history. Who was Hitler? Mahatma Gandhi was her daily news, her truth.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 127 2

She was right and she was wrong. Why else do I keep this necklace in a box? Why else am I suddenly unable to wear this yellow gold snake heavy symbol? I’m unable to believe the swastika is untouched by history.

I remember practicing drawing swastikas as a child, with other children… we also practiced drawing circles and squares, perfect triangles and five pointed stars.

Triangular Parvati pointing earthward. Triangular Shiva pointing skyward.

Their bodies, sharp – pared down to pure form. Is that where truth lies? In the shadow of a shoulder blade, the corner of a triangle?

But the swastikas were always in red and as I drew them I always thought this is holy holy holy – as I tried to steady my hand always believing there was pure goodness branching out from the centre.

128 COLLECTED POEMS I remember drawing swastikas everywhere in so many notebooks, and outside even in the mud – thinking this is beauty this is true wisdom – while the difficult circles and stars filled the background.

What does a circle mean? What does a triangle mean? Who knows the true meanings?

Oh didn’t I love the Hindu swastika? And later, one day didn’t I start wishing I could rescue that shape from history?

But how shall I begin? What shall I say? Oh my German-born daughter, innocent girl with a Lübecker Baltic-eyed innocent father…

Look at those neat rows of swastikas in red plastered across the temple grounds, look at the swastikas framing every wedding invitation. The dowry determines the paper’s quality the quality of the print. Even that motion of the hand, that gesture sweeping across the temple floor is not always holy, not always innocent. Something is wrong: So many old religions fatten on arguments, on fresh murders or do they call that offerings? Someone’s blood, someone’s money someone’s wife, someone’s son should not have been touched.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 129 Meanwhile, the shape of the swastika remains: Hakenkreuz, fylfot, and when you slant your head towards the sun also St Brigid’s plaited fancy cross… And my daughter born on the first of February, the first day of an early Springtide…

(swasti, swasti,) they used to say meaning: Be well, be well!

Oh my German-born daughter, arriving during a spell of bright spring weather – lucky girl to be born on St Brigid’s day… What will you say? What colours will you prefer? In what language will you speak?

130 COLLECTED POEMS II Angels’ Wings

Angels’ Wings

I can recall that age very well: fourteen years old, when I thought I understood Lenin and Mao, and Christina Rossetti was beginning to sound silly.

One April Saturday morning after swimming lessons I stood waiting for my father, pacing the formaldehyde stung corridor, I twirled equidistant between the autopsy room and his office.

My eleven-year-old brother and I together but silent for a quarter of an hour as if all that swimming, all that chlorine had altered our breathing had washed away our speech.

A heavy door opened and a man, dark as the shadows he cast, a man with electric white hair asked us to step inside. There was something he wanted us to see.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 131 The room was festooned with wings, all of a similar shape and strangely human. Perhaps fairies’ wings or angels’ wings, I thought, made of real gossamer…

As we stepped closer we could see clumps of clogged cells, those grape-like clusters meant to blossom with oxygen – now shrivelled beside rivers of blood choked black.

They were not drawings, not photographs – but human lungs well-preserved by someone’s skill in histology. He could tell us how old their owners had lived to be for how many years each had smoked. He would tell us everything except their names.

Twenty pairs of lungs pinned up on his wall: a collage of black and grey, here and there some chalky yellow some fungus-furred green.

How long did we stand there? And what did we say? I don’t remember eating lunch or what we did for the rest of that day – Only those twenty pairs of nameless lungs, the intimate gossamer of twenty people I never knew lungless in their graves.

132 COLLECTED POEMS Mozartstrasse 18 for Eleanor Wilner, who first asked me to describe post-war Bremen

I am sitting in the Spielplatz around the corner from Mozartstrasse wondering where guilt ends and where it begins; while the children dig in the sandbox and the sixteen-month-old boy I’m looking after, pours sand onto my lap. I don’t see how guilt could possibly begin here.

And yet, there are buildings in Bremen I can’t help considering evil.

And there is this dream that does not leave me – beginning gently one night with me going downstairs, out of the house, my hand on the rain-dripping gate – that’s when I see them: They are all there, an international crowd all dressed exquisitely in black and white, full flowing black coats a glimpse of white linen collars… Their presence makes the damp morning warmer, the air takes on the smell of fresh coffee and chocolate from their clothes.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 133 They walk slowly, just like tourists with plenty of time. They come up the adjoining street towards Mozartstrasse, towards me while I stand by the gate. Not a word is spoken but they all greet me and point to this house, number 18. They greet me with their eyes full of questions, there is something they want to ask me, but I cannot guess what it is. Not a word is spoken but they all stare deep into my eyes, separately each with his own questions, each with her own questions.

I remember all their eyes, all dark, dark, but each with a different darkness, a field of dark flowers and tree trunks completely covered with hundreds of dark butterflies… that’s when I first try to speak, to move, to say at least ‘hello’. But I can’t.

I continue staring into their calm eyes fresh and clear as if they all had had a good night’s sleep. And I think, how strange, as I stand fixed by the gate, they seem to know me, how strange that they don’t speak and why are they pointing at this house?

134 COLLECTED POEMS Mozartstrasse 18. Is it important? Does it matter where we live, what happened before? I wonder while the children dig in the sandbox and the sixteen-month-old boy I’m looking after, pours sand onto my lap.

It is one thing to know what happened before but quite another to read the list of names, of streets, of houses… It is one thing to know what happened before but quite another to live here today and to find out precisely who lived where in 1937, 1938… To look through the original Bremer Adressbuch, complete with advertisements, and then to follow up with 1983 statistics. Who was arrested, shot. Who got sent to Minsk, who escaped…

For example, the Ries family who lived at Mozartstrasse 25, Albert and Emma with their two children, Gunther and Cäcilie, left for the United States on the thirteenth of December 1938. Their house is no longer here.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 135 But number 18 remains a mystery. Theodor Gruja, Damenschneider lived here, with his shop upstairs. There are five other tenants in this building, listed in 1937. This building of 1854, where I feel so free with these four metre high ceilings, tall windows everywhere to let in the light. The perfect place for a tailor, I tell the landlady as we sit on the balcony trying to guess what happened to Theodor Gruja. Over coffee and cake she tells me about the thousands of needles she found all over the floors, pins and needles; about his Jewish wife sent away to America. Thousands of needles she repeats, and pins even stuck in the walls. That was 1975, she says, when she bought and restored the building, saving it from demolition. Thousands of needles, and no toilets, she says pointing to the spot in the garden where the outhouses had been.

Why so many pins even stuck in the walls? I see rivers of needles streaming silver paths from one room into another – Who threw everything onto the floor? Who took the sewing machines? Who took the clothes? I see rivers full of needles, flickering wet gills, and in a shifting trick of sunlight they could be just hatched salmon I watch from a cliff top, smelt lashing silver trails.

136 COLLECTED POEMS It is April now and the huge sprawling chestnut tree has small leaves, small as a six-month-old baby’s hands. We talk about the tailor’s Jewish wife and I look at the tree with an impatient tightness in my legs, knowing it was here for all those years – as if I could blame it, let alone question it… Now there are these lengthening days: April, May, June, the chestnut leaves grow larger, and our rooms are filled with so much light, so I can’t stop thinking about Theodor Gruja, Damenschneider, and his wife.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 137 Yellow October in memory of Herta Blieffert (1907–1986)

A tree can become like that only in New England’s fall, in Iowa’s fall… Not in Europe’s autumn.

This maple made its own light: clear yellow as if its sap were singing, smouldering alert and preparing itself for something beyond winter.

Of course, I thought it was the moon at first – but the moon was a sharp bitten off punky earring that night. There were no street lamps and the wide Iowa houses stayed heavily dark with their 2:00 a.m. privacy. So the tree made its own light as if preparing itself to speak.

A tree can become like that only in New England’s fall, in Iowa’s fall… Not in Europe’s autumn.

This clear yellow light made me want to stand there beside it all night, just staring up the trunk. And it even felt warm there, so I thought I could easily sleep beneath the saxifrage-amber, lively bright leaves, clean and inquiring as a young giraffe’s wet eyes. I wanted to sleep beside that strength, to sleep beneath that tree, that yellow –

138 COLLECTED POEMS Wine from Bordeaux

Today I’ve invented a man who has bought two thousand bottles of a 1985 wine from Bordeaux, the Bois-Malot which won the Bronze medal in 1986. And now this 1985 Bois-Malot has become even better than gold, and it will stay good, it will delight you for years to come.

Over here, in Ostertor you and I would have to pay about vierzehn Mark for a bottle. But I’m sure my imaginary man has worked out some special deal with the shopkeepers, maybe even with the people who planted the grapes.

He’s bought two thousand bottles already and plans to buy more.

1985 is the year before Chernobyl.

He doesn’t like to ingest anything harvested in Europe after 1985.

‘This wine goes very well with New Zealand lamb,’ he confides to the wine shop owner. ‘It’s the only meat I feel safe eating…’ he whispers.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 139 No doubt he’s got a large cellar to hoard all those bottles of crimson Bordeaux with their handsome brown labels. I imagine him smiling at their sharp dark winks – rows and rows of rounded shadows each time he opens the door.

There’s another man I can tell you about. He is real. He got himself sterilised in May 1986 when he was eighteen because he was convinced his chromosomes were damaged. And he didn’t want to pass on any mistakes.

While the women who gave birth over here in 1986 sometimes didn’t know what to eat.

I imagine some of them still scrutinise their children with fear, wishing they could supervise the health of every cell.

While in the towns near Chernobyl embryos didn’t make it fetuses didn’t make it and the babies who managed to get born and who managed to grow into children – suddenly become sick with leukemia.

140 COLLECTED POEMS But the child that I still think of was one eight-year-old boy who loved playing in the sand like most children who didn’t notice dirt or mud on his clothes like most children –

But then he started begging to be allowed to take a shower whenever he came indoors thinking the water thinking the water would wash it all off –

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 141 A Story for Pearse

But the more fragrant body, the body that was love, rose up, no rot as yet set in, evicted the people from the wake, and raced out the door after the soul that had been so faithful, and fell, by the lake’s edge, without seeing the soul again.

None of the mourners was there to bury either body.

– Pearse Hutchinson, ‘The Soul that Kissed the Body’

Reading your new book today I am reminded of my great-aunt, of her soul, her body… How she died alone with a terrible stench oozing from her body – how almost no one mourned her.

Oh the lucky Soul that felt moved to kiss life, to kiss the Body before departing!

But your version, your lines seem also written for her – and all day your words with their urgent movement have been pulling my mind back to my great-aunt.

My great-aunt Hirabhen was rescued from her mother-in-law rescued from her husband soon after she was married.

Her mother-in-law used to beat her with a bamboo pole. She made her work all day

142 COLLECTED POEMS with little food, then whipped her every night until her pretty skin turned ugly.

At least they didn’t pour kerosene over her head, at least they didn’t set her ablaze.

But who knows what finally compelled the young woman Hirabhen to tell her parents in those days to go to a court of law where the judge said: ‘This is no marriage! You are free! You can choose again, you can decide for yourself –’

She chose to become a nurse to earn her own money. She said she wanted to learn something new to help others.

But I am certain that her soul walked out on her that day in court. After the battle was won there was nothing more for the soul to say – after she was free she could never feel her soul again.

The soul was gone to the lake in a forest where no one could follow.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 143 She had a life full of naked bodies – diseased patients broken with bedsores and married doctors who enjoyed lying with her enjoyed tricking her into believing anything.

Then, for a long time there was always a different man invariably weird and coarse compared to her delicate face.

What was it she searched for in the body? In the blood cells, the plasma, the hair, the eyes, the eyelids – In the length of a scar… Was it the way to recognise death from far away? The way death flings its own light around a body unmistakeably marking it? The medicine? The dosage? The numbers? Numbers defining fevers, chemicals, hours, years…

What was it she wanted to learn?

The time it takes for stitches to heal? The time it takes for a scar to fade?

But I am certain she could never feel her soul, her self.

It was easy for everyone to say she should have found God like her older sister who was happily married and blessed with children.

144 COLLECTED POEMS It was easy for everyone to say what she should have done. And, no doubt, they thought she had done something to deserve her fate.

I wonder if she ever spoke to God. I imagine she would have given up with a Lord who allows torture. And how would she have continued believing in a God who dwells in every heart? The Lord in her mother-in-law’s heart? The Lord in her husband’s heart?

Towards the end when she was truly old and I had just stopped being a child – and I had just been told about her life – I was afraid of her paranoia afraid of her frantic-caged-animal-fear, her disjointed spat out speech I couldn’t follow.

What did flowers mean to her? And colours? And birdsong? How bird shadows screech chopping up the tropical light – Did she care?

What did children mean to her? Sometimes I think my mother, her patient niece, was the only person, the only child who ever consoled her.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 145 Towards the end when she was dying (and my mother was not informed) she used to gaze at herself naked in the mirror arching her back, head tilted in a way that once was coy. Did she see her cracked smelly skin?

Did she have a more fragrant body, a second body that was love?

Towards the end when she was dying she used to poke her naked chest with a tired finger as if to say here here this is where my soul used to be.

146 COLLECTED POEMS Groningen: Saturday Market on a Very Sunny Day

The large eye was still fresh, perfectly intact: the size of a cow’s eye and the iris, black. Clean black against the white eyeball. Oh who will buy this fish-head with a cow’s eye? The eye remained stuck while looking up at the nets, at the surface of the water, at the shadows cast by the bottom of the boat… or after being yanked in it looked up at the sky, the knife, at the blank face of the busy fisherman – it looked up with the lethargic sadness of cows and the Renaissance emotions of praying peasants.

One by one, at different times, the six of us separate in the crowds, distracted at every corner by something new – one by one this afternoon at different times somehow we all saw this particularly thick fish-head with a sad cow’s eye. And in the evening, simultaneously we all started to speak of it. ‘Oh who will buy, who would dare buy that fish-head?’ we wondered during supper – unable to say more. We were strangely thirsty. Thirsty, thirsty, that night we couldn’t drink enough.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 147 Counting Sheep White Blood Cells for Jo Shapcott

It was like being ordered to count the stars and to classify them by their size, their brightness –

And it was like being ordered to count all the tiny wild flowers in a never-ending field and to name them –

There were days when she, the lab technician would sit staring through the microscope for five hours straight counting sheep white blood cells.

It didn’t put her to sleep. Instead, it made her eyes feel powerful, it made her feel wired as if she were the source of electricity for that microscope.

Whenever she looked up to put in a new slide the lab whirled unreal around her for she had gone with all her dreams into the galaxies of sheep.

It was the macrophage she wanted, the one cell that doesn’t grow in vitro – her missing secret to understanding the immune system. But she had to count and yet discount the lymphocytes and leukocytes and the large erythrocytes getting in the way.

148 COLLECTED POEMS And they were beautiful strangely rounded flowers, these corpuscles, some fuzzy dandelions gone to seed but still intact, translucent balls of cotton – Some prickly burrs stuck fast together so she can’t forget the sheep, the tangled wool full of rain and grass… Some fuzzy dandelions gone to seed – but there was no time to admire them.

Across the street in the hospital where she also worked, people tried to live with cancer.

She was eighteen and always kept her notebook handy. A notebook full of numbers, drawings… entire pages crossed out leading nowhere. At the end of the day she would feel so numb.

That was a time of living in a different vocabulary: laboratory Latin. But also: we’ve sacrificed the animals. We’ve harvested the cells.

That is how she started to speak.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 149 The Mad Woman in the Attic for Hartmut Eïng

The mad woman in the attic has a new machine by her bed.

Once she thought of becoming a mermaid but now she knows her destiny is to become a black right whale.

I have read that Black right whales have comparatively small flippers and large tail flukes, but no dorsal fin…

Die dulle Schwester you call her, meaning die tolle, die verrückte – meaning the mad, the deranged sister. And you give me her red scarf with yellow polka dots.

I have read that When feeding, this whale usually stays below for about fifteen minutes, then surfaces to breathe five or six times in rapid succession, rolling just below the surface between each breath.

The machine churns all night all day, making gasping sounds it alters the cells in her lungs, turns her blood into whale blood.

150 COLLECTED POEMS About black right whales someone once wrote: It is a stupid, blundering beast that appears to cause harm only by mistake and when in its death throes.

At first you don’t believe me and show me how people leave their homes to greet a real black whale stranded in the snow. This is the future, centuries after the inevitable nuclear war. They carry sticks and stumble like children just learning to walk. They look at the whale like children seeing a large animal for the first time.

Is it worship, is it love, is it fear, is it wonder glittering in their eyes?

The mad woman in the attic wants to be greeted like that.

How long will it take before she’s gone? And how will she go? Will she leap through the window, then arching her spine fling herself into the harbour before she’s a full grown whale? Or, will she grow indoors brooding revenge until one day the roof splinters open, the house crashes down, and is dragged away with her into the sea…

I don’t know. But her rosy face round as a baby’s doesn’t fool me –

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 151 The Fish Hat

For weeks this is how she has been dreaming of herself.

So far, she can manage to imagine shadows draped over her scooped out parts.

Her dream shadows mimic the shape her flesh used to take before the surgery.

But the shadows are blue as if she were a Hindu god, a divine hermaphrodite –

Yellow edged with red clings to her neck and wrists. It’s the sort of yellow one sees on signs warning of radioactivity –

And there are holes you can see right through; holes, where her nipples used to be.

Her hands are young are knotted together into a tight ball hanging pear-shaped..

Her face looks like a cutting board as if some intern had practiced on it.

152 COLLECTED POEMS There’s a fish hat she designed herself long ago when she was twelve: Homage to a baked fish, ready to eat complete with fork and knife and a thick slice of lemon. A fish hat that has turned as blue as her own shadows; a fish hat that now seems glued to her head through all these dreams after the surgery.

It almost looked like something that had come out of the sea.

But I had never seen an opaque jellyfish with a single, round, closed eyelid.

They brought it over in a rush first thing in the morning the nurse running with the styrofoam box padded with ice. ‘This is not my job!’ I wanted to say. ‘You are supposed to dig out the tumours yourself. What happened to the surgeon?’ I wondered. But I didn’t speak. I was afraid my voice would break – afraid my voice would affect my hands…

I had to make an incision into the centre and watch the sphere collapse.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 153 The movement must feel like pulling out the calyx of a large flower of a fully blossomed rose one doesn’t want to destroy – then watching the petals scatter –

except that I had to consider the blood, I had to try to cut out a segment of a tumour without blood. I had to spend the rest of the day analysing that tumour.

After Picasso painted her he laughed. It was a big joke. He showed her off to all his friends… At least this is what you think. As we stand in the museum you picture them once upon a time drinking litres of red wine, toasting her surrounding her hollow blue shadows and laughing, laughing especially at the fish hat.

154 COLLECTED POEMS The Echoes in Poona

One day the pure, clean rhesus monkeys gagged on the sun, on their half-eaten ripe fruits, and now their screams for Hanuman echo through the jungle as they spit out the moon, the stars… If you look closely you can see where the nets have left marks across their thin fingers.

They shake their heads trying to dislodge the grinding noise of jeep tires on dirt roads. Their tails still expect to brush against leaves, grass… and their neck muscles are not used to this sudden lack of wind.

From our garden, when I stand near the bougainvillaea I can hear their caged cries echoing, echoing – freshly torn from the heart of the jungle. They shy away from the wires, at first they even flinch from each other. They are wild with rage echoing, echoing –

After a few days they are quiet, a young mother turns to stroke her sister, a louse is found, removed. Soon their fingers work to search each other –

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 155 They take their time, such gentle care, as they reinvent their family.

Such pure, clean rhesus monkeys, uncontaminated specimens: Forced helpers in the search for vaccinations and antibiotics.

Meanwhile the men who watched the hunt from their small tents are now busy focusing microscopes. My father also spends his days counting monkey kidney cells in vitro. He scrubs his hands until they bleed, until the skin starts peeling. He bathes several times a day while colleagues less careful die from the disease.

From our garden I can see the back of the building: rows of air conditioners drone against the noise of the new rhesus monkeys. One day my six-year-old brother begins a new game where he visits the monkeys and feeds them flowers, lost in his game he gives them branches with berries while the tired watchman, skinny Satnarayan, almost dozes –

And my tired father, lost in thought in his windowless room examines test tubes, his eyes straining against the fluorescent lights.

156 COLLECTED POEMS Years pass. Microscopes improve. My father will soon retire. These days, when my year-old daughter wants something from the kitchen table, from the shelves, her arms thrusting out like a trapeze artist, her urgent hu hu hu speech reminds me of those monkeys – and last week when she cried hot with fever and tense with antibiotics I lay sleepless through 5:00 a.m. remembering the bold black eyes of the caged baby monkeys eager with surprise as they pulled on sap-wet weeds with berries offered by my brother – their dark velvet fingers grasping for the bruised yellow and bruised red velvet fruit.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 157 Walking Across the Brooklyn Bridge, July 1990

In New York children are being shot to death this summer. It’s usually an accident. Someone else, no doubt an adult, was meant to be killed instead. It’s not a war, just a way to settle disagreements.

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge one feels removed from everything as if one were passing by in a low flying plane. Below, on both sides the cars stream by. Above, the steel cables converge, tighten. The muscles in my legs feel exposed, worn out.

The children somehow get in the way: They’re found dead in the car, in the house, in the crib. Sometimes it happens that the father was cleaning the gun.

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge today I see work being done. Repairs. Clean, clear-cut adjustments. Renovation. The humming of steel against wind drills through my bones – it’s driven up my spine. The humming does not end.

158 COLLECTED POEMS But the worst case I read about didn’t involve a gun. Simply a father, newly arrived from Montana who decided to feed his six-day-old son to a hungry German Shepherd. Was the mother really asleep?

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge I pause, look around. What is real in this symbol, in that other one over there…? The steel cables have become a cage, a sanctuary. Whose cage? Whose hope?

In another section of the newspaper I read about the ever growing problems of refugees. Who will take them in? Especially the ones from Vietnam, a favourite subject for photographers: flimsy boats, someone’s thin arm in the way – Who can forget those eyes? And who can judge those eyes that vision?

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge even on a hot afternoon one sees many joggers. And there is the view, of course.

Looking across the water I think of those people from Vietnam. The mothers, the fathers, what they wouldn’t have given, what they would still give – their blood, their hair, their livers, their kidneys, their lungs, their fingers, their thumbs – to get their children past the Statue of Liberty.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 159 III Until Our Bones Prevent Us from Going Further

The Sea at Night for Michael

The sea at night, all black yet distinguishable from the sky, all black. Close above the sea: a vertical sickle a flame yellow waxing moon – and right above the moon: a chrysanthemum yellow star, the evening star.

All in a straight line – so we wondered if this happens every night or once a century, we wondered while

the sea swayed, the sky shifted the moon turned, the star slipped

and there was no time for a photograph – no time, so we watched sleepless through the night, unable to lie still unable to stop talking…

160 COLLECTED POEMS Another Portrait of Bartolo for Esther, who gave me the first portrait

Fishermen don’t swim in the sea. They say it would be so frivolous, they say it brings bad luck. Bartolo, for example, walks in towards his boat – still praying. He wades in everyday fully dressed for work. Over here the sun always hangs above the water, the sun is always on Bartolo’s face.

Today Bartolo sits with his back to us. I watch him. He plays cards this afternoon instead of getting his boat ready.

Short, muscular and slightly hunchbacked, devout, superstitious, thick grey hair beneath his cap, he stands out in his blue and white plaid shirt. The others, his crew, are sitting with him – playing cards instead of ploughing the waves.

This is one of the last sunny days in October. Bartolo’s movements are the sharpest. He slams his hand down again and again. I keep turning to look. The others are quiet. They are all old men, and I wonder who will fish

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 161 the way they do ten years from now. Who will fish setting out from this beach with nets thrown out of a small boat?

A little girl shouts ‘Bartolo! Bartolo!’ The sun is so hot one could swim for an hour in the sea. But Bartolo’s boat lies far up on the shore as if he expected a storm. The others, his crew, disappointed no doubt, remain quiet.

So Bartolo ignores the sea this afternoon, while I squint at the five o’clock glitter. Later, when the sun is red and almost swallowed up, I see Bartolo has finished his game. For once he’s not pulling the nets in at this hour, his cap dodging the orange glare. Now he rises abruptly from the table and for once with his back to the setting sun enters Francisco’s Bar.

162 COLLECTED POEMS Rooms by the Sea for Michael

It’s summer all right. This light makes me think of June in Miami July in Ocean City August in Cape Cod.

This heat reminds me of a certain freedom this light is the colour of a certain freedom we had one summer – the freedom to want a child, the longing to let life go on as it pleases.

The heat has flung the door wide open – and the light is constant. The cry of our imaginary child breaks our afternoon nap, untangles our sticky thighs… The sea is a loud salty glitter pounding against the shore, back and forth back and forth, as if driven by nervous fishes. The light remains steady and the heat is constant –

Someone, we don’t see, has stepped inside and walks through the kitchen, that we don’t see. I imagine you grabbing a beer from the fridge.

The sofa burns red the carpet crackles green and the picture in the pine wood frame is fading away.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 163 Franz Marc’s Blaue Fohlen

I want to meet Franz Marc’s blue foals. I see them in a secluded field in a place like Kentucky or Dublin. They make the morning glories miserable as they run through the blue grass of Kentucky, they make the morning glories miserable as they run through the endless wet June blue-gold light of Dublin. I want to find their blue ears and unravel some riddles. 1 want to nose their blue necks.

164 COLLECTED POEMS Sunlight in a Cafeteria

The man thinks: ‘What a lousy deal. It’ll take all day to fix that car. I wish the heat would let up. The kids will want to go to the beach again. I don’t have the time for it. Who’ll paint the house?’

Meanwhile, at the other table, the woman thinks: ‘It’s July again. What a month to spend in New York City. What a month to be pregnant. Why do they call it morning sickness when it hits me in the afternoon as well?

And sometimes even at night when I least suspect it. This dress is already a bit tight for me. I wish Jim would hurry up. Can’t stand the smell of that guy’s cigarette. Should I have another coffee? I hope Jim likes my hair. I didn’t know New York would be like this. I’m not ready for it. July used to be my favourite month. Always sunny. I’m glad I’m not in Denmark anymore. I probably shouldn’t sit in the sun but I missed it so much over there.

I like this New York July sunlight, it’s so honest – right to the point, no misunderstandings. I know where I stand.’

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 165 Portrait of a Double Portrait

She has just eaten mushrooms and celery fried with onions and soy sauce, and there’s a green haze around her eyes.

She is growing a new face: broader forehead, larger eyes… while her new hair simply grows longer. Look at the sharp light, the crisp shadows around her new nose. Is it confusing? How her skin glistens and itches as if lavender were growing out of her pores… out of this canvas.

She will keep her old face tucked inside her smile. She is Persephone learning to become Demeter. She only counts in weeks now, and says she’s twenty-nine weeks pregnant. She always thinks of food, especially apples and sprouted beans. She is growing a second face and when the fetus inside her kicks the haze around her eyes grows greener.

166 COLLECTED POEMS White Asparagus

Who speaks of the strong currents streaming through the legs, the breasts of a pregnant woman in her fourth month?

She’s young, this is her first time, she’s slim and the nausea has gone. Her belly’s just starting to get rounder her breasts itch all day,

and she’s surprised that what she wants is him inside her again. Oh come like a horse, she wants to say, move like a dog, a wolf, become a suckling lion cub –

Come here, and here, and here – but swim fast and don’t stop.

Who speaks of the green coconut uterus the muscles sliding, a deeper undertow and the green coconut milk that seals her well, yet flows so she is wet from his softest touch?

Who understands the logic behind this desire?

Who speaks of the rushing tide that awakens her slowly increasing blood –? And the hunger raw obsessions beginning with the shape of asparagus: sun-deprived white and purple-shadow-veined, she buys three kilos of the fat ones, thicker than anyone’s fingers, she strokes the silky heads, some are so jauntily capped… even the smell pulls her in –

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 167 Distances

Once in the ocean over here in Conil, at the outskirts of Europe – once I’m in and swimming in this pocket of the Atlantic Ocean, every place feels closer:

Africa, America, you are not far away. I touch you through the waves simultaneously –

One day Africa sends the wind called levante, the next day the Americas send fish. Meanwhile the waves rush back and forth, crashing north and south east and west depending on the wind. And every place slides through my fingers with the frothy just breaking waves, relentless salty water.

Inland again, it’s different. All is separate, distant. The atlas fills my mind with its many borders, and this ocean lies trapped on the page like a gasping beached whale.

168 COLLECTED POEMS The Rooster in Conil

I like the size of the windows, two feet by three feet. Over here in Spain one needs a place to escape from the sun.

I like the bars on the windows. Are they made of iron? The bars and the window sills feel as if some one had pulled them off my grandfather’s house in Bhavnagar and stuck them on this whitewashed house by the sea.

Outside my bedroom window there’s a sprawled out bush of night blooming white flowers, the addicting fragrance fingers my sleep, tricks my nose into believing I’m home.

And in the background, accompanying everyone there’s the hush-hush constant swishing whipped up sound of the sea…

What do the bars on the windows keep out? Dogs? Cats? Thieves? Or Alfonsa’s never tiring rooster who begins crowing at 3:00 a.m. as if the sun would rise early just for him. He could be Don Quixote’s messenger the way he continues announcing something that must be eating up his heart, the way he continues all day until the sun has gone.

And in the background, accompanying everyone there’s the sound of the sea.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 169 All this crowing has affected, maybe enhanced this rooster’s voice. I too wake up at 3:00 a.m. wondering if it’s my eight-month-old daughter who often sounds like a sad saxophone. There’s a bit of Van Morrison sometimes in her stretched out lilting plea. Other times, I hear a bit of Tom Waits in her sudden call. How she mimics the music she became attached to before she was born.

And in the background, accompanying everyone there’s the sound of the sea.

Is it my daughter? Is it the rooster? Is it some very talented musician who is in love and wants to try out a new tune on his saxophone?

And in the background, accompanying everyone there’s the sound of the sea.

My child is asleep. And so I stare at the bars on the windows, at the sky, remembering similar birds, similar sounds from Bhavnagar, similar days when mornings started with animals clamouring before the sun had a chance.

170 COLLECTED POEMS Just White Chips

These seashells aren’t even beautiful. Just white chips the colour of angry work day breakfasts full of the news and no one to talk to. Just sharp pieces with the sound of exasperated eggshells from bored hens.

These seashells aren’t even beautiful. And yet I hold them as if to comfort them, loving them only because I found them between spinach gumboed seaweed and giant lychee jellyfish while I ran between thunderstorms along the Baltic Sea; wanting them only because of a certain day at a certain place.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 171 Beyond Edinburgh for the Austyns

Travelling along the eastern shore beyond Edinburgh beyond the Firth of Forth blinding fields of rapeseed flash through the clattering train windows. The diesel fumes make me dizzy but the colour revives me, keeps me surprised. Such brightness! Almost artificial yellow like spilt paint in this land of damp greyish blues and musty duns overshadowing whatever is green.

Another time, travelling the other way beyond the Moor of Rannoch across the Highlands towards Arisaig, Mallaig – I’m shocked again, this time by the absence of buildings, the absence of people. The harsh result history books only hint at, mythologise. Brown rolling hills, beautiful lonely places threaded together with water, sudden patches of sad dust no animal will touch. Didn’t someone once live here and here?

172 COLLECTED POEMS The dried up pod of history rattles useless seeds. Nights I dream of someone’s bitter lips, I dream of trying to understand, of trying to forgive – of someone always wanting to forgive someone else… Stories my brain reels out – from where?

Meanwhile the train takes us farther up, through rain that seeps in my chest, rain that eats through tendons, ligaments… It takes the two of us and some whisky by a fire to fight off the icy wet cuts in my feet.

A boat takes us farther beyond the Isle of Skye to the edge of the world I know – And in the end it’s the sky full of June light until 11:00 p.m. – a summer sky that never gets darker than midnight blue with a luminous blueberry sheen revives me, keeps me watching for something more.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 173 Love in a Bathtub

Years later we’ll remember the bathtub, the position of the taps the water, slippery as if a bucketful of eels had joined us… we’ll be old, our children grown up but we’ll remember the water sloshing out the useless soap, the mountain of wet towels. ‘Remember the bathtub in Belfast?’ we’ll prod each other –

174 COLLECTED POEMS Belfast, November 1987

You are the perfect journalist: Clear-eyed. Never at a loss for balanced words. I am the one who gets lost, who still lingers over the smell of burning turf from yesterday’s visit to the museum.

And that is how we walked in to the pub on Falls Road: talking about turf fires and the old way of thatching roofs and the new way of building playgrounds. How does one begin to understand a place, a time?

She said her name is Maggie. She said she’s sixty-five years old. Perhaps she started talking with me because I was the only other woman in the pub. It was almost empty that night.

Old banged-up wooden doors hang crooked. We take our beers to the back room. Thick turf-smoke fights the permanent smell of cigarettes. But we are well-protected from the November gales outside.

Was I interviewing her or were we simply two women talking?

All the techniques I learnt from you, all the notes I took I kept to myself.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 175 She said her name is Maggie. And she sat in her chair as if she always chose this corner. Her fingers were cold bones.

Her eyes, grey shot with a wild blue. And such a sad cunning in her smile. We sat talking for three hours, maybe four – about the usual things: families. Brothers, sisters… Her sons. The wars she survived.

And even an ungrateful niece visiting from Australia, who didn’t want the strident white fake diamond earrings Maggie finally made me wear just so she could see how they flash against black hair even if they are fake –

‘You keep them, luv,’ she said –

‘You keep them.’

176 COLLECTED POEMS 29 April 1989

She’s three months old now, asleep at last for the afternoon. I’ve got some time to myself again but I don’t know what to do. Outside everything is greyish green and soggy with endless Bremen-Spring drizzle. I make a large pot of Assam tea and search through the books in my room, shift through my papers. I’m not looking for anything, really, just touching favourite books. I don’t even know what I’m thinking, but there’s a rich round fullness in the air like living inside Beethoven’s piano on a day when he was particularly energetic.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 177 The Need to Recall the Journey for Regina Munzel

Now when she cries for milk,

now as she drinks I drift back to the moments when she was almost out

still part of me but already I could reach down and touch her hair.

I want to return to her moment of birth. It was too quick. I want it to go on –

When the pain was suddenly defined by her head, when she was about to slide out safely all by herself – I felt my heart go half-way out with her… like seeing a beloved one off to a harbour, to a ship destined to go to a far away place you’ve never been to…

But I could touch her hair – a thick, fuzzy heat. Sticky feathers clung wet to runny whites of eggs…

But this is a little person who already has a favourite sleeping position.

178 COLLECTED POEMS Weeks pass, the bleeding stops. Months pass – What I thought could never heal actually heals.

And still there is this need to recall the journey, retell the story. The urge to reopen every detail until our faces glow again.

What are we trying to understand?

How we walked for hours while she kneaded herself out of my womb; how we paced up and down the small room – circling the huge bed.

No one can explain these details. No one could have prepared me for this.

The sound of ripping silk, tearing skin comes from within me.

Machines are recording everything one might like to know.

Afterwards, I thought: how lucky to have been alert as any animal struggling to give birth

in a cave

or behind a grove of trees

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 179 or in an open field

now walking, now straining to push, now lying down without drugs – no anaesthesia. How lucky to have felt each step. The sharp scalping blackness as if one had swallowed thorns, entire cacti and splinters from a knife…

Fallen fruits burst into slippery juice.

Fat roots that once pulled sucking up salt: sobbing voices from the sea – fat roots let go snap away then break apart like rubber pipes full of blood.

Is this how it feels to be almost drowned?

Black, black, that old knowledge from the earth.

And I stopped listening to T-Bone Walker and then Telemann, I was told spinning out loud from the cassette.

How everything irritated me except your hands your voice.

No one can explain these details.

180 COLLECTED POEMS A thousand rivers collided rushing and changed direction within my chest.

And then, she was out she was taken away to be washed, bathed – She was taken to be examined.

And then, I was cold. Cold, as if my bones had been emptied of their marrow.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 181 At the Flower Market

When we go to the flower market, my daughter and I, it’s only to look around not to buy. For me it’s to look at her six-month-old face while she stares at the colours and smells the sour oozing of cut stems the sweet soil of potted plants. So many different leaves thrown together, petals ruffled and fanning out so even the least fragrant flowers are fragrant. The lilies fighting giant sunflowers for attention; rows of herbs arranged beside tall ficus benjamins.

Today I stop by the expensive hibiscus and bougainvillea, imprisoned in plastic pots they sit like laboratory specimens because this is Bremen.

In Poona our bougainvillea bush had grown to the size of an elephant. The mauve bracts surrounding the flowers would fly in the wind like a thousand miniature paper kites. And the hibiscus, so abundant, those red trumpets with tongues like golden worms curling out.

Still, I go by every stall in Bremen’s city centre flower market – for no reason except to watch my daughter’s face open, her confused curiosity that makes me plan journeys.

182 COLLECTED POEMS Sinking into the Solstice

December fourth or fifth, sinking into the solstice, I’m finally beginning to enjoy the darkness, even the Bremen blackness, damp and rotting, and conquered by crows whose late afternoon cries are not hollow but fermenting with persistent ghosts. Oh they are huge mosquitoes as they clamour, swarming over the Bürgerpark. When I hear them I think of everything at once: stale chapatis tossed out to whoever can get them; pomegranates, Demeter, pine cones, graveyards, Shakespeare, ten inches of snow, foghorns, lighthouses, Ted Hughes, not to mention Edgar Allan Poe and Bombay…

It is December fourth or fifth, about six thirty in the morning when I sit up thinking someone is shining a searchlight on us or could it be a new street lamp just put up yesterday outside our window? No, no, it’s only the moon I end up staring at, only the plump, full moon filling up our window. He, she, it, hermaphrodite moon, changing its resilient sex as it crosses over borders from one country into another, accommodating every language, every idea – this chameleon moon is laughing with white fish stuck in its triumphant white teeth. Only the moon laughing at me who still wants it dark, who still wants to sleep.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 183 Until Our Bones Prevent Us from Going Further for Michael

We spent all day in a jeep – our hands awkward with questions, our speech twisted with confusion as the jeep strained winding higher and higher through the mountain, at eye-level with flying eagles – we stared back at a vulture who possessed the only tree for miles…

Now the sky begins to feel like a ceiling we can just barely touch, maybe by springing up and then uncoiling stretching out with a snap until our bones prevent us from going further.

The sky is taut wet silk: someone’s blue wings, panting through a sweaty gleam – someone’s blue kite longing to melt.

It is the sort of blue that makes us think we can find answers to all our questions. Where shall we live? What shall we do? Shall we ever have a child?

184 COLLECTED POEMS I brought you here to unwrap my fears, to pull out words only the Himalayas could translate and rephrase with their ringing echoes. But now it is the blue that hisses back silencing us. Now the red tongue of the sun licks us until we forget our patterns our different plots we thought so important.

We have just arrived at a gompa. But we hide behind the stones by the entrance, not wanting to interrupt the flow of om mani padme hum that ripples through the rows of boys reciting lessons with old monks.

Oxygen-weak air rushes through our lungs making our blood dizzy – we shudder as if someone, some spirit who lives in such thin air were reshaping our brains, our dreams.

We watch as if we too were praying as if they were praying for us. There are only stones where we stand. But something stirs, I feel a sliding movement – What is that? Rocks skitter. My soul scuttling away.

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 185 We watch, not daring to move. Those fresh-blood-maroon robes ruffled by the wind are the only lotuses, the only flowers between the dusty stones and the blue-lidded sun. The eight-year-old boys just losing their milk teeth chant as if they had learnt this rhythm from some ancient insects with enormous wings, no longer possible today. Now they pause, now they follow the old monks, descending slowly into a new chant. We are allowed to enter.

And now it is your turn to weep, the gold blue-shadowed dust stings your face as you turn with the wind, towards the light, towards the broad chest of the mountain – you weep alone, you stand tall your head thrown back, you weep and I am still far away down at the bottom looking up, just starting to climb the steps while you weep because it is more than beauty, more than truth, more than suffering, more than the firm gentleness of this infinite treeless blue that glows over these maroon robed children – you weep and weep and I suddenly know never again will I need to justify my soul to you.

186 COLLECTED POEMS What Does One Write When the World Starts to Disappear? for Eleanor and Bob

If only the earth would rise up and turn itself into a woman – the way she did long ago in Vedic times at the foothills of the Himalayas. It would be so easy. There she would stand complaining to Shiva: ‘My head’s been hurting all day –’ she would groan, ‘and my stomach burns with all their swords and guns their missiles, satellites, microphones, radios… I can’t go on like this. It’s about time you did something.’ Then Shiva would frown, this time there’s a seven-headed cobra in his hair. It rears up, all seven hoods flared – a huge, angry claw. Shiva would frown and the seven-headed cobra hisses in the right direction paralysing all the armies into a definite peace. It would be so easy.

What does one do when the world starts to disappear? Where does one go? What does one take along?

MONKEY SHADOWS (1991) 187 And who will read our books tomorrow? Who will listen to our music, tune the sitars and the violins? I mean, what species?

I too, have a recurring dream of the morning after. I see the earth strewn with gas masks and plastic – body bags bones rattling in the wind. Perhaps a few lizards have managed to survive, a few snakes… I see them crawling out from the rocks that sheltered them. I dream a lizard tail’s rippling dance through the eye-hole of a gas mask. A snake’s forked tongue flicks out, flicks in, flicks out again, investigating the nature of plastic.

188 COLLECTED POEMS The Stinking Rose 1995

I Freak Waves

The One Who Goes Away There are always, in each of us, these two: the one who stays, the one who goes away – – Eleanor Wilner

But I am the one who always goes away.

The first time was the most – was the most silent. I did not speak, did not answer those who stood waving with the soft noise of saris flapping in the wind.

To help the journey coconuts were flung from Juhu beach into the Arabian Sea – But I saw beggars jump in after those coconuts – a good catch for dinner. And in the end who gets the true luck from those sacrificed coconuts?

I am the one who always goes away.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 191 Sometimes I’m asked if I were searching for a place that can keep my soul from wandering a place where I can stay without wanting to leave.

Who knows.

Maybe the joy lies in always being able to leave –

But I never left home. I carried it away with me – here in my darkness in myself. If I go back, retrace my steps I will not find that first home anywhere outside in that motherland place.

We weren’t allowed to take much but I managed to hide my home behind my heart.

Look at the deserted beach now it’s dusk – no sun to turn the waves gold, no moon to catch the waves in silver mesh –

Look at the in-between darkness when the sea is unmasked she’s no beauty queen. Now the wind stops beating around the bush –

While the earth calls and the hearth calls come back, come back –

192 COLLECTED POEMS I am the one who always goes away.

Because I must –

with my home intact but always changing so the windows don’t match the doors anymore – the colours clash in the garden – And the ocean lives in the bedroom.

I am the one who always goes away with my home which can only stay inside in my blood – my home which does not fit with any geography.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 193 We are Adrift

At night our sunroom is closer to the water – we are adrift with the moon. Fog clings to the glass panes: sticky cobwebs torn apart remain floating – Where are the spiders?

Something swirls and swirls pulling us closer to the Juan de Fuca Strait. The foghorn blows louder each time making us think of hoarse sheep and frogs by marshy fields. The foghorn sounds closer each time, warning us of Trial Island – we can’t see the blue-bottle-greenish light flashing anymore, never mind the four skinny poles lit up with red lights. We imagine everything through the bud-taut branches – our sunroom is adrift in the fog.

We’ve heard about those who never returned from these waters we’ve heard about those who were rescued. We should be quiet. Maybe the dead have different rules over here. Maybe there are others adrift in these currents.

194 COLLECTED POEMS Although She’s a Small Woman

Although she’s a small woman she can make the fog leave Quatsino Sound.

Watch her now without her clothes she stands at the front of the canoe – the waves become lullabyes as she sweeps her arms to the north, to the south – Her wrists are so alert her song so sharp the fog decides to lift itself up and go somewhere else.

And southward on the shore there’s the turtle-crow-man the tall cedar man waiting for this fog – he likes to swallow whole cloudy strips.

Ages later a Japanese girl will poke that faded turtle, fearing splinters from the cedar, she’ll be surprised to feel skin like soap, like fog, as if a bolt of silk hardened into wood she can run her hands down.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 195 Point No Point

Why name a place Point No Point?

Does it mean we are nowhere when we reach it?

Does it mean we lose our sense of meaning, our sense of direction when we stop at Point No Point?

Begin again, add that it was the place we almost missed, and then it was the place we returned to again and again braking at the abrupt dirt road detour –

Hidden by trees, entangled in disagreements, we found shelter, a view – a clearing that was not a clearing.

Why name a place Point No Point? In any case, here we are, you said, in a new landscape – will it change your mind? Here we are in a game called ‘begin at zero’ – how many lighthouses can you love without fainting? And can you find enough pine trees to define the infinite dark green? If zero is love on the way to the lighthouse then where is the balance? And will it change your mind? Will the sky provide a clue to your confusion?

Well, here we are, you said, now try to understand the Juan de Fuca Strait.

196 COLLECTED POEMS Begin again, remember once we stopped for no reason, back-tracked down to Point No Point for no reason except that the light was sudden – it pulled us in, kept us still.

Then, just when we thought it was time to leave, we saw them: a group of orcas in the distance – seven, maybe eight – they were swimming towards us –

black and white, and black and white their rising and falling: generous, endless black and white, they burned – it was their bodies that made the waves alert – it was the largeness of their yearning, an innocent violence spinning within their grace – black and white, and black and white the surface: muscular, turbulent – It was more than passion, more that made our blood learn – that made our blood learn.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 197 ‘Man Swept out to Sea as Huge Wave Hit Rock’ – Times-Colonist, Victoria, BC, 7 January 1992

Freak waves, rollers, tsunami… tsunami… Harbour waves. Tidal waves out of the blue they say it happens from time to time.

Soon the wave felt heavy, entangled with legs and arms that were too slow – and the fish felt a man flailing against sea weed –

It’s reported the rock he stood on was 15 metres high, that he was 56 years old, and he stood 13 metres away from the shoreline. But can they make a graph, a sketch, can they find the proper equation? Can they tell us what to do so it won’t happen again?

Was the sky too blue that day in Ucluelet? How cold was the water? Why did the wave pounce, why take him away so he was never found? Why must such a perfect meditation be rent, rent body and soul through and through so you and I shiver, pull each other nearer to the shore when we walk by the same place.

198 COLLECTED POEMS When the Dead Feel Lonely When a Haida is drowned it is believed that his spirit is translated to the body of a killer-whale. These whales were therefore formerly much honoured, and never killed by the Haidas. The appearance of one of them off the shore in front of an lndian’s dwelling is always regarded as a ‘call’ to some member of the household, who will shortly meet with his death by drowning. – Charles Hill-Tout

This is the time of year when the dead feel lonely.

Who will go to keep them company?

Today the ocean is a cold blackish grey – but the waves flash bright.

The orcas swim blackly in their black and white skins.

Who will go to keep them company?

The first person who meets their eyes? The first person who hears their speech?

This is the time of year when the women hide – afraid to look at an ocean swelling with orcas.

But I don’t mind. I’ve been watching them for days. They are all I have now –

Look at the slow one who keeps stopping, then stands upright in the water and moves his head as if he were searching for someone.

What can I do when my dead feel lonely? Today I’ll try to look deeper into their eyes.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 199 How Far East is it Still East?

One Japanese fishing boat lost at sea was found with a skeleton curled up inside.

What happened to the others?

Nights when it was windy the whales could hear the rattling bones.

How could so many Japanese fishing boats get lost?

There were rules in 1639, rules about the size of the boat, rules about how much food they could carry –

Food enough to make a man turn back home, hungry.

How far east is it still east? And how far west is it still west?

Somewhere in the North Pacific the waters part

the waters part only because we think they do – but how could the ocean really be split in two?

Where are your stars? And where is your sky?

Which way do the waters part for you? Which way will you let the currents take you?

200 COLLECTED POEMS Now what is this voice that says: ‘Go away. This is not your world. You can’t enter this water – it’s too dark for you.’

Only the whales listen to the skulls trapped in the Japanese fishing boats.

Now what is this voice that says: ‘Go away. This is not your world. Only the whales can answer the lost fishermen.’

How far east is it still east? And how far west is it still west?

Which way will you let the currents take you?

Of course, the women saw them first. The women on their way to collect wood – the women on their way to begin something –

At night they will whisper to their elders:

Today two men walked out of the sea – we watched them eating berries – we do not know

if they are really human. Today we saw fifteen whales not far from the place where the men walked out of the sea –

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 201 The Three Sisters The tidal waves are believed by the Haidas to be caused by three sisters who dwell on the West Coast. When they are annoyed in any way they revenge themselves by raising these great waves and smashing the canoes of the Haidas and drowning their occupants. The devil-doctor is the only intermediary between the sisters and the people, and his services must be well paid for before he acts. – Charles Hill-Tout

Rage is such a pure emotion. We relish it. It’s a way to keep the Ocean clean.

I am the one – I am the other – And I am the last.

Yes, we are the three sisters – and there is nothing unreal about us. Being three we are

well-suited for strife, dialectical dilemmas – Being three we can never agree and in the end all we need

is to speak instead to the waves, to find release in crashing walls of water: a roar to match

the roiling anger in our throats. I am the one who smells their fish. I am the other who calls the wind.

I am the last who wakes the waves who slakes my thirst for the tug and pull of the tides.

Rage is a type of elation. We relish it. It’s the way we mean to keep the Ocean clean.

202 COLLECTED POEMS Don’t send us your devil-doctor. He can’t talk to us. And what shall we do with him?

Don’t send us your devil-doctor. We can’t love him. He can’t bring back the men

we loved when we were women, mortal like you. The men we loved drowned in the first freak waves

on a day before time could be trapped and counted. So don’t send us your devil-doctor.

He won’t know how to walk with us. We are not human. We are not ghosts. But we are real. We are surreal.

And we know how to keep the Ocean clean. I am the one who smells their fish. I am the other who calls the wind.

I am the last who wakes the waves who slakes my thirst for the tug and pull of the tides.

I am the last who watches the one who eats their fish. I am the last who hears

the other who sings with the wind. I am the last who never hungers who never sings –

I am the last who lives on pain, who licks and licks the bitter taste in my heart so I’ll never forget

that day I couldn’t stop weeping. I am the last who needs to watch how the Ocean swallows your men.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 203 The Wild Woman of the Forest

spoke to Emily Carr who loved her laughter – full of fiddlehead-fern-light it was, this laughter, full of spider webs and black water. It felt like roe, salty under the tongue.

What could Emily do but follow? The wild woman of the forest showed her the way from one totem pole to the next – canoes slid through rain and fog and Emily painted canvas after canvas so unselfconsciously – cedar-bear-mother eagle frog raven man cedar-man bear-man eyebrows beaks claws and beneath it all, the texture of wood.

Honest witness, attentive witness – Emily left herself outside the picture but her true self was always there – too pure to be seen.

Now it’s too late. You have to go to a museum and imagine how the totem poles once lived with the trees.

204 COLLECTED POEMS Polish-German Woodcarver Visits Vancouver Island for Hannes and Jutta

Arbutus, ash, cedar Douglas fir – and most of all, driftwood. He takes whatever strikes his shoes, his fancy – whatever lies unwanted on the ground.

A walk is not a walk without his knife flinging slivers of wood, left right and centre along the way.

The blade peels, scours, gouges uphill and down – the blade wants to hide away in wood.

His hands balance the trees and the sky differently from you and me.

Whether a piece of wood will give a fish or a man with a sharp face is something only the knife knows.

Meanwhile the road keeps winding. His young sons dart back and forth. Meanwhile his wife watches starlings with beaks full of parsley, build a nest.

Whether the wooden man will carry a duck in his arms, or a baby seal

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 205 with a strange tail is something only the knife knows.

Maybe the time of year matters. For example, it is April now. Maybe the thin moon meddles with more advice.

His hands understand stories hidden to us. When he goes to meet a totem pole you can be sure the knife burns.

206 COLLECTED POEMS Victor, Whiskey, Juliet, 2 2 3

When the steering gave out, the woman in the driver’s seat felt very calm, very numb. She didn’t see her entire life flash by her. She didn’t curse the rented car. As soon as she realised the steering didn’t work anymore she stopped listening to her full-of-instructions husband, she stopped glancing at her little girl in the back seat.

She wished the eagle watching from the pine tree would make a noise. But there was only the sound of rain, first rain after a dry spell. And then it felt as if the cells in her brain had switched on Glenn Gould – very slow and soft at first – then loud, a rainstorm racing down the mountain. She felt the piano, sharp: surgery without anaesthesia in her brain – the notes like cold stones being dropped while she held on to the useless steering wheel. Downhill on a mountain road one hairpin curve after another connecting Tofino to Port Alberni. The car slammed into the mountain, then bounced back against the steel girder on the cliff edge, back and forth four times, maybe five, while Glenn Gould played on in her mind – each note matching the car’s movement. It didn’t occur to the woman to be grateful for the absence of oncoming traffic, for the fact that it was Sunday morning, meaning: no logging trucks.

When the car slid into a sandy spot and stayed stuck beside the mountain, that was lucky for there was no girder now by the cliff on the other side of the road. And there was the Kennedy River far down below curling towards the wall of the cliff. The front wheels looked cross-eyed the way they pointed towards each other. A Native woman brought help and the policemen looked surreal

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 207 because they smiled a lot, saying: ‘You’re alive, you’re alive! We didn’t think you’d be alive.’

The birds were silent. The eagle could be seen flying. And was Mr Death still lurking around behind the trees? Another car had to be rented. The woman had to drive on and she was still calm – or was it numb? Only much later, six months later, did the dreams start. Dreams of falling while being locked in a car – simply falling endlessly down, down – And dreams of bungee jumping: jumping off and realising too late there’s no rope.

Soundless, voiceless dreams.

208 COLLECTED POEMS Salt Spring Island for Phyllis Webb

You wore purple and Salt Spring Island flashed green through your windows.

The way you spoke the words you spoke reminded me of Gandhiji.

And then it was time to catch the ferry back to Swartz Bay.

Even today I find Gandhiji’s words green like yours green like Salt Spring Island – Those words live with your eyes flashing and your purple blouse gentle gentle in my mind, your colours your words – and now I’ve put a paintbrush in your left hand.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 209 Your Sorrow You take your sorrow with you when you leave. However wide the sea or sky between, the journey’s end will bring you no reprieve. – Peter Sacks

But what if you change and your sorrow becomes your memory, a broken bone, a finger that heals strangely forever crooked for the world to see so even your thoughts don’t match up – and yet there’s no pain left.

Isn’t there a place that would make you forget? A sky that would make you disagree with yourself – ? A sea that would toss your sorrow back in your face shattered into a hundred, a thousand different questions?

I don’t know. Is it reprieve the journey’s end should bring? Or is it enough simply to have gone away – to have gone away so far for so long that finally reprieve is too gentle a word, too one-sided for what you need, for what you’ve already stepped toward.

210 COLLECTED POEMS II New World Dialogues

The Light Teased Me for Georgia O’Keeffe

The light teased me all day – the light made me doubt every word. What do I mean? What have I gleaned so far?

By late afternoon when I stumbled across your Red Poppy I couldn’t see the Poppy anymore.

Instead, a fat tarantula emerged rich with eggs, I could tell by the way she moved.

A black sheen of joy.

Then she slid back into scarlet scraps of silk.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 211 Cow’s Skull – Red, White and Blue

There’s something very right about it.

It’s truthful, direct, to the point – but also awkward, ugly, brutal.

Imperfectly perfect.

Red blood. White bones. Blue sky.

When all the young men in America could only think of Europe,

she walked through New Mexico collecting bones.

Red blood. White sky. Blue bones.

Those days she gathered horses’ skulls and cows’ skulls instead of flowers.

I see her staring at the skulls, looking through the eye-holes – for hours.

Red sky, blue sky, red blood white bones, white sky –

She understood the land. And when she left that place of dry heat she took a barrel full of bones back to New York.

212 COLLECTED POEMS Skinny-dipping in History for John Ashbery

First, you think of water and then, of course, the surface of the water.

Arms reaching out for air, for light, breaking the glassed-in- water-picture of trees.

It’s best to begin in the middle of the story: to plunge right in to the heart of things, to the sort of place where dolphins can be found – if you know what I mean.

There was the young man born in Japan but not Japanese who spent his youth in Chile, who spoke of skinny-dipping day after day with his sixteen-year-old schoolmates, studying the light on naked limbs while his mother planned dinner parties for Allende. Things happened so quickly as they always do. Afterwards, when they searched Allende’s body they found that boy’s father’s phone number. You bet they dialled that number endlessly to find out why. That boy, who’s not such a young man anymore once recalled Chile in a long sentence beginning with skinny- dipping one afternoon and ending with Allende’s death and the telephone no one wanted to answer.

So much action in one sentence, so much noise.

One has to return to the surface for air.

There is so much we know, too much, cruelly, to be expressed in any medium, Including silence. And to harbor it means having it eventually leach under

Your deepest thoughts will come to nothing if they don’t surface.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 213 There’s something to be said for waiting for that most wanted that most desired thing (whatever it is) to surface.

If you start thinking of the surface as a visible core, not superficial but a visible core, it’ll make you forget the knife.

After all, why would you need to cut through the core? What do you think you’d find?

Don’t we all know how even what you eat changes the surface of your skin.

It’s true. You are what you eat: Der Mensch ist, was er ißt.

All of a sudden one realises that a yak is a prehistoric cabbage.

If you have ever seen the glaring yaks in Ladakh eyeing the vegetables, while the prehistoric smell of cabbage being cooked engulfs you as you walk by the houses in Leh, then you’ll understand the importance of the surface.

In fact, the one thing that can save America is a slant version, a new mythology, a revision of its surface.

So what if the juice is elsewhere.

One day the juice might seep through and jazz up the surface.

One day a man will make a gesture you have never seen before.

One day a man will touch a piano in a way you never thought possible.

And how will the houses in Connecticut look then?

Will there still be people with big backyards and green lawns to mow all summer?

214 COLLECTED POEMS Parrots for Frida Kahlo

My parrots have been quiet all morning. They’ve been eyeing yours, Frida.

Yes, life can be a watermelon cut-open-juicy-red-bursting with black seeds.

But my parrots want mangoes: hard green ones that are sour and white inside.

Your parrots look so happy, Frida, so well-fed. They sit with their blue and yellow feathers puffed out.

My parrots long for yours, Frida, and they long for you; for your eyes which make them believe in everything and for your voice which makes them feel wanted and well-fed even though, these days, there are no mangoes to be found.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 215 What Does the Flower of Life Say, Frida Kahlo?

She says: Five eggs have ripened in my ovaries. One is too big and one is too little and one is too sad and one is too scared but the last one is very, very perfect.

She says: Who’s worried about the fizzy sperm? Five eggs have ripened in my ovaries – but only one will manage to stick itself inside the wall of my womb –

The Flower of Life is red and your three-eyed sun is even redder, Frida, and the earth too, all red –

And don’t we all know how red a witch’s egg can be.

216 COLLECTED POEMS Chutney

The diaspora women who thought Culture meant being able to create a perfect mango chutney in New Jersey were scorned by the visiting scholar from Bombay – who was also a woman but unmarried and so different. Sachi was her name, meaning ‘Truth’. And her greatest wish was to travel further north to have a look at Wallace Stevens’s house. Once there

she circled the huge box-like wooden house painted a dull white. It loomed. It was far too awkward in the small yard. She looked up towards the trees, looked down at the road – And her eyes for once not analytical became the eyes of the poorest Bombay woman visiting a temple.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 217 Nothing is Black, Really Nothing

nada es negro, realmente nada. So Frida Kahlo wrote one day in her diary.

But Frida, how black you could paint your pulled-back hair, your braids, and the little dark hairs above your lips – How black your eyes your eyebrows; how black the hairs of your monkey especially in Fulang-Chang and I.

But nothing is black. True black that breathes must shine with blue light, green shadows – some say a reddish glow means the colour isn’t black enough.

Then there was elephantinum, elephant-tusk-black. For Plinius records the tale of Appelles, born around 350 BC, he was Alexander the Great’s blue-blooded court painter – he was the first to create the colour called elephantinum from fired ivory.

Dry distilled from tusks, the fat fired out from the elephant tusks… and in the end black powder extracted, distilled, dry, dry…

218 COLLECTED POEMS And you can extract black out of grape seeds.

And you can extract black out of wood or gas or out of that oil hidden deep within the earth.

How black do you want your paint?

I do not want to consult the dictionary for words about black. I know those one-sided words already: a black heart, a black mood, a black day, a blunt black-jack –

I keep brooding instead over my daughter’s love for black –

How when she was not quite three and the blond children teased her for having brown hair, she was only angered by their inaccuracy. ‘This is not brown!’ she screamed holding up a fistful of her hair. ‘It’s black! My hair is black, black – Not brown!’

As if to say she knew her colours well. She no longer confused orange with red, indigo with violet, or brown with black. She could understand light green, dark green, yellow, blue, she learned the names so quickly.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 219 4

Now I keep turning back to you, Frida – Nothing is black but how you loved your black hair that’s not really black and how many different black strokes you found (when nothing is black) to pull out every shade of blackness from your hair, your self –

220 COLLECTED POEMS The Blue Snake Who Loves Water for Michael

Outside it’s an Indian-summer-black Iowa night.

Inside I sleep alone and I dream an afternoon picnic in a tropical garden.

Outside it’s a harmless, flat corn-fielded, dry night.

Inside where I sleep alone the grass is wet and the blue snake who loves water has entered my dream.

‘Watch out! A snake!’ everyone yells – And it’s strange that I am not afraid.

The snake is on his way to the lake. In no hurry and yet, with no time to waste he slides towards us – everyone runs away but I see no reason to move or even to sit up for he can easily slip over me, which he does sliding across my right shoulder and pressing against my neck as he leaves.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 221 Outside it’s morning, already hot this Iowa-bright prairie air.

Inside I’m wide-awake – the tea steeps and my neck burns at the very spot the snake touched as he slid over me.

Outside I meet my love by the Iowa River. We talk about dreams about snakes – we have just met a few weeks ago.

Still, I try to explain the blueness of the snake the burning on my neck – How can a dream be more than a dream?

No one will ever believe me.

No one, except maybe the river.

Last week the river was a muddy slur.

But now full of blue sky the river bends and smiles and becomes a ‘she’. The river narrows her metallic glinting eyes sun struck – the river smiles as if she could believe in my blue snake.

The river smiles as if she felt the blue snake rushing through her.

222 COLLECTED POEMS Pelvis with Moon A pelvis bone has always been useful to any animal that has it – quite as useful as a head, I suppose. – Georgia O’Keeffe

The desert sky when it’s blue sliding into grey and when it’s seen through a cow’s pelvis bone –

That cow gave birth, gave milk gave birth, gave birth – how many times?

The desert moon was indifferent to the cow as it is now indifferent to the bone.

And a woman drawn to this dry indifference – full of desert heat and cold.

A woman walking for miles, for days, grateful for the strength of her own pelvis bone.

Does she think of birth? Of death? What does she want?

She who feels the meaning of the sky, of the moon behind the pelvis bone –

What does she think?

She who watches the meaning of the pelvis bone when it is held and held like that so the holes are focused: sucking in the sky.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 223 It Has Come to This

The Chiefs: Rain in the Face Red Cloud Long Dog Charging Hawk Young Man Afraid of His Horses Crow Foot Kicking Bear

In a museum, in a German city I greet your photographs. Your names give me a story I can’t write, a story I can only dream on warm nights.

Burial of the Dead at the Battle of Wounded Knee S.D. CopyRighted Jan. 1st 1891 by the North Western Photo Comp. Chadron Neb. No.1.

Who owns the dead? Who owns the burial? What would you say Sun in the Pupil Red Shirt Girl Has a Dog Spotted Thunder Cast Away and Run Wounded in Winter Shedding Bear Shake the Bird Bring Earth to Her?

Your names are stuck in my mind – I want to keep them: I want to imagine the eyes, teeth, voices, fingers – that lived in your names.

224 COLLECTED POEMS III The Stinking Rose

The Stinking Rose

Everything I want to say is in that name for these cloves of garlic – they shine like pearls still warm from a woman’s neck.

My fingernail nudges and nicks the smell open, a round smell that spirals up. Are you hungry? Does it burn through your ears?

Did you know some cloves were planted near the coral-coloured roses to provoke the petals into giving stronger perfume…

Everything is in that name for garlic: Roses and smells and the art of naming…

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet…

But that which we call garlic smells sweeter, more vulnerable, even delicate if we call it The Stinking Rose.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 225 The roses on the table, the garlic in the salad and the salt teases our ritual tasting to last longer. You who dined with us tonight, this garlic will sing to your heart to your slippery muscles – will keep your nipples and your legs from sleeping.

Fragrant blood full of garlic – yes, they noted it reeked under the microscope.

His fingers tired after peeling and crushing the stinking rose, the sticky cloves – Still, in the middle of the night his fingernail nudges and nicks her very own smell her prism open –

226 COLLECTED POEMS Ninniku

Ninniku, ninniku the Japanese said as they examined the Buddhist monks. To bear insults with patience on the way to Nirvana.

The Buddhist mind is strengthened by the sharp light of garlic.

White… White… is the flame of garlic the heat of garlic.

Then Queen Maya, Siddhartha’s mother dreamt that a white elephant entered her womb.

White –

And that was the colour of the swan Siddhartha rushed to save.

White –

And that was the colour of Kanthak, the horse he once rode.

White –

And that was the colour of the elephant he once rode.

The Japanese met Buddhism and ninniku sprouted along with the lotus.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 227 om mani padme hum the monks whispered ever sleepless, ever vigilant, every day they walked for miles –

for the body must be able to bear the Truth, for without the body the mind can not climb the steep path of right mindfulness.

om mani padme hum the monks whispered with garlic on their breath.

Ninniku: To bear insults with patience. That’s what they have to do, those immigrants from the garlic-eating regions. Some travel north and some travel west but they all learn to keep their distance.

Sometimes the women in desperation douse themselves with perfume – musky jasmine husky rose – later on the bus, humid vapours mingle with garlic on their skin and clothes; only sharpen the luminous homesickness in the whites of their eyes.

228 COLLECTED POEMS (Russown)

(lahsoon ki jad mai charpara russ)

(patto mai kadva russ)

(nal mai kashaila russ)

(nal kay agrabhag mai kshar russ)

(tatha bijo mai madhur russ rahta hai) – Ayurvedic text

In the roots of garlic there is hot, spicy juice,

(charpara russ) (tikkho russ)

Fire: hot breath from the dry earth – soil where the cobra lives soil where the roots sting.

In the leaves of garlic there is bitter juice,

(kadvo russ).

Bitter leaves, bitter from the hard earth. Shards of clay, bones of cattle – bitter green numbs the hungry widow.

In the stem of garlic there is astringent, ambla tasting, turmeric tasting juice:

(kashaila russ, turo russ)

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 229 The stem tries to run away from the roots. The stem becomes seductive the stem has a taste that will make you an addict.

In the uppermost parts of the stem of garlic there is a salty juice,

(lavann russ, kshar russ) –

Beloved salt – salt for the sparkle in your eyes and salt for the blood. The uppermost parts of the stem of garlic will keep you enslaved with your beloved salt.

And in the seeds of garlic there is sweet juice:

(madhur russ).

Born with such sweet hope – sweet seeds, one could never have imagined milk and honey-sweet seeds of garlic.

On this earth there are six juices

called (russ).

Garlic has all of them except for the sour juice,

(aamle russ).

That is why those who understood garlic

named it (russown).

On this earth garlic has five juices – once again the number five.

230 COLLECTED POEMS Garlic in War and Peace

In peace they rubbed garlic paste across their lower backs before they lay together. A slow cleansing – it was sticky, then strangely cool. It was their secret bite their strongest aphrodisiac. And they preferred green garlic with large purple cloves.

In war they dabbed garlic paste over each wound – such endless wincing and endless those white cotton bandages. The stench of pus and garlic finally giving way to pink skin shiny as a freshly peeled clove of garlic – new patches of skin reminding them how in peace their garden overflowed with lilies and garlic – and the roses! The roses sprayed with garlic-water.

In peace their only war was against the worms.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 231 Mars Owns this Herb

And so the Romans said: May you not eat garlic meaning: May you not be drafted into the army –

Human ways haven’t changed much.

In 1916 the British government asked for garlic and they paid a shilling for each pound of it.

And the trenches were always full of wounded limbs, broken limbs covered with sterilised sphagnum moss soaked in garlic juice.

And maybe there was one man – I imagine him barely twenty – who thought of the Romans as he watched the skin on his legs become less grey and begin to heal.

232 COLLECTED POEMS A Touch of Coriander Garlic is believed to act as an aphrodisiac when pounded with fresh coriander and taken with neat wine. – Gaius Pliny the Elder

It is the coriander – the green leaves that cool the tongue after garlic. It is the coriander: feathery, tender, that makes them undress each other before they’ve finished undressing the garlic –

And the wine? With garlic the wine only makes them thirstier – the wine only makes the kiss last longer.

And then they’ll turn again to coriander – the green leaves that soothe the eyelids.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 233 Bear’s Garlic at Nevern for G.C.

‘Look, look!’ You call out as you run:

your fingers stained dark red shiny with blood from the yew tree –

Then, after a quick glance to make sure no one is watching, you pull out some green leaves.

Yes, you’re the strong one, you’re the fast one –

And your clean movement brings up white roots soft and suddenly free of mud.

We gather bear’s garlic, wild Wood Garlic, ramsons, almost like Lily of the Valley – hard umbels all green spread out clusters of springy stars –

We sniff our hands: a smell of yew-tree sap, blood thick and wild garlic.

Oh but we’re not done yet – we have to walk through the overgrown paths – tall grass slaps wet against our legs. Wild flowers sprout at crooked odd angles, they slant over, trying to shelter the gravestones – from what?

234 COLLECTED POEMS I want to take a bite from the garlic, even a tiny bite will do – but I don’t.

Should I taste what grows in a graveyard?

You find strawberries. We eat them. This is how the sun tastes when it’s allowed to enter fruit. This time I don’t hesitate.

A swirl of strawberries curl in and out almost hidden by leaves and stones. We eat them – balancing the garlic stems in our hands – balancing all we promise to plant, we circle the church. The flooded river is loud. It gushes in such a hurry. Rapid, gurgling muddy noise drags along broken things.

We circle the Great Cross. We must touch it. A sort of lingam slab – thirteen feet high. Cross after cross entwined: a patterned undergrowth – a defiant, endless weave.

And then you point into the shadows at a stone-carved face I would have missed.

Such a small face. Too small. I wish it larger. I want the whole body – so you imagine her, give me her mood illuminating your secret: It’s too simple to say

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 235 she’s having sex, you decide, if that is Sheila na Gig

she’s enjoying herself in labour. She’s lost in herself, lost in the soon-to-be-born. How else could she give birth?

I turn to you, tasting strawberries on my tongue –

and still this craving for wild garlic I try to ignore so I step closer to the desire-filled face – the stone-life, rain-worn but wild on that skin of Sheila na Gig.

What else can I call her so you know how I feel?

Isn’t she the one we came to meet? Our Devi of strawberries and garlic –

236 COLLECTED POEMS Frightened Bees Notes from a Welsh Herbal

Take a clove of garlic prick in three or four places in the middle dip in honey and insert in the ear covering it with some black wool.

And if I had no black wool would white wool do – or must it be at least red or dark blue?

Let the patient sleep on the other side every night leaving the clove in the ear for seven or eight nights unchanged. It will prevent the running of the nose and restore the hearing.

Black wool I found at last but it makes me dream of frightened bees with a dead queen – homeless swarms rushing in a panic –

night after night – the dead queens are piling up fast – but someone wants to crush them with rose petals and honey – someone wants to eat the dead queens and taste a sweetness, a knowledge no one dares to try.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 237 Ther is No Rose of Swych Virtu Ther is no rose of swych virtu as is the rose that bar Jhesu – Anonymous, England, fifteenth century

An old gardener plants a rosary of garlic around the rosebushes.

And the sun on the high windows makes the song softer, softer – a hum in his ears:

ther is no rose of swych virtu…

while the odours from the dug up earth cling to the air – and the wind leaves no boundaries between the scent of roses and the scent of garlic.

The Worm

I know about you. You hate me. You think too much. And you like to imagine me biting into a clove of garlic.

What do you expect?

It burns – it burns.

I know Allicin: reactive pungent unstable strongly medicinal. I know you. You think the garden belongs to your kind. Today you’ve spread white fire over my home – garlic all over me – I try to rub it off in the grass – but do you know the red rose is still my love – my love, not yours.

238 COLLECTED POEMS A Poem in Three Voices

1 First voice:

Today I’ve become an angel. I’ve no need for garlic now. I wish I could tell my mother to stop crying I wish I could thank her for the coin she put in my hand, folding my dead fingers over it – she made sure I would be ferried across the River Styx. I wish I could thank my mother for the garlic she put in my dead mouth before they buried me – Yes, it was the garlic that helped me grow angel wings.

Over here they keep asking me to tell them what happened. But even I don’t know. I had climbed up the apple tree and then I saw him swooping down: The oldest man – but Sibyl-faced, scrawny and dressed in the blackest black. His huge leathery wings were oily, filthy with blood – and even his lips were black. That was the last thing I saw: his lips, his black snarl.

2 Second voice:

What have I done to deserve this fate? They found my boy crumpled in the orchard – his throat mangled, his face bloodless –

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 239 Why has the earth betrayed me? Why is my crop of garlic useless?

3 Third voice:

The boy stank of garlic. I didn’t touch him. There he sat like a monkey in a tree all elbows and knees and he had beautiful teeth. But it was clear he lived with garlic. It had already entered his blood while he kicked about in his mother’s womb. And she, wise woman, kept cloves of garlic beneath her pillow. That boy had been breast-fed with garlicky milk – and as he grew older he ate garlic with every meal.

No way would I touch him. He simply fell. When he saw me he lost his balance. He fell and broke his neck. I left – but someone must have seen me. For no one believes me and now the whole village is after me.

240 COLLECTED POEMS A Brahmin Wants the Cows to Eat Lots of Garlic

So he can drink the garlic-rich milk.

That’s the only way he’s allowed to take garlic.

For three days and three nights he’ll wait, let the garlic seep into the cows, he’ll wait for the right moment.

A brahmin wants the cows to eat lots of garlic – so he watches and he sings bhajans making sure they do.

He wants to step out of his brahminhood and wander cow-like through the spring-hazy-purple dust, cow-dust.

But a little bit of milk will bring him back to his senses.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 241 If You Named Your Daughter Garlic Instead of Lily or Rose

She would travel far to gather mushrooms –

After a night of rain she would rescue snails, putting them back on the broad leaves, the high stems able to support them.

She would never lose a crop of tomatoes.

You would never know she was Garlic because she would smell of roses – her garden overflowing with fennel – She would travel far to gather mushrooms, that daughter you named Garlic.

And unlike Tolstoy’s Varenka she’ll meet a man who won’t mind talking about mushrooms.

242 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait with Garlic

In the kitchen – cloves of freshly peeled garlic. Sound of a knife being sharpened. April late afternoon light – light filtered through green trees.

How shall I do it?

Watercolour? Oil? Charcoal?

Colour or black & white?

Or, a self-portrait in words. How shall I do it?

The look on my face is not a mask – am I absorbed in the garlic or lost in the book I stopped reading before entering the kitchen?

And there’s a radio on the table. Has it been turned on? There’s the sound of my four-year-old daughter running in and out of the kitchen.

Oh but the garlic is everywhere – large spring bulbs in the basket: their stalks, thick green their cloves covered with purplish skin. And chopped up cloves on the cutting-board –

Now my face has changed – my eyes are different because of the garlic.

It is a difference one can’t even photograph.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 243 Allium Moly and Odysseus

First, there was Moly: Black was the stem, milky-white the flowers of this strong smelling, divine herb that Hermes found in the grass for Odysseus.

Only the gods had access to Moly.

But there is no Moly in Nature.

Should you care to look you’ll find allium moly: a daylight-green stem with sparks of yellow flowers –

Imagine Odysseus with allium moly:

There he stood in the doorway clutching this yellow-flowered herb hidden within his garments.

His thumbnail digging in almost crushing the last of his yellow garlic – and Circe had a bad cold, she couldn’t smell a thing – not even the pigs around her.

There he stood: impatient Odysseus counting his days on the island, wondering how long his garlic-fed luck would last – how long a little bit of allium moly can fight magic with more magic. How long before Circe recovers the power of her nose – and finally realises why her spells have failed –

244 COLLECTED POEMS Instructions to the Artist

How can I know what I want?

Paint me some garlic. The whole plant shaken by footsteps the whole plant full of movement with your paint.

Maybe I need more than garlic – paint me a full red rose somewhere in a corner across from the garlic.

Of course you’ll know how to arrange the space: the movement of the garlic the swaying rose – then stillness somewhere and tension and balance – I’ll leave that up to you.

But how about the human figure? Can you include it somehow with the garlic and the rose?

I don’t mean just any human figure –

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 245 A First Draft from the Artist

You’ve painted a thin man with his hands raised high so high – is he walking slowly or is he just standing – nowhere to go?

Oh he’s a weird ghost but he’s not a ghost. He’s androgynous but he’s not. He’s a secret hermaphrodite. He’s sexless but erotic in all the non-erogenous zones.

This man is brown, tanned from the sun yellow glares behind him –

and his heart can be seen through his chest: bright red – fresh blood a heart-shaped lump like a head of garlic balanced on its tip.

This man looks strong for all his leanness.

And he holds up a huge red rose in his right hand and an enormous head of garlic in his left hand.

Is the rose for Mary? For every woman named Mary? Can garlic only be held in the left hand?

246 COLLECTED POEMS What does he mean by this? Garlic streaked creamy yellow and purple in his left hand – and a happy red rose fluttering in his right hand –

Why are his hands raised so high?

Why have you painted a man and not a woman?

The Man in the Artist’s First Draft Speaks

I’m the sort of man who prefers to work in the kitchen. Not simply cooking –

I like to sit and read in the kitchen. I write letters – long letters while sitting in the kitchen.

I’ve just started writing a novel about a man who lives in a kitchen.

What am I doing here with this ripe rose and ready to burst garlic?

Don’t you dare think of me as a symbol.

The artist made me this way – with my arms raised so high as if I were waving to my love on the other side of the garden.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 247 The Good Farmer

The good farmer follows the gypsy’s advice and feeds garlic to his sheep and horses, and puts sprigs of wild garlic in the stables –

The good farmer knows how to keep his horses from getting bewitched.

But should a gypsy smile at the farmer’s children, or linger to stroke their heads then he’ll cross himself to break the spell and he’ll mutter: Knoblauch, Knoblauch, Knoblauch,

Knoblauch, Knoblauch, Knoblauch –

sometimes uncertain about the number of times he should say Knoblauch.

248 COLLECTED POEMS A Wintry July in Bremen

It has been a cold July with rain every day.

Today you show me an enormous painting of garlic: a full head partly open with yellow from a winter sky

and lead pencil grey blue shadows.

I call it my giant-winter-garlic. I look at it with eyes that are tired of rain.

If you painted the cloves of garlic even larger than this I would see those cloves turn into canoes propped up slanting against pine trees on a night when the moon is swollen with light, the full curve of a milk-heavy breast the full curve of a child-heavy belly –

On a night like this the fishermen move restless –

A few have gone out to their canoes – they are so silent even as they touch the water.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 249 Rosehips in August

The half-open, half-empty head of garlic curls out in every direction like an old rose, still large and strong – not at all worm-eaten – but just heavy with its own half-fermented smell.

Rosehips and garlic are strewn across the table in your painting: A pale flush of scarlet translucent watercolour beside a dark garlic leaf.

I am drained of thoughts of words, of speech – I only want to fill myself with colours.

Your pen, fine as a needle – the sharp nib, the sharp smell in your rooms…

Afternoons we drink rosehip tea, hot red and pungent against this cold spell.

Through your window I can see rosehips ripening, ripening – and in the rainy wind they fling themselves against the glass.

250 COLLECTED POEMS If a Ghazal were like Garlic

It would be a place where the Duende lived.

If you sang this ghazal it would heal your vocal cords.

No matter how much you pulled and tore out your voice

and spread your arms, tense-tendoned your hands fisted, fingers cold-knuckled –

No matter how deep the song cut into your eyes, your bones,

no matter how much the song tightened around your neck

the ghazal’s sounds would heal your wounds.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 251 Garlic and Sapphires in the Mud

Dark blue stones. White cloves of garlic. The earth begins to soften again.

Dark blue flowers, the colour of sapphires, grow beside the garlic. The mud is deep –

His shoes sink in deeper and deeper with each step as he tries to pull out the bedded axle-tree.

His hands flush red. With mud-stained palms he stands between broken garlic stalks, stones and flowers –

Flowers torn by the axletree.

There is birdsong, birdcries that his blood follows.

It’s only when he turns around so you can see his face that you realise he’s old. Heroically old – with a broken face – the scars dividing up forehead and mouth more than they should.

It’s only when he turns around so you can see his face that you wonder where he’s been.

But the earth has begun to soften again – And there is birdsong, birdcries that his blood follows.

252 COLLECTED POEMS The Pharaoh Speaks

I feel heavy, sticky. I’ve been too tightly bound and squeezed shut.

Still, how good it is to be alone at last in my tomb – Amidst all the gold and lapis lazuli they’ve hidden six bulbs of garlic.

My soul has come back for one last visit. My soul hovers by the garlic and prays.

The gold laughs and sings of its golden self – daring my skin to achieve such a perfect colour. The lapis lazuli tries to put a blue spell over me.

But the six bulbs of garlic remain self-contained – quietly odourless, saving their power for something else.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 253 It Has Not Rained for Months To know whether a woman will bear a child. Clean a clove of garlic, cut off the top, place it in the vagina and see if next day her mouth smells of it. If she smells, she will conceive; if not, she will not. – Hippocrates

It has not rained for months. Hot dirt from the fields, hot dust whipped up with the wind hurts my throat, my chest –

I cannot breathe and then he comes with his clove of garlic, with his hot garlicky breath and his beard, sharper than thorns and his face of stone – I cannot breathe but he opens my mouth

and then I must keep this clove of garlic inside where my flesh has become so raw that it burns – It has not rained for months – and I lie facing the window and I watch the crows peck at stolen seeds – I cannot breathe and every morning he comes full of remorse with his hot garlicky breath he opens my mouth

and then I must remove this clove of garlic from this burning flesh and I think that if I would bleed at least the blood would heal me, at least the blood would soothe the garlic scrubbed cuts.

254 COLLECTED POEMS It has not rained for months. I am wet from my own sweat. Hot dirt from the fields stuck in my heart.

Every month I bleed too much –

too much – and then he comes with his clove of garlic and then I must keep this clove of garlic deep inside me where it burns.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 255 IV Old World Blood

An India of the Soul It is not necessary to have poems full of mendicants and minarets, gurus and ghats, to contemplate an India of the soul. – Alastair Niven

But the soul will be the colour of turmeric spilt on white stone.

And the creature who lives in the soul will count with her thumb on the joints of her fingers.

Time will be slow and Time will be concrete and Time will be stuck like a wet crow peering down from a tree, broken and black –

Who is more jagged, the tree or the crow? The crow peering down, his head so crooked so tilted –

Then the soul will be the colour of ferns surrounded by mosquitoes.

And the creature who lives in the soul will wash her feet before going to bed.

256 COLLECTED POEMS A Gujarati Patient Speaks A heart surgeon in London made it a practice to operate only after he and his patient had both listened to Gould recordings.

Usually, when I’m sick I eat rice with yoghurt, two cloves of raw garlic and some (dalnu pani).

After the dal has settled on the bottom of the pot I scoop out the top-water, rich in onions and garlic – I squeeze fresh lemon juice over it in my bowl, drink it slowly – Usually, I feel much better.

Coriander is important. And fenugreek. I use lots of fenugreek.

Although I live in London I still prefer my ways. Sitar, tabla: I call them my basic instruments because they help me improve my mood, soothe my headaches.

When I hear certain notes I can smell patchouli, I can smell my mother’s soap and the oil she used on her hair.

So when my doctor asked me to listen to all this Bach, the Goldberg Variations – I thought he must know something about Ayurvedic methods.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 257 But why Bach? And why Glenn Gould? Normally, I don’t listen to piano. Even my children prefer saxophone – and mostly jazz.

Still, this morning after breakfast I gave it a try. Glenn Gould: such movement, exact the way honeybees measure and remeasure the sun all summer – pink zinnias – urgent wings hum after the shifting angle of earth and sun.

And if there is sleep in the background it is the sleep of a man with too many dreams – and it is the sleep of lovers who can’t ignore each other.

I can see why a surgeon would worship the gestures, lust after the fingers behind this sound.

But me? How will the piano understand my moods?

258 COLLECTED POEMS (Shantih)

Why did you latch on to that word when you probably never used it in common speech or prayer?

But maybe that’s why.

To you it sounded new and holy – so holy.

While we who use it use it for everything – When we scold our children begging for quiet:

(aray shantih rakho!)

(havay shantihthi beso!)

And our daily prayer begins

(om saha naa vavatu)

(saha nau bhunaktu)

then falls into

(om shantih shantih shantih)

Everyday-words I took for granted.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 259 (saha veeryam karvaa vahai)

(tejasvinaa vadhitam-astu)

(maa vidvishavahai)

The Sanskrit becomes so simple when I translate it:

May the Lord protect both of us. May He use both of us. Let us both work together. May our knowledge shine forth. Let us not hate each other. Let there be peace, peace, peace.

Does it sound deeper if you call it shantih? What is the true sound of shantih?

The end of a war – any war? Sometimes it’s only a night without bombs –

and sometimes, somewhere in a house a house that’s a burnt smallness – broken glass and no animals – somewhere in a house the sound of children sleeping a sound that is so different if one of them has only one leg.

260 COLLECTED POEMS Genealogy

My daughter when she was four once described herself as a tiny egg, so small, she was inside me at a time when I was still not born when I was still within her grandmother. And so, she concluded triumphantly, I was also inside Aaji.

When she showed me her newest painting, she said:

At night the sun is black and the moon turns yellow. Look, that’s how I painted it. This is the sky at night so the sun is also black. What are the angels doing at night? It’s not bad to die because then you can become an angel – and you can fly and that’s so nice – I’ll be happy to be an angel.

Later, I overheard her say to her father:

When I am a grandmother I’ll be very old and you’ll be dead. But I hope you’ve learned to fly by that time

because then you can fly over to my house and watch me with my grandchildren.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 261 Black Swans for Swantje

Their wings are clipped. That’s why they stay over here.

Snow melts and the first green stems are crawling out from the ground. That’s why they’ve started to build a nest.

Red beaks snapping up the straw left for them. See how their necks move like black snakes dancing upright – faster and faster, back and forth…

What else is there to do?

The air smells of horses, fertilised fields –

You will collapse hypnotised if you stare at the swans for too long.

As I say this a flock of wild geese flies overhead – they are loud long arrows – taut now a tight arc.

The swans wait, look up tense with abruptly stopped motion. As if the geese were calling out to the swans:

262 COLLECTED POEMS as if the swans wished they could follow the geese and seek out some other lake some other spot which would at least be of their own choosing.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 263 One of the Wurst-Eaters on the Day After Good Friday Bad Tölz, Bavaria, 30 March 1991

Blutwurst in the morning then off to the church on the hill where he will pray kneeling on the cold steps, flanked with wooden banisters, unvarnished and so dry – upon which angels stand – painted, winged children holding up candles, Heilige Stiege leading to the altar. An altar well-stocked with a holy skeleton and bits of hair, bits of clothes from a few good saints.

He will pray kneeling – crawling up the twenty-eight steps with a square pillow for his knees and a different prayer for each step.

Blutwurst in the morning while it snows across the Alps whitening all the farms to the colour of Speckfett and chilling the Tegernsee, forcing all the fish to swim deeper.

The puppies were born yesterday but the pregnant mare waits quiet. In a week or so the farmer thinks while he cuts Blutwurst in the morning.

264 COLLECTED POEMS Fate i.m. A.K. Ramanujan (1929-1993)

Of course, you would smile if you knew that I’ve decided to insert fate telepathy and unconscious ‘second sight’ at the core of this poem.

Let fate be an elephant who needs water, walking along the x-axis and let telepathy be a young scorpion: fast, hungry, scurrying down the y-axis – we do not know, perhaps we’ll never know if they meet. Only the monkey called second sight knows and he won’t tell us unless we pass a certain test, unravel a certain trick.

But how shall I explain that day I dropped everything that needed to be done, turned instead to your books started re-reading them one after the other in a great rush stayed up most of the night alert, nostalgic, I hunted out my favourite lines not knowing that all the time you lay in hospital. Not knowing why I had this sudden craving for your words.

You were still in Chicago, I in Bremen, and the Ganga still flows dirty and oblivious.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 265 Forgive me if I call it fate or some form of telepathy. But very soon the phone rang at an odd hour with the news of your death – while your books were still strewn around me so full of book-marks,

they bulged some like paper flowers some like paper birds trying to open petals, wings – little fans of magic with their own dreams refusing to fit back into the tight slots on the shelf.

266 COLLECTED POEMS Orpheus Confesses to Eurydice

It was a lack of faith. I admit it. I didn’t believe enough in you or even in the power of my song. I needed constant reassurance. Yes, I saw how the Furies wept as I sang slower, softer – Time stopped for me – still, I didn’t think they’d let you go. I didn’t think you’d be free to follow me. And so I looked back wondering: were you really there?

I’ve caught the snake that killed you – I keep him alive. He’s become a sort of pet – such a small viper, and so supple – my last connection to you. And his brightness: eyes, skin – how he shimmers in the sun – keeps me alert and reminds me at times of your brightness: the sun in your hair, the jewels around your neck.

At first, of course, I thought of revenge. I thought of hurting the snake, of throwing him into a fire. But I hesitated and now I’ve grown fond of him.

Once when I stood singing by the cliffs a sharp stone fell – and then a lizard darted to the east and her sliced-off tail rushed away to the west – and I watched the tail shudder and jerk – a yellow-green thing in such a hurry.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 267 Now I’ve become a torn-off lizard’s tail. Only my tongue lives in my bodiless head – my tongue still sings against the noise of the river.

Maybe this is what I really wanted: To be just a tongue – a lizard’s tail without the lizard.

To be a pure voice without my tired, awkward body –

Now I’m almost weightless and about to be swallowed by the ocean – I will become a stronger voice.

268 COLLECTED POEMS Jealousy I go to bed and then that man sits in the next room and continues laughing about his own writing. And then I knock on the door and I say, ‘now Jim, stop writing or stop laughing!’ – Nora Joyce

A woman eats her heart out and the window near her bed is too small and it won’t shut properly – and her heart tastes quite sweet, very nice despite the bitterness – but the moon doesn’t care and anyways the moon stopped helping her long ago.

The opera is just over and a crowd of footsteps, so many high heels, clatter past her window.

There are no stars tonight. Only clouds that move too quickly and make her dizzy.

She’ll close her eyes but she won’t sleep she’ll continue to eat her heart out all night –

And in the morning she’ll think of a way to fix the window.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 269 Kaspar Hauser Dreams of Horses based on Werner Herzog’s film

Roß, Roß, he growls his word for horse scraping a wooden horse across the floor.

That’s his only word and he looks as if he’s at least forty. His feet are chained he’s half naked – covered with mud and straw – no one has taught him to walk. Roß, Roß, is all he says to his only toy.

One night, the old man: his keeper, his father – lets him outdoors, takes him into town and leaves him there.

Someone takes him in – helps him learn what he needs to know.

His dull eyes his numb face propped up with a white collar. Black-suited and stiff they take him out into the sun.

Here is a rose, they say here is a tree. Now look at this book.

And listen, listen, they tell his numb face: that is a bird. This is a violin.

270 COLLECTED POEMS At last, one day Kaspar Hauser has tears on his face. This must be what they call shame, he thinks, this salty wetness against my skin – against my vision – What are these tears for?

Life begins again for Kaspar Hauser and we begin to hope.

Finally we see his dreams flickering on the screen: out of focus dreams coloured ochre and brown filtered through an almost golden light.

Dreams of horses thousands of horses or rather, soldiers on horseback – soldiers riding into battle kicking up yellow dust.

Where did he get such dreams? Dreams he couldn’t even understand – thinking it all real at first.

What part of his soul sheltered such horses? And did he remember Roß, Roß?

Kaspar Hauser, who had to learn the human meaning of tears – how did he know about war?

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 271 Ophelia in Defence of the Queen after Marina Tsvetayeva

Prince Hamlet! I’ve had enough of your stirring up the worm-ridden bed… Can’t you see the roses? Look! Think of her who’s been counting her last days just waiting for this particular day.

Prince Hamlet! I’ve had enough of your degrading the Queen’s womb, that sweet aching, the way blood rushes deep within the arc of bone and muscle just to awaken skin – Have you ever noticed all the different sorts of skin that cover your body? It’s not for virgins to judge such passion. Phaedra’s guilt weighed heavier: Even now they can’t stop singing of her.

And let them sing! But you, you’re chalky, mouldy. Save your curses for dead bones. Prince Hamlet! Who do you think you are to pass judgement on blood that burns?

But if… Well then, watch out! Up through the gravestones and on – straight to the bedroom – to fall in bliss! It is I who come to defend my Queen, I, your passion that refuses to die.

272 COLLECTED POEMS Monsoon with Vector Anophelines

The ceiling fan turned on: full power. The mosquito nets flutter all night. Even the monsoon sky clears and if the children opened their eyes now they’d be blinded by moonlight.

But the children will not stir and in the morning they won’t remember their dreams.

Soon, the youngest boy, who’s almost two, will burn with a fever. This will go on for days until he starts to sweat and then shiver in the cold damp sheets. Then the fever will return. This will go on for weeks.

His mother will stay by his side. Nights she’ll spend on the floor by his cot until she’s certain he’ll live.

But for now his mother still sleeps on, unaware of that future while the ceiling fan in her room raises such a strong breeze from the sticky moist air – that loose strands of her hair fly wildly, and blow across her face.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 273 More Fears about the Moon

Fetus after fetus lost.

And the inner voice dares not speak to me.

Each time I looked there was always too much blood. I could never see the face. Only the fins: limp, but they glistened and once, the curved spine seemed to tremble in the dish. Too many little ones slipped away from me. My girls, my boys – couldn’t wait to leave – my crooked fishes my sea horses – they didn’t want to become children.

Fetus after fetus lost. Can’t you take me away from this city?

The full moon kept us awake all night.

And in the morning her ghost smile took us out to the ocean, made us walk for hours along the edge of sand and water.

Soon we came to the place where the dolphin lay.

274 COLLECTED POEMS The dolphin lay far inland, dead – thrown up by some great wave.

We circle it. The split open bruises, bloated purple – the torn skin. You cover its eyes with mussel shells. And we walk on – but return the next day and the next, everyday until the tide shifts.

Now each day the ocean comes closer.

It crawls, it leaps, this rising tide – while the moon shrinks.

We watch from the doorway.

What if the waves never turned back, but kept on rising, higher and higher? What if the moon lost control and let the tides go as they please?

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 275 Lizard, Iguana, Chameleon, Salamander for Jakobine von Dömming

Who are you? The frog asks: Lizard? Iguana? Chameleon? Salamander?

You worry too much about your tail.

I’ve gone beyond my adolescent tadpole phase. I’ve willed myself huge and I pray to a huge striped fish who is my love and my God, green as the tree of life.

I’m the sort of frog Frida Kahlo had in mind when she saw Diego as a boy frog standing up on his hind legs.

Who are you, lizard?

You say the monks pray to you but that’s because they don’t know of me yet.

They walk and they walk through blue, almost black through red, almost black mountains where vultures fly over their heads –

They sing and they sing to their water-buffalo – guided by a crow, confused by a lizard.

276 COLLECTED POEMS I have seen the blue monk walking with his old zebra.

What do you know, lizard?

But lizard only smiles sly as a canoe on a lake at night – Lizard sticks out her sliver of a tongue lizard flicks her tail and moves sudden as an arrow –

Who am I? Lizard whispers Who am I?

What does it matter as long as I can change into any colour – What does it matter as long as I bring luck to every place I visit.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 277 Sharda

After all these years my mother has forgotten her name – the name of the girl she most admired – the girl who lived across the street when my mother was little.

So I tell her it must have been Sharda. Sharda: A mature name, full of dignity. Sharda, who is the lute: Veena – light sun-notes flicker transparent across blood-dark heavy tones – Sharda who is both Sarasvati and Durga – dragonfly wings shimmer, curious above the drowned squirrel – How can one name contain so much?

‘Sharda, Sharda!’ I can see her mother calling her.

Sharda was a serious girl. She wore a silk chanya choli: that is, a long full skirt and a tight bodice-blouse – she sparkled. She was nine years old. She knew many prayers. She sat alone in the puja room – she was doing arti she was ringing the small brass prayer bell with one hand and holding a small flame also brass cupped in her other hand – when she slipped and the ghee spilled across her silk clothes and the wick spit fire over her fingertips.

278 COLLECTED POEMS Maybe there was a gust of wind – something fluky so even the huge crows fled with their elbow-wings.

Why was there nobody at home that day? Why was there no one who heard her cry?

‘Such things happen,’ My mother says. I suspect Sharda’s elders. Did she have too many sisters? ‘No, no! It wasn’t like that.’ My mother shakes her head.

Still, we can agree about how she spun, hopping around and around trying to escape the flames.

Then she was sucked in – it was like a sudden wave a wall with a sharp undertow – A fire-wave almost silent compared to water.

‘Sharda, Sharda!’ My mother must have called for a long time even after they found her.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 279 V (Riyaj)

The Voices

First, a sound from an animal you can never imagine.

Then: insect-rustle, fish-hush.

And then the voices became louder.

Voice of an angel who is newly dead. Voice of a child who refuses to ever become an angel with wings.

Voice of tamarinds. Voice of the colour blue. Voice of the colour green. Voice of the worms. Voice of the white roses. Voice of the leaves torn by goats. Voice of snake-spit. Voice of the placenta. Voice of the fetal heartbeat. Voice of the scalped skull whose hair hangs behind glass in a museum.

I used to think there was only one voice. I used to wait patiently for that one voice to return to begin its dictation.

I was wrong.

280 COLLECTED POEMS I can never finish counting them now. I can never finish writing all they have to say.

Voice of the ghost who wants to die again, but this time in a brighter room with fragrant flowers and different relatives. Voice of the frozen lake. Voice of the fog. Voice of the air while it snows. Voice of the girl who still sees unicorns and speaks to angels she knows by name. Voice of pine tree sap.

And then the voices became louder.

Sometimes I hear them laughing at my confusion.

And each voice insists and each voice knows that it is the true one.

And each voice says: follow me follow me and I will take you –

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 281 Consciousness

I am so red now and I sparkle – So the fuchsia sulks – jealous.

And a woman walking by dreams a silk blouse in my colour would suit her.

I am so red now the children have been warned not to touch me.

But my red silk will lure the birds. They’ll eat me –

their beaks will tingle their feathers tremble as they feel my consciousness interrupt theirs.

282 COLLECTED POEMS Translation: Meditation on a Poem by Hasmukh Pathak

(Rajghat Par)

(aatla phoolo neechay nay aatlo lambo samai)

(Gandhi kadi soota nathi –)

– Hasmukh Pathak

At the Rajghat

Beneath so many flowers and for such a long time Gandhi never slept –

Beneath so many flowers –

(aatla phoolo neechay….. ket ketla phoolo neechay?)

(munma jaagay chhey phooloni sugandh)

(munma dhalay chhey phoolona rung) ... (mun bhoolu padyu phooloma…) , , (aatla phoolo neechay, aatla phoolo neechay,)

(sarki gayoo mun.)

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 283 Sometimes I see another Eternity, where these flowers do not lose their fragrance –

Sometimes my soul slips between such colours, my grief hides between mogra and marigold –

Sometimes grief glitters as it cuts deeper into your soul –

Sometimes grief heals itself –

And I remember how light lives within such petals –

And for such a long time –

- (nay aatlo lambo samai –)

(samai kyarey lambo laagey?)

And for how long? When does it feel ‘like such a long time’?

And then it was Time who stared at the flowers, Time, who said the flowers are innocent – Time, who allowed Death to enter –

Sometimes the past, present and future cling together as if wounded, they shiver as if flushed with a high fever –

But there’s no point in counting the minutes, the hours and days, and the years – the years in such a soul’s life, in such a soul’s being – A being that is always becoming, and yet, remains constant.

284 COLLECTED POEMS 5

Gandhi never slept –

(Gandhi kadi soota nathi –)

Gandhi simply wrote and wrote, he hardly slept, he rarely slept –

These flowers have changed the rules of equilibrium –

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 285 First Rain

(aav ray varsad)

(ghabriyo parsad)

(oonee oonee rotli) ! (nay karaylanu shak!)

- (pahaylo varsad aavay tyaray –)

First rain and the earth smells so – the soil smells so – there is no word for it – but this smell makes one hungry.

(pahaylo varsad aavay tyaray)

When the first rain falls what do you hear? What do you remember?

(pavan, pankho, vijli, bari, barnu –)

(hinchko –)

(hinchkay baytha baytha jay geet sambhalyu)

When the first rain falls I remember my hunger.

286 COLLECTED POEMS Sruti Sruti means ‘to hear’ or ‘that which is heard’. Musically it points to the interval between notes which can be just perceived auditorily. – B.C. Deva

You, who first said sruti, what did you hear?

Between the sound of your footsteps and the cry of a bird by the river did you hear another? Did you continue walking?

Where did you turn to measure your scale?

Between the sound of a horse stepping forward: his bare skin quivering, his head raised, and the sound of a woman buying rice, didn’t you hear another and yet another sound?

What did you listen for to count your notes?

You, who first said sruti, you keep me sleepless. I’m trying to find a way to return to the world that you once heard.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 287 Water for Phyllis Webb

(jal athva pani)

(pani athva jal)

This word for water or that word for water –

A broken song? Or the inner poet searching for the right word? The inner eye the inner ear wanting (jal) and (pani) – to rush through water (jal) (pani) water – All these words bleeding into each other like watercolours.

(“jal kamal chhaandi jaaney bala…”)

(jal) is the word of enchantment. (jal) is holy – holy water from rivers – Ganga, Jamuna – (jal) is where water spirits dwell, those shy creatures so close to Krishna –

Water spirits? you ask – Yes, I mean them all: (jal ghodo) (jal devata) –

Small gods of water glide between sea horses –

Do you ever pray to such beings?

288 COLLECTED POEMS (pani) sleeps deep within the earth – (pani) speaks through the roots of the pipal tree, (pani) sings a song of rose and tulsi – Rose and tulsi, forever thirsty in this heat –

In this heat –

(jal athva pani) chants the pure voice that dictates me, the ‘I’ who is now tape-recorder.

(jal athva pani) comes unbidden uncontrollable as rain.

(jal athva pani)

A child’s game? My very own fragments from Ahmedabad?

(jal athva pani) will I accept this without further meaning, without pictures, without a little story?

What do I mean?

(jal athva pani)

Nuances of water –

And all the verbs:

(pani pavai, peevai, bharai, raydai, seenchai –)

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 289 (pani mookai –)

Verbs that can dream themselves into leopards, snakes –

But today these verbs have started to move like birds – Slowly, they begin to live beyond your gestures – Today these verbs want to turn into birds – See how they swoop over the surface, hunting, hunting – See how they watch you before they dip their beaks into the water –

What is the true sound of water?

Sitar, jaltarang, the inner voice speaks:

(jal, jal, jal –)

The inner voice, that bright spirit who nags and teases can speak sitar sounds while the human tongue is too thick and clumsy inside the human mouth.

290 COLLECTED POEMS Frauenjournal

A woman kills her newborn granddaughter because she has four already.

A woman kills because there’s not enough money not enough milk.

A woman kills her newborn daughter and still eats dinner and still wears a green sari.

Is this being judgemental? Or is this how one bears witness with words?

And another woman in another country makes sure that her seven-year-old daughter has her clitoris sliced off with a razor blade. This is what they will show us tonight – prime time – We’re advised not to let our children watch this. This has never been filmed before. Sometimes it’s necessary to see the truth. The moderator tells us words are not enough.

Now the camera focuses on the razor blade – so there is no doubt about the instrument. The razor blade is not a rumour.

Now the camera shifts over to the seven-year-old face: she smiles – innocent – she doesn’t know. The girl smiles – she feels important. And then the blood and then the screams.

THE STINKING ROSE (1995) 291 Why do I think I have to watch this? Is this being a voyeur? Or is this how one begins to bear witness? And another woman tells us how years ago she accidentally killed her own daughter while trying to cut out her clitoris. The risks are great, she tells us, but she’s proud of her profession. How much reality can you bear? And if you are a true poet why can’t you cure anything with your words? The camera focused long and steady on the razor blade. At least it wasn’t rusty. How can you bear witness with words, how can you heal anything with words? The camerawoman could not afford to tremble or flinch. She had to keep a steady hand. And the hand holding the razor blade did not hesitate. And if you are a true poet will you also find a voice for the woman who can smile after killing her daughter? What is the point of bearing witness? Afterwards, the girl can barely walk. For days the girl will hobble – unable unable unable unable to return to her old self, her old childish way of life.

292 COLLECTED POEMS Augatora 2000

I Augatora

Looking Up

The hot air balloon convention floats above our garden – weeks pass but no one wants to come down. At first the firemen stood by, ready with their longest ladders, their life nets and jumping sheets. But now they’ve taken off in their own, fire-red, hot air balloons: Giant fireballs that dare to compete with the sun. Who can look after the roses when the sky ripples and throbs with so much passion? Our neighbour’s attic window glitters balloon-mad and nostalgic for another life. Yesterday’s sunflower stares and stares. The birch trees twitch restless and can’t get rid of their spores. Only the children speak gently as they collect snails and line them up along the stone wall.

AUGATORA (2000) 295 Squirrels

The squirrels have been chasing each other all morning – there are two of them. I can hear their claws clattering up and down the trees – their tails swollen but ragged – they do not lose their balance although they leave so much broken. And they have driven away the crows.

The lean saplings whip and whip the blueness while the squirrels leap from branch to branch to grass – the cracked wood echoing its own rage. And then the grass: grass where bees burn sucking in, sucking in whatever they can ﬁnd in this sun – unbearable – I tell you the bees look angry in my stare. Or is it simply determination? A black and yellow concentration against green thorns.

But it is the squirrels who throw their wired energy around me: my ears stung, my skin itchy from their agitation, so I cannot sink into a book, I cannot disappear into a story that should hold me.

I don’t know if it is lust or anger that makes the squirrels ﬂing their bodies against the trees like that – their spines so resilient. Snake-like snappings, and then they turn to give me monkey-like stares.

296 COLLECTED POEMS I don’t know if it is always the same squirrel doing the chasing – or do they switch positions – doing something to each other so the one who was chased and caught feels compelled to turn around and begin the chase again. It is getting hot. Too hot for such movement. But it is good for anger, good for raging lust. The sky is naked, it is a nude in its eloquence.

Even the air feels stunned from the constant noise of whipping. How the leaves slap the wind: they are reckless, careless, they don’t believe they could ever be torn.

Even when the squirrels are hidden behind the leaves, they are not quiet but high-pitched – clickings, a rasping, a scraping against – a scraping into – bones – bones –

But I cannot see what they do. I don’t know if they scratch each other or if it’s only the fruit they bite into.

Is this the garden you dream of? Is this the garden you’re stuck in?

AUGATORA (2000) 297 The Dream

In the dream I was ten or eleven – It was a windy morning – it was late morning. I had been ill – I had slept for a long time and the whole family had been waiting for me to wake up – My mother walking back and forth from my room to the kitchen – My brother wandering outside in the garden, approaching my window – My father walking through all the rooms in the house and pausing always to peer into mine – Suddenly the wind was louder and I woke up thinking leaves and vines had blown into my hair – I tried to brush a vine away – but the bright greenness moved and turned into a small snake – And then I tried harder to ﬂing the green snake away from me – but then it turned into a cobra and after that it rippled blue and orange as I tried to get rid of it – Oh I was frantic, desperate with fear as the snake simply grew stronger and larger – constantly changing its colours – as if trying to win me over with its shimmering scarlets and blacks – then always slipping out of my grasp – and yet refusing to go away –

298 COLLECTED POEMS And my father, who stood watching in the doorway laughed – and said, ‘Don’t resist. You must accept it. There’s no point in ﬁghting with the snake –’

AUGATORA (2000) 299 Augatora

Windoge, vindauga, wind eye – the hole, the opening, the opening out into the wind, the hole. The wind blowing into the house.

The wind eye, windoge, and then augatora, augadaúro, the eye-gate, the eye’s gate, the hole for the eye to measure the wind, the sun – corona, cornea, hazy – Hazy light today. Rings of light follow you. Augatora the gate opening towards the sun – eyes watching for the wind.

Keep an eye on the house. Keep an eye on the child. Don’t let the child fall out of the window. Don’t throw your house out of the window.

For outside there’s the mud, the bog –

Is that why they changed to Fenster, to keep out the mud?

And what made the Anglo-Saxons resist? So we say ‘window’ – While ‘fenestra’ is the small opening in a membrane, any membrane – any small opening – in the inner wall of the middle ear – in the wings of certain insects –

300 COLLECTED POEMS Today, unravelling the word augatora – and thinking of the loss of that word – imagining the days of a thousand years ago when these languages collided bitterly, bloodily – Old English, Old Norse, Latin, Old German – I turn to your Danish grammar book –

Er det et æble? Nej, det er ikke et æble. Det er et øje.

Is that an apple? No, that is not an apple. That is an eye.

Er det et øje? Nej, det er ikke et øje. Det er et vindue.

Is that an eye? No, that is not an eye. That is a window.

Augatora. I imagine children inside a house – Look outside, look outside, they tell each other –

AUGATORA (2000) 301 Durban: A Visit to the Botanical Gardens

Tatamkhulu Afrika walks ahead –

He is being followed by nine ibises:

Hadedah – Hadedah – I learn the name.

I do not move.

Red hibiscus keeps me guessing –

I am the one who watches.

Behind me I can hear the pipal tree –

302 COLLECTED POEMS A Memory from Marathi for Nachi

This memory begins with the sound of water.

It is a memory that won’t go away –

This memory comes from Marathi. This memory begins with a three-year-old girl’s thirst in the middle of the night.

There was the sound of water running – gently – it was more like hissing.

There was the noisy sleep of a newborn brother next to the mother – There was the girl’s request for water, so the father stepped out of the room but didn’t return – There was the impatience of a three-year-old girl who was wide awake –

When I got up to see where my father had gone I walked to the door and stopped for there he was walking out of the kitchen, a bowl cupped in his hands – But what kept me still and patient by the door was the snake between us on the ﬂoor – it took up

AUGATORA (2000) 303 so much space – it was endless – silvery green almost like moonlight through the trees – When my father poured the kerosene over it it bled and bled – I could never forget the redness streaming out of the broken skin.

Years later, we speak of it – My father and I, the only witnesses – He tells me how he saw it dart into the kitchen – he felt sorry about chasing it but he couldn’t let it hide in the kitchen – ‘It was lucky that I killed it,’ he says. After all these years for the ﬁrst time we are talking about it – How not really wanting to he beat it long and hard with a stick – until it died. And in the end he poured kerosene over it – then I watched him gather it up and put it in a jar before cleaning the ﬂoor – I remember his face in the morning and his gestures while my mother was still asleep – and the calm but hurried way he picked up the jar with the snake inside and took it with him to work, to his lab –

304 COLLECTED POEMS The Virologist for my father

Seventeen years old, he arrived in Benares to study Ayurvedic medicine. The ﬁrst thing he did was to bathe in the Ganga fulﬁlling his mother’s wishes – After that he felt so dirty he returned to his room and promptly took another bath. That evening he wrote a letter to his mother – disappointed that stepping into the holy river did not make him feel pure. There must be something more – he was certain.

AUGATORA (2000) 305 Barcelona

The sky is orange and so is the cat that just ran across the roof – Television antennae cut up her path – Everyone has hung up their laundry outside. From our balcony we watch a man pacing in his two room ﬂat – shirtless – All he seems to have is a chair, a table, a bed and a television set. But he is abrupt in his movements, almost running back and forth between his two rooms – something is wrong – we worry – not wanting to intrude, not meaning to stare at him so much – When we look away and turn to the right, there’s the Palau Güell. Sparkling angles tower above the drying clothes – the last tourists of the day look back at us. Antoni Gaudí, we have thought of you all week – But now we turn again to see what the shirtless man is doing – he has opened his window – he is leaning out staring at us – And now, as the orange sky gets darker it’s the evening star we wait for, it’s the orange cat we want to see again –

306 COLLECTED POEMS Gazpacho

You come here every day for lunch to see your friend who works as a waiter.

You love his face because it is the face of García Lorca –

García Lorca smiling again in 1999.

Anyone would recognise those eyes.

Matador eyes, you whisper, almost hypnotised

as you order ice-cold gazpacho con guarnición –

AUGATORA (2000) 307 After Dinner in Conil

We sit outside on the balcony overlooking the Atlantic –

The full moon is just starting to rise so I say: ‘Look at the moon.’

And you, with your back to it – you squirm and arch your back and stretch your neck trying to catch an upside down glimpse of it –

‘No.’ You say. ‘No, I can’t.’ Refusing to change your sprawled out position. ‘Describe it for me.’

‘It looks like a fuzzy cotton ball dipped in olive oil.’

‘Oh,’ you say – ‘Well, that’s good. Now I don’t have to look at it.’

308 COLLECTED POEMS Your Postcards

The butterﬂies started dying in September. We collected the bright yellow ones – pressed them in books.

You left our continent in December, a day before the ﬁrst snowfall. I kept our butterﬂies safe.

Now you send me black and white photo postcards. Everyday I ﬁnd one in my mailbox: full of sharp contrasts and always in focus.

I’ve stuck your postcards all over the walls in my house. You are cryptic in your messages.

But the shadows in the postcards betray your secrets. Soon there won’t be any space for them.

It is nearly spring. My letters to you are getting longer. Still, every postcard you send is black and white. And it’s always a photograph.

Nights I open the books where the yellowest butterﬂies lie unmarred, immaculate.

I stare at them for hours. But when I close my eyes I see only black and white.

AUGATORA (2000) 309 A Swimmer in New England Speaks

I rarely speak to anyone – some people fear me – some people think I’m very unfortunate.

Today I dared to wear my blue summer dress. Today in the library I smiled at the guy who likes to quote from Hegel.

He could look at my right leg – the withered one, the shrivelled polio leg. He could look at it without ﬂinching.

I hate wheelchairs. I can still walk with my crutches. My right leg swings along, it doesn’t really drag behind. I can pretend it’s almost ﬁne. I can ignore it, forget it.

I prayed that I would stay small, that the other leg wouldn’t grow too much and I wouldn’t be too large or too tall for my right leg. In the mirror I look so thin. My face is hard and angular. I look like my grandmother, the one who was poor – the one who left Italy with my father. Her eyes were dark and sharp – no mercy for mistakes. And her brown hair fell like silk against her cheekbones and her elbows.

310 COLLECTED POEMS Somehow she was pretty.

Am I like that? Without mercy? For her sake I studied Latin. But can I pray? Can I believe?

When I swim I feel that I am praying. Praying with all the strength in my arms, my hands – praying for the water to understand me – especially the lake water, which is so green and slippery in a mossy, sticky way.

Afternoons I try to go to the lake –

I’ve seen the water snakes basking in the sun – I’ve watched them drop down from the trees and slide into the lake. They pour themselves, they pour their heaviness into the water – they sizzle – And they singe the lake with their hunger.

And when they surface for air I’ve caught them staring at me with their plain brownish black vigilance.

I am a strong swimmer. Can they sense that?

Now and then I’ve seen a reddish tinge in the brown – and sometimes when one of them hangs, dangling from a branch, I’ve seen the half moons – red, yellow, brown … glistening down its belly – a rippling ladder, a necklace –

AUGATORA (2000) 311 And sometimes when I surface I look over to see where they are swimming – especially if there’s a mother with her newly birthed young – Dark banded stripes swirling in green water.

There’s a guy who thinks I mock him. The one who knows Hegel by heart. He has the strangest blue eyes – so dark.

Last night we swam in the lake – skinny-dipping under the stars. The moon was almost hidden behind the trees. There was so much blackness – we were blind.

I stayed underwater for as long as I could – and then surfaced suddenly – far away from him. I felt all my movements were sudden.

It was so warm. I’m sure the snakes were awake somewhere – I’m sure the snakes were already in the water.

Oh, but I am a strong swimmer – I told him.

Even he was out of breath as he tried to keep up with me.

And once when he touched me in the water, I could almost feel my polio leg.

312 COLLECTED POEMS The Snake Catcher Speaks for Nachi

The best way to catch a northern water snake is to corner it in a lake and let it bite your arm – it will hold on tight maintaining its grip even as you raise your arm out of the water –

Of course, it hurts – This snake has a large head, a massive jaw, a mouth ﬁlled with six rows of recurved teeth – And it will defend itself –

But then you have it – There are ways to calm it. After all, it is non-venomous Nerodia sipedon – It is shy, elusive and only aggressive when confronted.

Later, I always let it go – after my students have watched it, stared at it staring at them for months while they take notes –

I let it loose in the woods. It is so fast – a sudden bolt of energy – a black ﬂash darting out of my hands.

AUGATORA (2000) 313 II History is a Broken Narrative

Surus to Hannibal Surus was Hannibal’s personal elephant

You are almost blind in one eye –

I can hear the fever rushing through your blood.

I can hear your brain cells weeping –

My own brain is heavy and sleeps – sleeps far too much –

What have we done?

The cells in your eyes are too loud – I can hear them droning – buzzing with fever –

And your brain cells prevent me from thinking –

My own cells are dying, simply dying, without any symbolic disease – But I still have my memory of Carthage.

You are almost blind in one eye – Sometimes you forget who I am.

My ears are going wild from the mosquitoes – What have we done?

314 COLLECTED POEMS Partition

She was nineteen years old then and when she stood in her garden she could hear the cries of the people stranded in the Ahmedabad railway station. She felt it was endless – their noise – a new sound added to the city. Her aunt, her father’s sister, would go to the station every day with food and water – But she felt afraid, felt she could not go with her aunt – So she stood in the garden listening. Even the birds sounded different – and the shadows cast by the neem trees brought no consolation. And each day she wished she had the courage to go with her aunt – And each day passed with her listening to the cries of the people. Now, when my mother tells me this at midnight in her kitchen – she is seventy years old and India is ‘ﬁfty’. ‘But, of course, India is older than that,’ she says, ‘India was always there. But how I wish I had gone with my aunt to the railway station – I still feel guilty about that.’ And then she asks me: ‘How could they have let a man who knew nothing about geography divide a country?’

AUGATORA (2000) 315 Diabetes Mellitus for my mother’s mother

Imagine, if Gandhiji had had it – the wrong chromosome perhaps – the inability to metabolise sugar – he would never have been able to survive all his fasts – Like you, he would have gone quietly, in a coma –

The Pope, Tito and the WHO for Nachi

The Pope, Tito and the WHO were mentioned over and over again on All India Radio – Akashvani – Those days, it seemed the whole world consisted of the Pope, Tito and the WHO.

The Pope, Tito and the WHO: it was almost a litany – sometimes a warning – sometimes there was so much hope in the voice that said ‘The WHO …’ even the children became quiet and waited to listen for more.

Then the boy announced he would become the Pope; the girl wanted to be a doctor – And Tito remained a mystery.

316 COLLECTED POEMS After the Earthquake for Nachi

After the earthquake there was the blackout.

Although the earthquake had nothing to do with the blackout.

And yet, the earthquake prepared us for the blackout.

Weeks passed – We knew where to hide.

Amritsar was bombed every day – but we were safe in Poona.

After school we used to play in the trenches.

The freshly dug up trenches in the vacant ground beside our garden.

The trenches ended well before the wild mulberry bushes.

The trenches were suddenly there for our protection.

But no one used them – except us – we were so young –

too young – we liked to pretend we were in Amritsar.

AUGATORA (2000) 317 Voice of the Unwanted Girl

Mother, I am the one you sent away when the doctor told you I would be a girl – In the end they had to give me an injection to kill me. Before I died I heard the traﬃc rushing outside, the monsoon slush, the wind sulking through your beloved Mumbai – I could have clutched the neon blue no one wanted –

No one wanted to touch me – except later in the autopsy room when they knew my mouth would not search for anything – and my head could be measured and bent and cut apart. I looked like a sliced pomegranate. The fruit you never touched. Mother, I am the one you sent away when the doctor told you I would be a girl – your second girl.

Afterwards, as soon as you could you put on your grass-green sari – the orange stems of the parijatak blossoms glistened in your hair – Afterwards everyone smiled.

But now I ask you to look for me, mother, look for me because I won’t come to you in your dreams. Look for me, mother, look because I won’t become a ﬂower. I won’t turn into a butterﬂy. And I am not a part of anyone’s song.

318 COLLECTED POEMS Look, mother, look for the place where you have sent me. Look for the unspeakable, for the place that can never be described. Look for me, mother, because this is what you have done. Look for me, mother, because this is not ‘God’s will’. Look for me, mother because I smell of formaldehyde – I smell of formaldehyde and still, I wish you would look for me, mother.

AUGATORA (2000) 319 History is a Broken Narrative for Pearse Hutchinson

A man walks out of a pub in Berlin. It is three in the morning. It is 1996. A man walks out of a pub in Berlin – down urban stones – he turns and hears a nightingale, a song so loud as if the knife from the old story still had blood on it. Yesterday he spoke to Bobrowski’s widow, today he’ll stop for the nightingale and in the afternoon he’ll bargain with a Persian dealer for an antique Chinese vase, rough-textured with birds scratched in: birds that could be nightingales. History is a broken narrative. There is more than one way to cut out a voice more than one way to make a tongue bleed. Where is the myth? And where is the emblem? You make your language when you change it. The Chinese vase with the painted nightingales is on my table.

History is a broken narrative. Pick a story and see where it will lead you. You take your language where you get it. Or do you get your language where you take it?

320 COLLECTED POEMS I got mine in New Orleans. In New Orleans, when I was ﬁve: a whole new alphabet to go with the new world.

Afternoons my mother led me through our old alphabet – I felt as if the different scripts belonged together: I felt them raw,

clotting together in my mind, raw, itchy – the way skin begins to heal.

Still, I took my language from New Orleans when I was ﬁve.

And then someone changed it: In an English convent school in Poona, years later, the very very old Miss Ghaswalla managed to change my New Orleans style. History is a broken narrative where you make your language when you change it.

Nowadays I listen to Tom Waits sing: I wish I was in New Orleans and I go back to my own stories.

In New Orleans in 1953 some people thought my mother was Spanish or Italian or Greek – In New Orleans in 1953 a bus driver told my mother she shouldn’t sit in the back of the bus, that was no place for her – but she said no thank you she preferred the back rows – she didn’t need to sit in the front.

History is a broken narrative.

AUGATORA (2000) 321 In New Orleans in 1963 there was a man circling, looking at us while we stood waiting for the bus. I still remember his white shirt: blinding, crisp. He wanted to buy my mother’s hair – the endless blackness of it the unbelievable length of it – Perfect for making wigs, he said. Lady, he said, lady, I’ll give you a good price for that hair. But she was silent. It was hot. People were tired. And then the bus arrived like a gleaming miracle, so my mother gathered up my brother in one arm and pulled me on behind her.

History is a broken narrative. Where is the plot? And where is the image?

Don’t misunderstand. My mother still longs for New Orleans – every time she hears a Southern accent she melts. Somehow she has kept her secrets burning – now and then she gives me a new story, a different meaning to my memory.

In April 1968 mornings in Poona were almost hot and my hair was so long, I had no power over it. My mother had to comb it every day before school. A ritual beginning with fragrant oil rubbed into my scalp – her ﬁngers would ease out the tight knots then the comb swept down, parting the hair and then the ﬁrm braiding began – and in the end, ribbons kept everything under control.

322 COLLECTED POEMS In Poona, in April 1968 my mother was combing my hair, we stood on the verandah close to the dahlias – as always. Then, Dr Rao, our neighbour, walked by as always on his way to work – he said, good morning, as always but that day he added, have you heard Martin Luther King is dead – just like that Dr Rao said, have you heard –

History is a broken narrative where you make your language when you change it. A man walks out of a pub in Berlin. It is three in the morning. But he stops because of a nightingale. You take your language where you get it. Yesterday, he stood in a room full of books – pages Bobrowski had written his name into. History is a broken narrative. Perhaps it’s best if the way to your neighbour’s house is endless.

It will give you time – time to gather up the fallen pieces of your language – one by one with your mouth, with your mouth – you need time to pick up the scattered pieces of your language and the way to the neighbour’s house is endless with your mouth like a bird.

AUGATORA (2000) 323 New Orleans Revisited

The sunlight on the wooden benches in the streetcar ﬂashed as the black children sat down –

This should have brought back certain memories to me. I should be able to see myself: ﬁve years old, newly arrived and just beginning to learn English.

The honeysuckle grew lush – and there was the season of inchworms hanging from every tree –

And then?

I have no memory of learning English. No sounds. No images. There’s a blank space in my mind. A true nothingness. The point when I cannot see myself in the past.

How the mind wants to know itself – How the mind resents this loss of details –

I have a clear memory of my life before English and of my life after English –

324 COLLECTED POEMS But what happened when I started to learn the new words? What happened when the Gujarati and the Marathi and the Hindi I spoke made room for the English words?

Perhaps it happened quietly, easily – with the fragrance of magnolias ﬁlling the air – So no one noticed. So I can’t remember.

But my mother did remember yet never spoke of it.

Until the other day, out of the blue, she revealed how guilty she felt – how hard it had been for her to watch me –

on the wooden benches in the streetcar in that sunlight –

AUGATORA (2000) 325 The Shirodkar Suture for my daughter

The son of the man who invented the Shirodkar suture worked with my father, studying tissue culture during the year before I was born. I thought of that little fact as if it would help me as I lay in hospital waiting for the doctors to stitch the Shirodkar suture into my cervix – to keep you safe inside until the time was right –

326 COLLECTED POEMS A Room in Amsterdam for Elisabeth Augustin

We found a room near Artis, the zoo – a room that was around the corner from the Hollandse Schouwburg –

Nights we could hear the animals, the lions were the loudest – The lions, the monkeys on their rock, the caged birds – their sharp calls mingled in my dreams with the cries of people long dead – People collected together at the Hollandse Schouwburg and waiting to leave for Westerbork – Your mother also was there in my dream, pressed against a wall – and you running, running to look for her –

And the cries from the animals in the zoo were like a steady storm in my sleep –

Mornings I never knew where I was – until I felt my daughter – waiting to be born – a strong six-month-old fetus kicking me awake –

AUGATORA (2000) 327 Honeymoon

Before you could become a grandmother you had to be someone’s mother-in-law. The hint of tulsi in the air, the shape of Shiva’s shadow in your puja room suggested you had to ﬁnd the best for your eldest son.

But in the end it was diﬃcult to hand over your son to another woman – especially to one so beautiful, one considered to be so perfect in her goodness like the heroine in the legend who is always saved by the birds and the deer in the forest.

Perhaps it was diﬃcult to face a woman who stood up to your will: ﬂawless with the strength of her patience.

I remember your power – stainless steel, its clean smell in your kitchen. I remember learning to become invisible,

invisible –

Once, when I was four, I put my fist into my mouth: slowly – finger by finger – until my mouth was so stuffed not a sound could come out – no one could hear me and I was invisible.

No one could see me but I could see you, I could see the two of you I could see the hurt darkness in my mother’s eyes turn into stones –

328 COLLECTED POEMS and the stones stayed – stuck – the stones were tight in my throat when I was invisible.

I remember your power – Your distance: triumphant. And the lack of any horizon on your face. But I always wanted to know, Motiba, what had you been denied? What great bitterness was it that made you decide your twelve-year-old daughter, my father’s sister, had to accompany my parents on their honeymoon?

AUGATORA (2000) 329 Jerusalem

Jerusalem, I hold on to your details – The stones opening their veins to the light – the stones we placed on Else Lasker-Schüler’s grave – It is so hard to describe the truth. The countless candles ﬂickering in the mirrors, the lights breaking up the names of the children remembered at Yad Vashem. The names of the children and their ages over and over again – How long we stood there listening. The light, sharp on the brass menorahs sold by the Arab traders – It is so hard to describe the truth. The windows longing for the bougainvillae to reach them – Teenage soldiers at every corner – teenage soldiers – when the young men and women embrace each other, their submachine guns get entangled – such a loud clanging – The stones revealing their patience to the light at King David’s Tower – It is so hard to describe the truth. How every evening from the Haas-Promenade in East Talpiot, we sat looking at the Peace Forest, the Quidron Valley, the Valley of Hinnom, Mount Zion – we sat numb, tired – We could hear the sounds of the city getting louder – and yet, all was hushed by the distance – the muezzin’s call to pray cutting through our silence –

330 COLLECTED POEMS The Woman they Call Abuela

Eighty-six years old or maybe eighty-nine – She doesn’t know herself and couldn’t care less.

She still works in her ﬁeld beside the beach – Where the sand ends her ﬁeld begins –

The Atlantic Ocean rushing through her mind – She plants potatoes – keeps a duck to eat the snails.

Thirty-seven years a widow – Dressed in black, of course – long socks, black and heavy even in the heat.

The other day she lifted her skirt to marvel at her thighs, her young girl’s skin: white and ﬁrm and untouched by the sun –

She laughed.

The woman they call abuela – her voice threaded sharp with the Andalusian wind – all these years the noise of the ocean crashing within her ears – white roses cover the trellis in her garden.

Thirty-seven years a widow – She watched Franco’s men ride by: Moroccan mercenaries took over the bunker in front of her house –

AUGATORA (2000) 331 And she watched Rafael Alberti back from exile walking by her door –

All these years the noise of the ocean now breaking now lulling within her ears –

332 COLLECTED POEMS Łód´z

I hesitate to say what I think: ‘This cemetery is beautiful’ – this cemetery that was once in the heart of the ghetto –

But it was there before the ghetto – and it is still being used today.

The earth is trying to heal itself –

I am reluctant to leave –

The silence between the dead – The silence between the wild ﬂowers and the sky – the silence that pulls me deeper into my own being is what keeps me standing here looking for another path I could walk down –

It is May and the green shadows falling across the stones make me think that if I lived in this town I would visit this place every day –

It is May but I tell myself that if I lived in this town I would walk here even during the darkest days of November and December –

AUGATORA (2000) 333 Green Amber in Riga for Gunnar Cirulis

The woman on the street corner was selling necklaces made of green amber.

Soon everywhere we turned someone was selling amber: necklaces, bracelets, nuggets with insects trapped inside – But it was the green amber that seemed closest to the sea, as if it had just been pulled out yesterday –

It was the raw texture of the green amber I thought of, Gunnar, as we sat in your house and you poured the sap from birch trees into our glasses –

You pointed out the window your uncle liked to look out of – the room your father used to work in. ‘This was our home – this was our home …’ you kept on repeating with such joy – your feet emphatic on the ﬂoor.

Your family home taken over by the Red Army and used for so long as oﬃcers’ living quarters – Your family home suddenly returned to you, empty – your childhood returned to you in your old age.

334 COLLECTED POEMS Language for Johannes Bobrowski

Here, in July, red-winged blackbirds can be seen ﬂying close to the Atlantic – Red blades sunk in black – the eye follows so entranced – for a moment the eye ignores the ocean.

The marsh grass almost neon bright, this late morning, a sun smudged, wet, yellowish green – and the Connecticut sky suddenly the gentlest blue, the clearest azure against the huge granite rocks along the shore.

The air hums with the hearts of birds and insects. Stones yearn to be touched.

Not your landscape. But a place that forced me to change – a place I keep returning to.

My father-in-law was born in Tilsit. You were nine years old then – You were there, somewhere, walking between the woods and the village – somewhere – ﬁshing maybe.

Now my daughter goes to a German school.

But today in a New Haven bookstore I am relieved to be surrounded by English. I am more than relieved, I am ecstatic. And I feel as if everything German has been erased from my mind.

AUGATORA (2000) 335 But then, I come across a book of your poems – translated, of course – and I must pick it up and I must read a few pages, carefully, before I buy it.

Later that night, I ﬁnd myself remembering your original German words, remembering the winter they had led me through, a winter of dampness and a death before the New Year. I ﬁnd myself remembering my direct way to your German sounds: in the end, the birch tree didn’t break and the ice melted and I could walk beside the river with your words unmediated, untranslated, in my mouth –

336 COLLECTED POEMS Jane to Tarzan

Why did I say I had to leave? Why am I going away when I know that by the time you get this letter I’ll be back.

Already you have changed my language, my sleep –

At ﬁrst I thought I should teach you English – return to you what you have lost.

But you have changed the sounds I listen for, the sounds I want to keep near me.

Already you have changed my sleep. You have changed the darkness within my dreams.

Already you have changed my eyelids, my ears, the nape of my neck – The way I lift my head to listen.

Hunter, ravisher, you are more than that – with your raw speech you have tracked me down.

With your raw speech you have changed the way I look at trees, the way I hold a stone – the fruits I eat.

The sun is so white at noon – white as the scars across your arms.

AUGATORA (2000) 337 I know how to wait for the blackness within the tiger’s yawn.

Homeland is always green. Homeland is a nice word to exercise your jaw.

Already you have changed the skin along my thighs, my hips – the bones beneath my face. Already you have changed my sleep, my language, my mouth – you have changed the way I kiss you back. You have changed my hunger to match yours.

Still, we circle each other wary of our needs, wary of our meanings – The words I know cannot help me.

All my cells ﬂayed open with your love. My legs hurt – almost numb yet pulsing from so much movement.

Feathers, fur, claws: that is what we lack. Antlers, hooves – Fur that has been licked and licked clean –

But you can improvise –

You, with your raw speech –

Hunter

338 COLLECTED POEMS you have changed my smell and my sweat and yes, my skin which sleeps with language.

All my cells ﬂayed open with your love. It burns and stings so well – I am faint – It is this endless aching that I crave, the clenching curl of it – the impossible positions you pull me into.

Cheetah, lion, monkey, snake – Who are you? What do you know?

How could you – how could you change my language, my sleep?

How could you make me want to change myself so much?

Cheetah, lion, monkey, snake – I know you. You are mine. You are within my feet, within my hands. You have felt my skull – You have taken all of me.

And the muscle I want is your heart –

AUGATORA (2000) 339 III The Hole in the Wind

The Hole in the Wind

The hole in the wind where the scream lives – The scream that is the voice.

Is it only one voice?

And in the lightning did you see his implacable face? And did you see the blood on the knife – the knife that cut into the wave? Have you ever seen a wave that bleeds?

The black cat they buried alive on the beach to raise a wind or a storm – the black cat they buried alive on the beach ﬂoats like a dead ﬁsh. Yellow eyes bulge and bulge. The black cat didn’t bring a ship this time – Well, their black cat had no power over the moon.

In the eye of the wind – the shifting eye of the wind – the voices are sucked in.

It is the year 1170. It is the year 1277. It is 1570. It is 1717. It is 1825. It is 1863, 1866, 1873, 1878 – It is the year 1883. It is 1962. It is 1995.

340 COLLECTED POEMS Low tide, high tide – new moon, full moon. The North Sea is cold and indifferent to your soul.

Because it was Christmas, because it was a full moon Easter, because it was Sunday, you said Thou to the North Sea. What is thy will? You asked the sea. As if – as if – as if –

Your hope of eternity beckons from the mud ﬂats. The sea has bitten into our island. The sea has stolen our land. The moonlight is nimble and all our maps are out of date.

Are you the sort of soul that clings to molecules? Widow Braamhorst will not rest.

Five days after giving birth to my fourth son, I, the Captain’s wife, was forced to take the helm in my hands. I held on through the storm and brought the ship home safe – safe. And the following December, a wave slapped me off the deck, tossed me in the sea – but I was pulled out onto the beach. What did you save me for? I cried as I collected my dead. My dead boys ﬂoating up with the foam at my feet. And I buried them all: four sons and a husband; the youngest still not weaned. In May I returned for a bit of earth from their graves. And then I left and stayed far inland – and never, never again looked at the sea.

AUGATORA (2000) 341 There’s a lull in the storm. The deaf sailor laughs and laughs a silent laughter for the isle of Juist. He’s Polynesian: dark and deaf. But alive.

He’s Polynesian: much looked at, pointed at, while the cargo of cotton disappears with the tides.

You have created angels out of sea gulls. It is the idea of wings you hold on to. There is no other way for you to move.

Ach Mutter, es weht so stark – in dieser Nacht ertrinken wir. You have created angels out of sea gulls. Ach Mutter, es weht so stark – the daughter’s nightmare saved the father’s life.

All winter the tides dragged in the coal for us. In summer we pulled out corpses from the water-logged hay.

It was not normal. The sea refused to retreat during what should have been low tide. For three days the island was covered with water – And it was Christmas Eve and on our way home from church we saw the waves rise up to kill us. And it was Christmas Day: Heinrich Heimreich watched two cows and thirteen sheep drown before his eyes.

He transcribed their loud wrenching panic, the primal gasp for air before they sank down. He noted how the horned beasts ﬂoated away with beds and tables and wardrobes – Four hundred books spilled out of the library. And those who slept soundly died without fear.

342 COLLECTED POEMS Heinrich Heimreich, awakened by his daughter’s cries held on to the roof of his swaying house – and there between the drowned sheep and the books Heinrich Heimreich saw Death himself with his own eyes. For a moment Death was careless: he let a living man stare him down and remain unharmed. But Death was leaning into a slow dance.

Heinrich Heimreich lived to keep the records true.

It was Christmas Eve and the moon had lurched away into her last quarter. There was no light for us, not a single star. It was Christmas Eve and we had not dined so well for years. We thought we were blessed but there was no light for us, not a single star –

And the souls snatched up unawares will not rest. They return ﬂickering – they spit and spit roughing up the texture of the sea.

All winter the tides dragged in the coal for us. Someone is writing – writing Sturmﬂutlieder in Plattdeutsch.

Perhaps it was a storm from Paradise, perhaps it was the black cat you buried alive on the beach. Something brought a ship for us to plunder. Perhaps it was the great ﬁre you lit on the beach that drew them in, that drew them in from the dark.

For seven days I stayed with my husband hanging on to the masthead, cradled in the crow’s nest while the storm killed our crew. Our ship, the Excelsior, destined for Hamburg was trapped by the sand off Juist. For seven days the storm kept us thirsty

AUGATORA (2000) 343 and I watched two sailors below feast on their dead mates. Their pockets were still full of human ﬂesh when the islanders came to free us. The Lord was with me even as I watched my husband’s ﬁngers freeze and blacken. Afterwards they chopped them off – pruned like a rosebush, he said nothing when they sawed off his leg.

The storm snuck up on us. At ﬁrst there was only fog: white, soft – one could still believe in life. My daughter could still dream of marriage.

Do not ask what happened to our ship, the Cimbria. Do not ask about the waves never mind the wind – Do not ask me anything. I will not tell. Let my soul be stuck hanging over the North Sea forever – I will not tell. Go look at the Cimbria’s bell hanging in Hamburg.

I, Anna Ruhtz, wish I had never set foot on the Cimbria. I want my unlived life back. I want the new life I dreamt of, the life I would have lived in the New World. Don’t give my soul another life. I want my unlived life back. And I want my ﬁve children returned to me.

And we could hear the living say: The dead are too heavy. Do not keep the dead in this boat.

All winter the rescued sailor brought in the coal from the wrecked ship.

At ﬁrst the rescued sailor was only offered a light soup, something to calm his stomach.

344 COLLECTED POEMS And there were those who opened their mouths but could not speak – they opened their mouths but could not swallow, could not eat. And so they died. And so they died despite all our efforts.

Do you think their souls were wounded with their bodies? Where can they go – the hurt souls?

I, Captain Luckham had a secret called Buenos Aires, my wife’s secret was Hamburg and my eldest son’s secret was called Argyra – Now I’ve lost them all. They took me to court and asked me why – why didn’t I know about the new lighthouse on Norderney? But I could only weep.

Beyond anger, beyond bitterness, they will not follow any angel.

Relentless, tireless, as clean as gold, they follow you when you walk alone on the beach – They endure. They erode the coastline, erode your mind.

Captain Luckham from Salcombe, England never retired to his country home – but plunged his restless heart into the restless sea – ‘Only danger, more danger will cure my weeping –’ said he.

Do you think a soul can be wounded through the body? Where does the pain go?

The wave took the child out of his arms before he could carry her across to his neighbour’s roof. And the wave took –

AUGATORA (2000) 345 And the wave took – And at that very moment how did the soul help the body?

Erstlick fangede sick dat Wedder an mit einem SüdeOsten Windt vnde Regen alse ydt nu woll vp den Auendt quam woll vmme de klocke negen

Find the hole in the wind where the scream lives. The eye of the wind turns – and the wave breaks out of its pattern.

Someone is writing – writing Sturmﬂutlieder in Plattdeutsch.

Yes, they can call out to you from the past – they can make you recite their story. The sting of salt will bless your skin.

doh fangede sick an groth Jamer vnde Nodt dar sach men vör Ogen den bitteren Dodt deß bedröueden Solten Waters.

They were not ready to leave life so they can call out to you – nevertheless, remember the sting of salt will bless your skin.

My horse did not want to jump so I pushed her, for on the other side of the wall it was still dry. My horse did not want to so I forced her, I pulled her – and then she jumped without warning she went neck ﬁrst, she fell and broke her neck. And all along my horse did not want to.

No, do not pity me for I was blessed.

Self-contained as the moon is your soul.

346 COLLECTED POEMS There are no graves. The sea took the bodies away.

We spent all day bicycling across the island – searching for a trace of the ﬂood – a hidden grave a frail cross bent by the wind.

You can enter the rain and pretend – You can breathe in the island air and pretend the storm is your very own sorrow.

There’s a place where the sand can suck in a whole ship.

Every year someone is swept away by the tides, lost to the currents near Juist.

It was October and we wondered what are these trees with silver leaves? The leaves were truly silver in the Juist light. The leaves were not dry – but fresh and sturdy – so we could believe in the invisible, in the shimmer of inﬁnity.

Speak to me and I will listen even as you utter all that is unspeakable. Speak to me and I will write it down.

Unattainable knowledge. It is a game that will not end. The angel of truth stands amidst sea gulls.

The coal meant for Hamburg never went beyond Juist.

Do the dead speak to each other? Do the dead forgive each other?

Did the soul of the sailor who was eaten meet the soul of the sailor who ate him?

AUGATORA (2000) 347 The souls are malformed, mutilated. They cannot ﬂy. Will you mention the edge of entropy? The balance between freedom and nothingness?

What are these leaves? Fishlike. When a slick west wind pushes them up so their undersides are visible you can see ﬁlaments of silver, ﬁligreed veins the colour of lightning.

It was October and we wondered where can they go – the hurt souls?

Shall we say Death had arrived and stood beside her? And she walked the length of the island that night – It was winter. There was no order in her mind and the song she would have sung hardened in her eyes.

It was winter but she did not ﬂinch. The sea was hissing sounds she could not follow. The sea was more than she could ever know. The spirits of the island retreated with the waves. And though she walked fearless beside the North Sea – there was no order in her mind. And the song she would have sung hardened in her eyes.

348 COLLECTED POEMS IV The Found Angel: Nine Poems for Ria Eïng

The Found Angel

We sit in your studio of found objects: broken things you collect. Broken things, useless things you can always use to make your creatures – twisted ﬁgures, not animal, not human, not of this world – and yet, somehow they are rooted in this world. That is your passion, you say, you cannot let things go.

When you hold up your found angel she twirls – sturdy wooden spool body, a crab-shell face – puckered, old – And wings made of canvas stiff dirty lace.

Two infants were found in the grass outside … there were wild ﬂowers, it was almost summer, it was the end of the war –

Two infants were found in the grass outside … there was a concentration camp near the wild ﬂowers, it was 1945.

AUGATORA (2000) 349 Two infants were found in the grass outside … and one of them was you.

Both infants were taken to the hospital and one of them died.

But you fought back and lived and now you tell me this in Cuxhaven. You tell me you have no family, you mean, no ancestors. You mean, nothing was recorded. Your daughters are your only blood relations. And sometimes you wonder why you were left behind: Who was your father? What happened to your mother?

3 But you are the true found angel: Your eyes so pale, your hair so blond it startles. It makes me think of the North and of snow falling endlessly. It makes me think you would be so injured by the sun. You are the true found angel: such gentleness in your hands, such calmness in your face – I cannot believe that once you had to struggle to live …

Your great white white blond beauty stops me from asking you more about your mother, your father – They might have been innocent – both of them, I want to say – Instead, we are silent.

350 COLLECTED POEMS I am silent as I watch you smile at the crab-shell faced angel swirling faster and faster under the string in your ﬁngers.

Now she hangs in my room beside the door – guardian angel I stare at every day.

AUGATORA (2000) 351 Birthday Totem Pole

Take the broken spade home from the bog

and use it, use the moor smells to make her head, her face –

Take a slender log now for her body. Now burn it with herbs. Now hollow it out – and keep it blackened.

Take royal purple, golden yellow –

Take water snails for her nipples.

Now call her your Amazon, your Egyptian Queen.

There’s a tight silk dress reaching down to the ﬂoor – A bluish black sheath, a dress no one else can wear.

Now ask her a question.

The numbers are beginning to breathe.

The numbers cover the countless buttons no one else can see.

Almost any day between May and September might have been your birthday.

They offered you so many dates.

But you chose May Day – you chose May Day 1944.

352 COLLECTED POEMS The Snail-Ear

The snail that used to be Van Gogh’s ear

grew silvery at ﬁrst then, huge and maroon brownish violet –

A snug roundness in the palm of my hand –

Soon, the grass shivered for the snail was not immune to nostalgia –

There’s a woman now – her skin ﬂushed with fever –

A woman who allows that snail to replace her left ear.

AUGATORA (2000) 353 Stingray

Balance the ace of spades against a rusty nail.

The number three is important.

Three crosses, three wishes, three dabs of red wax to redeﬁne your story.

Stretch the ﬁsh out on a slab of wood.

A stingray: A mouth within a mouth –

Gold and russet scales you have painted – how the gills shine how the ﬁsh glows – ﬂecked with turquoise dots.

Divide twelve by three and there’s a white feathered quill stuck in a black inkwell.

Don’t you see that the stingray is the ace of spades –

354 COLLECTED POEMS Vogelfrau

Don’t ask me to explain myself –

My face is there, sheltered behind the owl’s wing.

But you cannot see it.

So you assume I am blind and deaf – You assume I have no mouth to speak with –

How wrong you are.

It is the wind I want to reach – the wind I listen for.

There are moments when the owl’s wing is my face – That’s when the feathers are everything: my eyes, ears, my lips, my brain –

My soul is a snail coming out for air – a snail awakening and now climbing up across my chest.

I could be anything depending on the light: the owl, the tree, the woman –

I know the sort of shadows the wind prefers –

AUGATORA (2000) 355 Broom, Wind and Bird: Zeitwanderer

Broom married Wind and gave birth to Bird.

Wind wears ﬁve little bells in front of his mouth.

Broom wears a silver mask these days –

The only one who speaks the truth is Bird.

356 COLLECTED POEMS The Fox and the Angel

Fox says: Here’s a soft white cocoon with a silkworm inside. I found it on a twig, behind a leaf – I have brought it over for you. I have carried it in my mouth so it is warm as a bird’s egg –

Angel says: Thank you fox. Your right eye is almost human.

Fox says: Here are two skulls – I have chosen them for you. Skulls from two muskrats. I have licked them clean with my tongue.

Angel says: Thank you fox. Your mouth is red – and sometimes the tip of your nose is a black moustache.

Fox says: Dear Angel – You have kept your eyes closed for a week. Open them now. Open your eyes – and sing to me.

AUGATORA (2000) 357 A Black Feather

This is the right half of my torso – guarded by a black feather.

This is my grandmother’s camisole – examine the lace, the worn out buttonholes.

This is the left half of my torso – invisible to all except the man who loves me.

This is my right breast, full of a seventeen-year-old girl’s memories.

These are the colours I know, the geometry I must relearn, now after the surgery.

This is my left breast, hidden by the way I am standing – hidden by violet shadows.

The buttons are lost – but look I have sewn on new ones.

Sometimes in his haste he tore the seams of my dress.

It was a raven he wished for but only a crow’s feather that I found.

This is the right half of my torso – I let him unbutton the camisole.

This is the left half of my torso – my heart was distracted by the light on the roses.

He touched the lace, the worn out buttonholes and my breasts, still guarded by a black feather.

358 COLLECTED POEMS Beeswax and Snakeskin Head

Beeswax and snakeskin – It is the head of a goddess –

Look, there is pure gold leaf –

Her eyes are cut fruit: so black – her eyes are sliced berries from the eucalyptus tree.

Pagan and familiar – I hesitate to name her.

Her skin has taken all the light from the garden: the green and the lavender and the colours of birch bark.

If I stare at her long enough she will move, she will turn her head and laugh – she is almost laughing – Her scarf might ﬂy open and she might clasp the seashell on her head as her hair blows across her face.

Beeswax and snakeskin – I have felt the pure gold leaf –

Pagan and familiar – No one can name her.

It is the head of a goddess –

How good of you to place her by the window –

AUGATORA (2000) 359 V Ars Poetica

Is it a Voice? for Edvard Munch

Is it a voice or is it a woman?

Or shall I say: there is a voice that is a woman?

She stares at you in the morning, she returns to you in the evening.

The river runs behind her.

The sun is a white bar on the blue river. The moon is a yellow bar on the black river.

Where can you look to understand her?

She likes to wear a white dress.

She greets you with her smoky eyes and her head held high.

She stands where the trees are slender.

She is so silent for someone who is a voice.

360 COLLECTED POEMS Skintight with Ice

The birch tree outside my window sparkles stronger than winter.

The birch tree is what I have been staring at all afternoon –

The garden is suddenly birdless.

Even the poem about not being able to write, refuses to be written.

The birch tree is the only living being I can hear right now:

How it sucks in the wind skintight with ice – How it slashes the sun and skewers it on to the windowpanes –

AUGATORA (2000) 361 The Mammoth Bone

A Dutch ﬁsherman ﬁshing on the Dogger Bank caught a mammoth bone in his net –

You carried it home through the traﬃc – gently – it rested on your shoulder –

A thigh bone from a fully grown mammoth who had lived a good life, a long life, we imagine –

A bone pockmarked with small mollusks.

Later, I carried it through the house upstairs and down from room to room not knowing where to put it – such a huge thing – and so heavy –

I was wary – sceptical –

But you were right: Sooner than I thought it became a part of our home –

Now it lies beneath my desk, near my feet – like a dog tired and happy after a long walk –

362 COLLECTED POEMS My Mother’s Way of Wearing a Sari

Dear K., After all our talks about the ‘meaning’ of a sari – the colour, the cloth, the style – we used words like ‘symbol’, ‘blessing’, ‘curse’, ‘power’, ‘personality’ … After all our talks about the pros and cons of wearing a sari – I ﬁnd my heart has other memories …

These days in the darkness, broken up by the moon’s almost full brightness, before dawn my mother rises and in this room without a mirror in this room where we all sleep together she turns away from the windows – her glass bangles pushed up, away from her wrists so they are motionless on her arms, soundless – In the darkness she finds her sari and begins to wrap it around her waist – her right hand is firm and fast and moves like a fish fanning in and out of the waves – blind, mute, her hand zigzags making pleats so fast I cannot count them –

I am four and awake because the camels outside are making such a horrible noise – painful and cranky – tins scratching slate – the traders want the camels to get up and begin their way to the market. These days my father is far away, working in another town. My brother is still asleep so I can be alone in watching my mother who does not linger.

AUGATORA (2000) 363 She wraps the sari around herself in less than three minutes and sometimes I wish she would start all over again.

The part I like best, the part I ask her to show me again and again is the way she makes the pleats – snapping them into existence – as the neem tree in our garden starts snapping at the elegant bluish eloquent eucalyptus leaves …

And then I watch my mother balance the pleated part of her sari against her waist – how she measures and weighs each pleat against the other – ﬁnally, aligning them into a ﬂowing fan – I watch the way she tucks the pleats into the waistband of her petticoat – and that is when I wish she would wear silk – for her sari is khadi, it is hand-spun, hand-woven cotton. It is ordinary. Plain and sturdy and clean – it smells of soap and sandalwood. But still sometimes I wish she would wear silk.

For example, her silk reddish yellow sari – that is the dark turmeric-yellow-gold silk with ﬂashes of saffron threads – it lies beneath the green silk one, I remind her – and she nods but her silk saris can sleep forever in the wardrobe, they shine powerful as well-fed snakes – she dares not disturb them – sometimes she strokes them when she shows them to me – that happens in the afternoon when my grandmother is asleep and the neem tree is quiet.

364 COLLECTED POEMS But now it’s still dark as my mother adjusts her sari end – she tucks it in Gujarati style and turns to leave for she must ﬁll all the clay pitchers with water – all the large brass vessels are waiting for her.

And the moon is still bright when I look outside and watch the camels walk towards the road in front of our house.

There is still time before my brother wakes up. Time – before our grandmother calls us to the kitchen – But I cannot sleep.

AUGATORA (2000) 365 A Poem Consisting Entirely of Introductions for Mahzarin Banaji who wished for such a poem

This poem began after the wild turkeys walked across our garden in Connecticut.

Although, of course the title of this poem suggests something else.

The turkeys were the necessary movement the excitement – appearing out of nowhere at four in the afternoon and fearlessly walking across the lawn oblivious to all of us who sat watching them –

This poem has gone through many drafts – it’s the easiest and yet the hardest to write –

Hope is the thing with feathers as Emily Dickinson wrote.

The trick is knowing how much to reveal about the background of a poem and how much to leave out –

Memory, as you know, is unreliable –

Perhaps the introduction to a poem could turn into another poem –

366 COLLECTED POEMS This Room is Part of the NYC Subway System for David Cohen & Sylvia Schuster

We sleep in a room ﬁlled with Sylvia Schuster’s drawings: a room ﬁlled with giant dark heads – Stern, pensive – they take up all the space on the walls. There is such beauty in the shape of their skulls: an ideal geometry of jaw bones and cheek bones.

I call them athletes resting in night shadows … In my dream this room is part of the NYC subway system – now someone keeps opening the door and someone else keeps banging the door shut on us while we try to sleep. The windows rattle when the trains go by – but the heads don’t care. They are calm, impassive – People walk around us brushing against the sheets, bumping into the pillows – The heads demand that we sleep. We don’t mind. It’s still night. They know. They will keep watch over us. The heads make us want to sleep and sleep. The heads stare out into the blackness, the noise – It is a long dream and this room seems to belong in the subway. The heads are not surprised. Nothing can faze them. But I can see the molecules buzzing up the lines around their lips – I can see the energy burning through their foreheads. Athletes resting in night shadows – I can imagine the legs that aren’t even there. Legs that can take their strength for granted.

AUGATORA (2000) 367 Montauk Garden with Stones and Water

All morning the blue jays and the female cardinal take turns at the feeder. All morning I watch them.

My mind is like green tea –

My mind is so clear and satisﬁed as if I had completed the poem that has been troubling me for weeks.

Equilibrium

Suppose the mind became the month of August –

August in your garden in Montauk so close to the shore –

Suppose the mind maintained the strength of the Atlantic – the wind would be there, constant. And the sun, matter-of-fact.

For the mind would not be yearning but simply being – while the waves would pull away thoughts – just pull away thoughts and keep them forever.

368 COLLECTED POEMS A Detail from the Chandogya Upanishad

Imagine the sun as the honey of the gods –

Imagine a golden being in the sun – a golden being with red eyes.

Such redness –

His red eyes are compared to a red lotus ﬂower.

While the redness of the lotus ﬂower is compared to a monkey’s red bottom –

All these comparisons take up one line of compressed Sanskrit –

Almost as if the red eyes of the golden being in the sun become a lotus – while the lotus becomes a monkey’s bottom –

Is it innocence – is it objectivity?

Or is it simply true reverence?

What will you do?

Will you pray to the sun to the lotus or to the monkey?

AUGATORA (2000) 369 Poem for a Reader who was Born Blind

I wanted to apologise for all the colours I mention in my poems –

What could they possibly mean to you?

But you told me you can understand colours in ways I will never know.

Today, thinking of you I imagined myself blind –

The afternoon sun on my face – I listened to Enkhjargal Dandarvaanchig sing a traditional Mongolian song – a shepherd’s song –

There were horses – somewhere – I could hear horses within his voice – and the purest blue within his voice – a vast blueness – prairie dog cough – the smell of snow and his harhira singing, his voice so low as if he were inside the mountain, singing to us from the deepest part of a cave. I could feel his muscles straining against the song – and then I felt the snow – I was certain a fox moved somewhere while the blueness moved into the snow, the song, the mountain, his muscles – the blueness moved into the fox, the prairie dog, the horses –

And then, the blueness started to seep into my chest –

370 COLLECTED POEMS The Circle for Corneille

The bird the woman

the snake the cat –

The red the blue

the yellow the yellow

the green –

The bird is a ﬁsh. The snake is a bird. The woman is not a cat. And the cat can only be itself.

The woman needs trees, yes, she needs green.

Tomorrow, the snake will be a ﬂamingo.

How can you have a pink, polka-dotted cobra? I say it will be a ﬂamingo.

The bird will be a round fat ﬁsh struggling to turn gold.

The woman has the eyes of that Malaysian sailor we know.

AUGATORA (2000) 371 The Multicultural Poem for Maria van Daalen & Lorna Crozier

It has to do with movement –

How the tongue must change its colour for every language –

little chameleon bruised by your teeth.

Pull it out, pull it out, the silence

the silence between the cadence and the syntax –

In the garden there are green and orange lights – There was a life – there is a life ﬁlled with cut skin and bruises – The bruises and the tiger lilies would like to scream.

In my dream, the doctor walks in with a laser. The doctor insists on trying out the new laser method on your ear – he tells you that your inner ear can be sliced open. And then … And then?

What will you hear?

Is there a cure for the numbness within the skull? The exiled composer’s skull –

372 COLLECTED POEMS Listen to the exiled echo – the echo mixed with the numbness.

It has to do with the readiness within the ﬁngers before they strike – while the chameleon lingers over the ﬂute.

It has to do with the space between, the tone between, the kiss and the come.

The multicultural poem is a creature, a being whose spirit breathes like an orchid in the sun still wet from the rain on a day when the garden tilts slippery, sublime – on a day when the garden dazzles growing loud with birdsong.

It will not settle down. It will not be your pet.

It wants to be read at the border to the person who checks your passport.

The multicultural poem does not expect the reader to ‘understand’ anything. After all, it is used to being misunderstood.

It speaks of refraction. It wants more dialogue between the retina and the light. It says, ‘get rid of that squint.’

It lives the chapter in history they can’t teach you in school.

AUGATORA (2000) 373 It likes to wear a mask – every day a different face – Home is a place filled with eyes and mouths hanging on the walls – strands of silk, paper hair – Sometimes they sway in the wind, sometimes they lift themselves with a rustling sound – and look as if they would fly away. Now you are still thinking of feathers, beads, glass, paint, wood, shells, bones, more wood, more feathers, more skin and fur – And what else? Go on think of the unthinkable. It has to do with the dance. How far can you stretch? How much pain, how much fire can your thighs endure? The multicultural poem is not afraid to photograph lotuses. It is not afraid to live inside a nightingale. Some days it will eat roses – uncooked – straight off the bush – Some days it will eat snakes. It makes its own rules and then it breaks them. It likes the word terracotta. It is not afraid of the telescope. It is not afraid to sleep with the Muse. Nights it will dream of kingfishers, it will dream of bicycles –

374 COLLECTED POEMS It will ﬁnd its words in the time between the shadows, in the sounds between the crows ﬁghting in the guava trees while at the other end of the garden a man like Orpheus slides artichoke leaves dipped in balsamico with wasabi, then dipped in shoyu –

imagine the crows come closer – they are hungry, loud – imagine the wet grass

while a man like Orpheus scrapes artichoke leaves very slowly very deliberately

between his teeth.

AUGATORA (2000) 375 Meeting the Artist in Durban

My name is Philemon. I am self-taught – This is red-ivory, here, a koodoo – People think I’m crazy because I get my wood out of the river – I don’t chop down trees. I sit by the river for many hours watching for wood. I fish for wood. This piece, this koodoo took three days to finish. Oh I can find many branches – tambouti red-ivory – the Zulu woman bends like that – very low down she goes with the wood. I am self-taught. I go outside – I stay in the bush – I watch the birds. I watch koodoo – I plant new trees. People think I’m crazy because I spend all day looking for wood in the river. I don’t chop trees. No, my father did not teach me this. I am self-taught. I taught myself English also – when I speak with you I learn more English. There is a lot of fighting – my people they beat their women – that is why I carved

376 COLLECTED POEMS a woman bent down – but she is big very big, you see how she looks through her legs.

AUGATORA (2000) 377 Ars Poetica

You asked me whom I envied most: Which writer? Which poet? Whom would I want to be if I could choose to be other than myself?

Shakespeare, I said, almost automatically. No, no. You waved your hands – Be more original. Think of someone no one would think of.

Well, now I have it. But it’s not necessarily the writer that I envy but the poem – And it’s not simply the poem but the cadence that moves me. And to be honest I should add that it’s not only the cadence that affects me but also the way certain lines can be sung by certain singers – certain singers with certain types of voices.

What I mean is: I would like to be Fredrika Brillembourg when she becomes Orpheus in the Berlioz version of Gluck’s opera. I would like to be the song that accompanies her as she strides across the stage in her black suit – the jacket now ﬂapping open, now ﬂapping against her body like a huge wounded wing.

378 COLLECTED POEMS I would like to be the song that determines the way she will toss her long dark hair, her brown hair which is so straight and which shines when the song allows.

I envy Fredrika Brillembourg when she is Orpheus when she is singing all those vowels full of loss and hope at the part where Orpheus is still searching for Eurydice when the black shoes stomp on and on tireless – Envy? Oh yes.

Oh yes,

I would like to disappear into those vowels –

AUGATORA (2000) 379

A Colour for Solitude 2002

Im vergangenen Jahr schrieb ich: die Stärke, mit der ein Gegenstand aufgefaßt wird, das ist die Schönheit in der Kunst. Ist es nicht auch so in der Liebe? Paula Modersohn-Becker

Last year I wrote: the intensity with which a subject is grasped, that is the beauty in art. Isn’t this also true for love? [author’s translation]

Self-Portrait as Aubade 1897

The gaze in the mirror: straightforward yet unconscious – the self-assessment is open to the bone, open to the soul –

Will the quest begin now?

Outside it is Berlin, it is 1897 – the colours of a cold spring morning –

Will the quest begin now?

You are all-knowing but innocent. Not smiling, not coy, not sad – And your face: moonstone white – blue-grey shadows make you almost marble, almost – if it weren’t for the wash of tan, the tinge of beige beneath the white: colours of blanched almonds –

You are serious, wide-awake – already no trace of sleep in your eyes – A self-portrait as waiting for the aubade, as waiting for you don’t know what.

How long do you need to wait? How long will you need – before the quest can truly begin?

Meanwhile, you give me yourself waiting in front of the mirror: meanwhile your green broken with black branches enters the mirror – your green invites

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 383 the aubade – gives fragrance to your waiting – however dark this green – your black making it olive – however dark this green, still, there is the fragrance of a cold spring morning.

The gaze in the mirror is steady and the part in your hair is so straight –

the green surrounds your moonstone skin – your memories of blanched almonds –

untouched and aching to be touched –

But you are the aubade and do not know it –

384 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait done with Red Chalk 1897

You are Italian now – Renaissance sadness in your eyes – seriousness of the very young –

And red chalk your only colour except for a few black shadows – spidery in your hair – a few black strokes – strong enough to cut the neckline of your dress –

You have made yourself Italian – your face: smaller, narrower – Red chalk colouring your concentration, your deep attention – A pigment Faiyum painters used only for the skin of men, for the darker skin of men who worked outdoors –

But you do not know that – not yet.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 385 Self-Portrait as My Sister 1897

Whose face is this?

An accident?

It is my sister, Herma on a windy day –

The wind tears all shapes into a blur of colour –

Even the lines of this face are scattered as if the wind has flung Herma’s face onto mine – as if our faces were flowers in the wind’s path –

Greens, yellows, reds swirling into each other – Only my Herma eyes remain steady: coal black, fixed points unconcerned in a landscape strewn with broken branches –

386 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait with Coppery Red Hair 1897/98

The fire is in your hair – still, you have found her: the older woman who hides in your young face – your twenty-two-year-old face.

Your skin is discoloured – your skin is a thin eggshell – light seeps in – pale light falls over the cracks – fragile, yellow – your skin is parchment your skin is rice paper – light seeps in – ice clings to the window panes – shadows of veins – so blue – shadows of bones almost jutting through – and the mauve hairline cracks, filaments of burst capillaries –

Something made you turn around and look up with a sharp glance – a bird of prey – You are so gaunt and the old woman living in your young face grows stronger – a bird of prey – you are not at all apologetic for your hunger, your need –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 387 Self-Portrait in Front of Window Offering a View of Parisian Houses 1900

My face is distorted: so broad at the cheekbones, a butterfly shape filled with the darkness of indoors – as if I were looking into one of those mirrors those circus mirrors –

But I’ll still look up as high as I can, into the mirror – ignoring the windows of the houses behind me –

Symmetry, symmetry – I can’t forget – Look at the large grey bow tying up this blouse at my neck –

It is 1900. I had to begin my new century in Paris. I look like the perfect student about to go for a walk. I look too conventional. It is 1900. I am numb – It is so dark – the light is behind thick white clouds behind the houses behind me –

And I stand waiting for something to happen.

Shall I undo this bow, shall I step out of my clothes?

388 COLLECTED POEMS Two Girls, Two Sisters Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff, 1900

Two girls, two sisters – that’s what Rilke calls us, celebrating us – and he would join our sisterhood – If only we could remain like this, Clara – open in our love without having to choose –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 389 Black Sails Paula Becker to Rainer Maria Rilke, September 1900 Worpswede

Black sails: greased and tarred –

Black sails of boats laden with turf –

They glide down the river – I see them sliding through trees – Black sails between sunlit patches of birch bark –

Every day the light pulls me out further – somewhere further outside of myself –

Today I think these boats come out of hell – dripping with black blood from the moors – dragging out the smell of marshlands, of rotting leaves –

You tell me we must learn how to welcome back the dead – they are always there, you say, and we must learn to live with them –

Even now, some days they pull out corpses from the bog – Dead bodies from Roman times – their tired wrinkles seem to sweat –

Later we bury them in the churchyard –

390 COLLECTED POEMS Is that a true way of welcoming?

Perhaps the turf I burn once covered the face of a woman – This turf, grown thick and rich against her skin –

A woman who might have looked like me –

Perhaps tonight I will burn bits of her hair without truly knowing that I do –

Hair that might have been as long as mine –

Now lost, peat entangled, peat ensnared – prickly with moss and rough seeds –

A married woman who took a lover –

You told me how they punished her:

Face down, naked they made her lie down on the moor, in the wettest part of the bogland – all the tender parts of her body tightening against the coldness – all her pores curled and puckered in anguish –

Then, the farmhands stepped on her – the largest men walked over her stamping her into the mud –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 391 The stickiness taking her in –

How the air must have hummed seething around her – Even the mud seething with her soul –

This brownish black Worpswede mud – how strong, how dark it must have been a thousand years ago – The stickiness taking her in – A glistening being – Did she still think it was Mother Earth?

Her nose, mouth, ears stuffed shut with spongy loam –

They stamped on her until she was deep enough – Their own legs thick with – with –

You say, betrayal is too simple a word – Too convenient to call it adultery –

You tell me even now you can see her face – hear what she felt centuries ago: fear, disgust, anger – her distorted face stays with you –

Then, stays with me as if she were a black rose you had pressed for me – as if I must keep her for you – as if I have no choice –

392 COLLECTED POEMS A White Horse Grazing in Moonlight 1901

A mirage.

A horse from a fairy tale.

So much light from the moon so much silvery whiteness – and the earth unearthly but fragrant with lilies of the valley –

But the mirage is real. The fairy tale is true.

The white horse walks up to me fearless and eats fresh grass out of my hands –

So love is fearless – it must be.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 393 Your Weyerberg Gaze Clara Westhoff’s bust of Rilke, 1901 Clara Westhoff to Rainer Maria Rilke

I am heavy with child – I am slower – and you are restless –

Clouds move across the sky – leisurely at first, swelling out, billowing like luxurious balloons getting larger and larger – And then they break apart scattering – and then they start racing as if they were fleeing, anxious to get away from something terrible – anxious to follow the birds into the future –

Cloud shadows fall across your face –

For once you are not reading, not writing – and I can enjoy your ‘Weyerberg gaze’ as you stare down at the fields from the hill – and then look up at the horizon –

This afternoon as we sat drinking Chinese tea, the scent of smoky jasmine filled our rooms – a delicate, faint perfume –

394 COLLECTED POEMS And when you spoke our child jumped within me as if jolted out of a dream – I could feel the arms and legs so clearly – the growing fingers the toes – so abrupt, that jabbing – You told me to take a deep breath – Breathe in the roses, you said – breathe in the scent of these roses – and now breathe in the scent of your jasmine tea –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 395 No Road Leads to This Clara Westhoff to Rainer Maria Rilke, 1901 Westerwede

No road leads to this old house we chose. Its roof of straw scattered by the loud wind wheezing its North Sea sounds. No road leads to this old house we chose.

I live downstairs with my clay and stones. You upstairs with ink and paper. What do we do but play with truth, a doll whose face I must rework again and again until it is human. The clay has gathered all the warmth from my hands. I am too cold to touch the marble yet.

Last night the wind blew my candle out. Tonight again on the staircase, I grope my way to your room. Each night I climb up these steps back to you, with your open windows so close to the wind and stars. I listen to your poems as I wash the dust off my skin and hair. You must have the windows open all night, I must watch the straw from the roof slowly swirl, fall inside and gently cover your poems.

396 COLLECTED POEMS Tomorrow come downstairs, will you, it has been a month. I want to show you the new stone I found stuck in the mud by the dead tree. Such a smooth globe, not quite white but honeydew with a single dark green vein curled across. Come downstairs, will you, see the bright red leaves I stole from the woods; see my lopsided clay figure bow low down before my untouched marble. Tomorrow come see the ground, the gawky yellow weeds at eye level from my window down below.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 397 The Washing on the Line 1901

The wind is a ghost today possessing clothes – practically wearing my camisole – while the mauve tablecloth ripples as if it were a field of flowers.

Wet clothes slap a cold spring wind – slap a storm, pushing it into a stronger rage –

And now the wind turns on me, howling deeper into my ears, into the tender parts that hurt – and deeper inside my head there’s a shrill whining, as if the dead were calling out to me –

398 COLLECTED POEMS Two Girls in a Landscape 1901

The older one has straw blonde hair with a tinge of flaxen green. She is ten. She has a cat’s face, almost – a cat’s eyes – bluish grey Siamese grey, slate grey, steel grey – and the black pupils burn with scorn. Her left eye is sharply crooked as if hanging from a broken bone an injured brow – Her left eye is wounded and all the bitterness of her tears have made it lopsided. Her younger sister is four. She has strawberry blonde hair: a pinkish halo. Her eyes are very round and larger than her sister’s. Her eyes are dark brown and so afraid.

The younger one clutches her sister, holding on with a tight grip as if to prevent her from fighting back.

It is Worpswede in 1901. A summer evening – endless light – The moon rising early – long before the sunset is over – a sunset that makes the girls’ faces rosy.

The landscape is green – It is the green of a fairy tale for there is so much white mixed in with the green, so much white that makes the green unreal.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 399 But the girls are real. The ten-year-old was just beaten, her arm twisted for no good reason, for money, for what she could surrender –

It was a man no doubt – father, uncle, brother – ? The four-year-old ran away and hid. The mother stayed behind with the littlest one who cannot walk yet.

The landscape is placid with a whitish green flatness. The landscape is deaf and blind – Still, the girl with the cat’s face is not afraid as you paint her wounds, her anger. She stands motionless – upright, poised just the way you want her –

But remember, both of the girls are you, Paula – and the landscape is Otto.

400 COLLECTED POEMS Icicles Hang from the Reeds of Our Roof Clara Westhoff to Paula Becker, February 1902

Icicles hang from the reeds of our roof – My daughter is two months old now –

You are angry at me, bitter – You say I sound too much like Rainer.

But what is love?

Should love not be open – open to change, open to the other?

Or do you love me more because you don’t want me to change?

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 401 You Kissed My Eyelids Paula Becker to Rainer Maria Rilke, March 1902 Worpswede

Last year you kissed my eyelids – or was it an accident – your lips brushing against my face? You, the gentlest man who ever touched me –

And then we spoke of Death – And then we were silent. That’s when I knew I loved you. I loved you because of the silence – because I could be silent with you –

One day in Berlin Clara entered our room and I knew you were lovers. It was the way you looked up, the way she stepped towards you – Your bodies fulfilled yet aching – And suddenly I was far away – I could not breathe.

And I am still far away –

Because you could not have me you took Clara – Clara, whom I love the most – And now, what have you done to her? How could you change her so much? Why must you make her into your echo?

402 COLLECTED POEMS Sometimes I think you do it to spite me to punish me.

Even you are not yourself anymore.

Yes, I am angry at you, at Clara –

But most of all, angry at myself –

Colours freeze in my mind. All my greens and browns are dying –

My blues and yellows suffocate me.

If only I had been free enough, strong enough to love you back –

I was ignorant – full of illusions.

Otto is a façade.

I miss Clara’s hands, her fingers in my hair.

And your kisses, Rainer – That’s what I crave: Your kisses from those first days when you were pure and truly yourself in my atelier – beyond all poses and pretensions –

But I don’t understand love –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 403 All morning I listened to the birds growing louder and louder and in between the rain falling – now stopping, now starting again in a rush – All morning I waited for Clara. I thought she might come to see me, to surprise me the way she used to. It was a feeling I had. Clara must come by today, I thought – A teasing premonition – completely false – while birdcalls interrupted my mind all morning – and I remembered your kisses Rainer – your hands –

404 COLLECTED POEMS Elsbeth Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff, July 1902

Elsbeth: tall as a foxglove stalk –

Elsbeth: lost within her song –

She walks away and the foxglove bends away from her –

Ripe pink thimbles Elsbeth ignores –

Back to back they move apart –

She must sing a song.

Does she remember her dead mother?

She must have hens that cluck and lay brown eggs –

She must have blue mist falling over the grass –

And her white dress cannot be too white – It must have blue dots.

Elsbeth is far away deep inside her song –

and she lets me follow –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 405 Self-Portrait with Scratches 1903

The scratches are intentional, deliberate. This is your new method: layer upon layer of paint – a muddy river – and then you enter with a sharp knife to carve out the light. To find light beneath silt, brine – to find your first pale colours swallowed by muddy paint.

Here is your clawed out light – pulled out from somewhere deep inside the canvas.

Strokes that are short and fast, so abrupt – leaving the surface unsettled and yet intact.

Like the left wing of a blue jay found in the grass – curled up as if it were a fan of feathers, a swirling bouquet – The feathers too fresh, too blue to have fallen off – The feathers too many to have been discarded by one bird – But then the curve of the wing fits in a woman’s hand: the bones unbroken the feathers unmarred – not loose, not separate but held together as a wing – intact – Still, there is clawed out light – The blue scratched out of the jay – The wing snapped off so cleanly – Was it a hawk or a cat? Blueness of intense loss, violence seeped into the feathers –

406 COLLECTED POEMS colours of startled eyes – The scars are there even if you cannot see them – those marks made into the earth.

This is the face of a fourteen-year-old girl. Why have you taken it as yours? For you are twenty-seven – Why? Why is it so dark? Even your necklace is muddy, struggling to be seen above the high collar of your white shirt. Why is this you looking like a fourteen-year-old girl after two years of marriage? Why the scratches, the clawed out light?

What is the movement behind these marks?

If only he had known how to touch you – If only Otto had – If only Rilke had – If only you could have whispered: ‘Rainer!’ If only you could have shown him – If only you could have shown Otto –

There was a man who could catch fish with his bare hands if he wanted to. He could catch birds, songbirds – Songbirds crushed in his fists if he wanted to – That was a story in Paris. He was a sailor from Goa. That was the movement

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 407 behind the scratches, the clawed out light – That was your movement – the way you entered the canvas with a knife – scarring yourself into a fourteen-year-old face –

Self-Portrait with Blossoming Trees 1903

And if I paint myself serene will I become serene – at one with these blossoming trees?

And if I sign my name as ‘Paula Modersohn’ in large capital letters, will I feel more like Otto’s wife?

It is the light that melts into me – the trees behind me throw their fragrance over my hair – and the way I stand it looks as if the flowers are growing out of my head – yellowish white petals sparkling and moist – how they form a thick white halo – my face takes on their joy, their bliss –

I can smile only because it is spring – because the blueness of this sky opens my soul –

408 COLLECTED POEMS Two Girls: The Blind Sister 1903

My blind sister stands in the sun.

I stand behind her. I hold her, guide her –

Look at her pale yellow eyelashes, the blonde hairs of her eyebrows –

Today, the sun will not let her hide –

Birdsong echoes within her mind –

Birdcalls trapped beneath her eyelids –

Her eyelids: so translucent –

Her eyelids flicker, they tremble –

Her eyelids throb as if they contained the hearts of birds –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 409 Self-Portrait in Front of a Landscape with Trees 1903

I walk over bones in the mud over clumps of grass torn by those who came here before – hoof prints filled with rainwater – Even my wooden shoes sink in, get stuck.

In a dark brown dress of sturdy cotton, I can become a part of the landscape –

Here is a face the earth is trying to take back.

A strand of my hair joins the trunk of a tree.

The sky is white – endless bone as if it were a vast skull – Air so thick I can hardly breathe. Dusty, damp spores shed by birch trees – their leaves stunned into silence.

All the light there is is taken by my bone-white brooch.

Linden trees dazed into a greenish blue trance. A heavy darkness – they too struggle against the air –

410 COLLECTED POEMS Browns and maroons at the end of August – faraway, a dun horse – faraway and everywhere the colour of chestnuts on a dark day – the colour of dried blood –

These colours need blue and orange – But they must have blue. How they try to live, to be something more –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 411 Two Girls in Profile in a Landscape charcoal, 1903/04

Now the dark sister is thinner, taller – She cries out in horror for she has witnessed something – she does not know how to describe it – too simple to call it death, for it is more than death – Evil, pure evil, and yet, only from her perspective is it evil – The brutality of what she has seen distorts her eyes, brings fear into her face – She tries to explain but does not know how to begin – Her younger sister smiles, lost in another dream – Her blondeness shines in the sun – She smiles unaware that her older sister is stuttering again, unaware that something needs to be said – Look, she is almost skipping, she is in such a hurry to get away, far away into an open meadow rustling with new grass – The older sister follows, stumbling along – unable to find the right words – But the younger sister is already thinking of the wildflowers she wants to gather – already thinking of a white horse she wants to greet –

412 COLLECTED POEMS In Her Green Dress, She is 1905

In her green dress, she is the background and the foreground –

A green dress the colour of iris stems, the ones in the background –

A green dress the colour of iris stems against grass –

Green on green on green –

She is the foreground and the background –

Her face intent because she’s listening to a bird in the distance – a single bird – persistent – calling again and again – Its song slit, cleft – rising and falling and rising again through the stillness. Its song clinging to the leaves – A melody that must have moved Bach –

Her face intent because irises have flung themselves open in the heat: Blue petals arched like so many little blue tongues tasting the air –

Those yellow hearts cannot hide anymore.

Even the black stones, the oval shaped black stones of her necklace can see you –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 413 It is June: Full of humid shadows, purple clouds – it will rain in an hour. The irises will sway in the wind – a few stems will get bent by the rain – broken – and her green dress will get drenched along with the grass where the stems will lie broken – But she will walk away laughing – she will walk slowly lingering in the green wetness –

Self-Portrait with Your Jaw Set 1905

If truth is impossible then are you good at telling lies? Woman of Pompeii, of ancient Pompeii, you have made yourself so regal, almost matronly with three children at home. But yours is the face in the mosaic – Yours is the face in the fresco. Liquid gold thick around your throat – And the gold is everywhere: flickering in your eyes washed across your hair – Your jaw set against Vesuvius – Pompeii glancing out of your eyes as if you were about to say, ‘I dare you –’

414 COLLECTED POEMS You are the Rose Clara Westhoff’s bust of Rilke, 1905 Clara Westhoff to Rainer Maria Rilke

On the terrace of Schloß Friedelhausen you sat with your head bowed reading as if you were praying – Your soft neck so exposed – Vulnerable, frail – a bent flower stem about to break –

And then I knew: it is you – You are the rose. And all your life you will seek the perfect gardener.

You sat with your head bowed, bent forward, stooping, awkward – your face spilling into your book –

Was your mind filled with prayers – with blessings waiting to be uttered?

Countess Luise von Schwerin was too ill to sit for me – What could I do but model you – There on the terrace you were so far away from me – You did not know me anymore and so I could see you for what you are –

Afterwards I arranged and rearranged the position of your head, the vulnerability of your neck –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 415 And in the end I placed you on my podium with your gesture: the way you place and replace a single rose in your slender, silver vase –

416 COLLECTED POEMS A Red Rose in November Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff, 1905

Forget Rilke – the way he left you –

I must remind you of your strength – These November mornings as I paint you in your white dress – I must remind you of your power –

Your small daughter, almost four, runs between us, laughing – how she plays on the floor while I study your white dress soaking up the last light of the year.

Still, some mornings at eleven the sun blazes as if it were June –

And now when I look at your face – I know, again, you are dreaming of Rodin, the garden at Meudon – what luck – The weeks you spent working by his side – your hands raw from the wet clay, your fingers cracked and bruised from chiselling stone – But of course, you smile –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 417 At first, I wanted you in profile – you have a face that should be carved in stone.

But now when you sit like this, with your head tilted to the side, and your eyes turned away from me – your eyes turned to the window, to the sky – when you sit like this remembering Rodin – I can look at you fully, deeply – without you observing me – I need you to look away from me. I need to watch you, to grasp you without your gaze interrupting mine – without your gaze blocking mine –

The red rose is full and yet frail in your large hand – How your dark hair takes in the red – while the rose breathes in the darkness from your hair –

When I painted the lines of your neck I thought of the day we rang the church bells endlessly – How you pulled on the rope of the bigger bell and I, beside you ringing the smaller one – we swung along with the bells – lifted way up, our feet off the floor, we held on to the ropes – our white dresses billowing up and down, we swung along over and over – we couldn’t stop – the whole village alarmed, frightened and then angry at us –

418 COLLECTED POEMS That was years ago – but I want to paint what we felt on that day – the sounds of the bells – I want to paint that into the shadows across your neck.

You were always the strong one – spontaneous – pregnant before your wedding day –

Nowadays you look at me puzzled – you cannot understand why I have no child – ‘Why not if you want one?’ your eyes always ask –

How can I tell you the truth? How shall I say it? That in the fifth year of my marriage I am still untouched – a virgin – still Paula Becker – Otto has not made me his wife. I don’t know if he cannot or will not –

And I don’t know how to speak of it – even to you –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 419 Don’t Look at Me like That Clara Westhoff to Paula Becker, 1905

Don’t look at me like that – Sometimes your glance is too sharp.

This morning as I sat in your atelier, a part of me was afraid. I clenched my teeth as you scrutinised me, as your eyes scoured over me –

But in the end you retrieved me from my abyss.

You made me greater than I am – my skin the skin of a stone goddess –

its texture rich with centuries of sun and rain –

420 COLLECTED POEMS Runic Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff, 1905

I want to paint runic faces.

They must be runic – filled with my own loneliness –

Simple geometry, you say – and yet, it’s impossible to know the angles I need, the colours –

I know strength, I know shadow –

And pressure, height, breadth –

I can measure eyes –

But how shall I find my own runic core?

Sometimes there’s a noise rising up within me – as if the distant thunder lives inside me – and is not distant –

And I hear all the ancient, antique mouths from the Louvre speaking – softly at first, a gentle whispering – But some days they grow loud, anxious, impatient –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 421 Self-Portrait with an Oversized Hat and a Red Rose in the Right Hand 1905

In reality I am diminished.

My shoulders have shrunk: narrow, narrow, they cannot get any smaller –

In reality there are moments of resignation – Long moments that keep spilling over into the future –

You have to look hard into the shadows cast by this huge hat – You have to strain your eyes to find mine.

Only my hands maintain their strength – They pulse and itch, anxious to continue –

A red rose bleeds into my white dress – The petals are wounded – and my own wound is a dark red rose –

In reality I pretend to be strong when I am not –

And now this hat wants to suck me out of my grief –

422 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait with a Necklace of White Beads 1906

This mouth is preparing itself to speak French again. See how my lips have changed their shape: fuller, softer – even my words are more resilient. It’s still January but the days are truly mild. I rise before the sky gets pink – And today I’m dressed for spring. I wear a flimsy brown dress with scarlet dots – And these white beads, this necklace worn in haste doesn’t really fit. This dress requires a slender chain of gold or a collar made of bright coral. And yet, the white beads are perfect: They make the scarlet sharper – But who cares. In a month I’ll be gone. I may never see Worpswede again. And Otto – how can I bear to face him after I leave this time – Let the scarlet grow sharper against the white beads – This mouth is preparing itself to speak French forever –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 423 Self-Portrait with a Wreath of Red Flowers in Your Hair 1906

You have just eaten strawberries – wild ones that were small but sweet. You have found a lover, you have found love – but no one believes you.

A wreath of red flowers, a crown brings out the brown shadows in your hair.

You are a Viking Queen. Your mouth is crimson, redder than anything.

And the whites of your eyes are filled with the colour of cut forget-me-nots –

Cut forget-me-nots in a jar after two days in the May sun –

While more strawberries are ripening and you have just found a lover – you keep reminding yourself.

The blue fading, yet brightening to white – The blue changing – Yet the blue still fresh as if it were not truly dying but being diluted by all the water sucked up by the stems –

One thinks the forget-me-nots will live forever – as the tiny flowers get paler everyday – and the leaves stay green –

424 COLLECTED POEMS You say the juice of forget-me-nots can be used to strengthen iron. But no one believes you.

The crown of red flowers, high on your head, mingles into your hair – making you restless – a Viking Queen about to set off on a long journey.

And these are the flowers you didn’t include in the picture: Fat jam jars full of forget-me-nots pulled out from the garden, torn away from the earth to make space for other flowers.

Handfuls of thick bundles: Two jam jars on the windowsill one on the table – pine wood – Your lover already far away but waiting for you.

Now these flowers you didn’t paint, the forget-me-nots spill out of your eyes –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 425 A Colour for Solitude Paula Becker to Rainer Maria Rilke, 1906

Of course I know your eyes are blue – So blue that I almost married you – So blue, so heroic, it still hurts to stare you down.

But that is not the point.

The point is today your eyes got so dark when you saw me alone, simply standing by the window in my amber necklace.

Why should I not hint at your weak chin – why should I not reveal your mouth as I have seen it?

Truth does not belong to you alone – Truth does not belong to anyone.

Maybe this portrait that I’m making of you is more intimate than sex –

All these hours we spend together in my room – while all of Paris stays locked outside. No one has dared to see you the way I have.

All these hours I am the artist: For once, it is me who is not female, not male – but both and also neither – I am the artist who understands the light on your skin.

426 COLLECTED POEMS Nights I sleep with my paintings around me. But most of all, I keep your portrait in my mind, my dreams –

What can I offer you that is more honest, more passionate? Look, here is my secret, look, I have hidden it beneath your tongue – Your tongue that no one can see in this portrait I have done – your tongue, there, inside the darkness of your eternally open mouth.

And when we kissed, just now, did you think of the lilies in my old atelier? Did you remember our early days in Worpswede? How we denied our love for each other – The hours we spent talking – the hot cups of tea – endless and steaming in our hands – The hours we spent talking against the constant sound of rain – the rain falling – gently, persistently – The candles I lit to welcome your words – How we loved each other those last days before each of us married the wrong beloved –

And when we kissed this morning, watched by all the eyes in my paintings – did you think we were still two artists, two misunderstood solitudes trying to protect each other?

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 427 Or were we simply a man and a woman unable to let go of each other – ? And yet always unable to stand undressed before each other. Is it love we should give each other? Is it sex? I don’t know. And yet, I know a part of me has always loved you – has always been afraid of loving you – I could never be the rose in your poems – the sleeping girl – I could never be so innocent and so motionless. And you could never fit in with the trees in my landscapes the colours in my skies – But don’t you see, now in this portrait I’m trying to say: Look, I have seen you naked, more naked than anyone else has seen you – And this time, I do not flinch from the confusion in your eyes. I must tell you, this portrait shall remain the way it is – It is finished in its unfinishedness. And I cannot paint your eyes blue until you can show me how to live for art – for the greatness of art – without guilt. Show me how you live out desire, live out every urgent desire – and yet, always remain true to yourself. Give me a better colour for solitude –

428 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait on My Fifth Wedding Anniversary 25-5-06

I will become amber.

Daphne wanted to become a tree. I think it was she who chose sweet laurel, she who chose leaves that are always green. But I need to go deeper, into amber. Already this light, this sunny May morning in Paris has turned my hair amber the dark russet kind – more red than gold. My eyes: brownish amber sparkle brighter than the necklace I wear today – large oval beads of amber – so heavy. It’s too warm, too early, but never mind. I’m half-naked. It’s easier to paint what I mean to paint this naked way. How would I look if I were pregnant? Like this? My nipples, still so pale would also turn to amber. And my blood? I imagine it too will become stronger. It will stop its rush-rush river sounds it will stop pounding my blood will become quiet silent – and in the end it will harden into amber.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 429 My belly is so white! So white! How round should I make it? How big will I get when I’m with child?

Oh I will paint it round enough so there will be no doubt about my condition.

This is a self-portrait of a pregnant woman who secretly knows she will become amber.

This is a self-portrait in which I don’t care what anyone says.

Exactly five years ago today we got married – Otto and I. But this May I am alone at last with my self. My self that now only speaks to me in Paris.

I need to live more fully through the body to find my soul.

Yes, the body, this woman’s body that is mine – I need to go deeper into amber.

Should I have a baby? And if I did? Then, would my body be able to teach my soul something new?

430 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait as a Nude Torso with an Amber Necklace 1906

This is my soul: A nude with Buddha’s smile.

Yes, even Buddha’s smile can be mine.

I stand with a flower in each hand – Flowers shaped like my nipples.

But the flowers are smaller with dark green centres, night green stems.

The flowers are bluish pink – my nipples are pinkish orange.

This is my soul: Pure roundness – Beads of pure amber – It is me and yet beyond me.

How I hold these flowers: my left hand is a vase full of shadow – my right hand is full of movement – my arms, geometric, as in a dance – almost encircling my solar plexus – My soul protecting itself.

My soul’s eyes see you and they don’t.

There are white and orange butterflies everywhere – and more flowers in my hair, flowers at my feet that you can’t see.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 431 I stand in front of tall ferns.

The sun is right on me.

What is there? What is there behind those ferns? You ask –

Such dark ferns – all colours are dark over here.

This is my soul: It is more than me.

And behind these ferns that reach and reach almost blocking out the sky – behind these ferns full of butterflies

pinkish red flamingos step into water – There is a lake.

And further away leopards sleep hidden within trees –

432 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait as Anonymous 1906

You are one of many, you are all three women over here – You are Isis in the middle of a dance –

And you are not.

Clara is there approaching you from the background – her face so clear in profile. The red tulip in her hand also clear cut, chiselled as sharp as her face –

Let the third woman remain unknown –

The third woman who looks up at the moon, who cries out so we know the drums are getting louder –

We know who you are, we know where you are – and yet, we do not.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 433 You Spoke of Italy Paula Becker to Rainer Maria Rilke, 1906

Rainer, dear friend, I cannot sleep tonight – and I do not want to sleep.

I’ve been trying on those dresses and evening gowns and those undergarments made of silk that you helped me choose yesterday at the shop – The packages arrived this morning.

Such blues and greens glistening as if they were perpetually wet – Such reds smouldering with love, with ripeness – I will memorise myself in these clothes, these riches of Koré – unearthly colours – jewels I can never pay for.

Tomorrow I will send everything back.

But for tonight it is all mine – I might even sleep in silk –

I pace before the mirror and I keep thinking of our evening together –

Your simple, meatless dinner that you shared with me – And afterwards, the strawberries – I felt so pure, so free – you watching me while I watched you – Your small hands

434 COLLECTED POEMS I always found so moving – You were sweet and pale, your skin smelling of almonds – How you spoke of Italy – of Florence, Capri – How you spoke of a journey we should make together – I only interrupted to say, with Clara, with Clara, let us be three again – And as I listened to your stories I remembered the scent of fresh lemons and especially the leaves with their different fragrance with their rough dark green softened by that fragrance –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 435 Is there More Truth in a Photograph? Paula Becker to her sister, Herma Becker, 1906

Is there more truth in a photograph?

I ask myself –

I ask you Herma as the camera clicks in your hands – as you take pictures of me secretly at night – I am nude – posing with fruits and flowers – posing for myself, only for myself –

The light is harsh – the shadows are grim –

But can truth be partly remembered? Its texture felt beforehand like an old dream, half-forgotten in our minds – Or must it always surprise?

Yes, the light is harsh and the shadows are grim –

And when the photographs arrive will I find truth?

When I examine the angles, the shapes between this light and these fruits – between my eyes and my mouth – What will I find there?

436 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait as a Life-Sized Nude 1906

At night before the dance, the dancer stands in a room full of shadows.

She surveys herself naked in the mirror, her feet poised just so –

She holds herself straight, erect – her legs close together her arms folded into the tension of her energy – supple, pliant – her hands aligned between her breasts –

Fragrance of oranges – a fruit in each hand to give shape to her fingers – A fruit in each hand so she can find the balance between the weight and the colour –

Before the dance: her left foot slides forward – her right foot, behind, perpendicular to the left –

Her thighs gather in all her strength before the dance – The silk of her muscles contained – suspended yet taut within her stillness –

Fragrance of oranges – her fingers curled around ripe fruit –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 437 Self-Portrait as a Standing Nude with a Hat 1906

A brushstroke and my face disappears – and so do my nipples.

What is this desire to become featureless – to become a menhir? Why this yearning to return to rock, to stone – ?

A brushstroke and I can decide my fate.

I am painting myself into a menhir, into the truest stance –

From the light in the colours you can see that I am still flesh – not stone not even rose marble – and I am so far away from pink granite –

My face is gone but I wear a hat with long ribbons to show you that I’m still alive. The long ribbons streaming down my back show you that this body is not flat.

It will take time to become stone.

But for now I need these colours:

438 COLLECTED POEMS Look at the lemon in my left hand right between my breasts – Look at the orange in my right hand held further down a bit below my waist –

My face is gone but my pubic hair remains.

A brushstroke and I can decide my fate –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 439 Self-Portrait Wearing a Blue and White Striped Dress 1906

The dress itself makes one think of summers in France – picnics in Brittany –

The blue and white fragrance of the Atlantic –

Right hand on my chin. Not a fist. Fingers outstretched – lightly touching my chin – Lightly – I am not tired.

Can’t you see how serious I am, Rodin?

Imagine if I said that to him.

Yes, he would say, too serious for a woman. No, I would answer, I have to be more serious than a man.

The sun blazes on my dress making it more dazzling – but I stand aside silent – and I need to be alone.

440 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait with Yellowish Green 1906

Parrot green, lime green, pistachio green,

yellowish green – bright on your chin where your hand rests, the left hand again – And there across your eyelids more green –

Is it the light? Or is it a shadow?

Your ears are dark pink: sunburnt, stubborn –

Colours of madness, people will say, colours of insanity –

But if you tell them what you really think they will turn away, afraid –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 441 Two Girls: One Sitting in a White Shirt, the Other, a Standing Nude 1906

Beauty that is Italian – The older sister has it – Twelve years old, her gestures are always so strong: the way she tosses her head, shaking her thick black hair out of her face – The way she laughs, lifting her chin at such an angle and glancing out of the corners of her eyes – Her white shirt flashing – while pink oleanders just outside the window brush fragrance against the wind – And now she is so excited, so happy as she surveys her younger sister, who is five and stands naked beside her. It is the nakedness of a child, of a girl who has been sick for a long time and has just emerged from bed – Her face closed with illness, her flaxen hair damp with sweat – Now her older sister bends towards her saying, today you have no fever – today, you are cured – The older sister keeps breaking the silence saying, come here, I will help you, come here, I have already prepared your bath – While pink oleanders just outside the window brush fragrance against the wind –

442 COLLECTED POEMS Two Girls: Nude, One Standing, the Other Kneeling in Front of Red Poppies 1906

The poppies glow with poison – Red breathing black – in full bloom – dark opium falls across the innocence of lemons, the innocence of little girls who wait for butterflies –

It is so hot, they have left their clothes in the house – Sheltered by huge poppies they play naked in the garden – they play beside a fountain you cannot see – One standing, the other kneeling, they examine a lemon – probe an orange – undecided about what to do – Who will fetch the knife from the kitchen? Who will cut the fruit? Will the orange be sweet enough? Won’t the lemon be too sour, too bitter? Who will fetch the knife? The knife they are forbidden to touch – Time is endless – they think such poppies will shelter them forever –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 443 Two Girls with their Arms Across their Shoulders 1906

Sometimes the dark girl is shorter – she has a story to tell, a secret that rises like a cloud of smoke –

A secret that is silver grey like the dots on her blue dress.

A secret that lives with olive trees.

The two sisters continue walking with their arms across their shoulders –

A scarlet ribbon in her black hair – a purple ribbon in her blonde hair –

Forgetting the beauty of her white dress, the tall blonde girl listens and listens –

Ribbons curled up into bows, curled up like resting butterflies – while the secret unravels stretching out before them so they have to follow it –

Surrounded by silver grey, they trace a secret that never ends –

444 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait on a Hot Day in Paris 1906

Your face is flushed from the heat –

Skin of a ripe peach. Skin of a goldfish in the sun.

The cry of the peacock is in your eyes – peacock blue peacock green behind you – as if you stood in front of those bright feathers.

But there is no reprieve. No respite from the heat. Your face fills up the canvas – There’s hardly any background hardly any green to look at.

Your face is flushed with anger – your eyes outlined with a godly blue: lapis lazuli glows against your burning skin.

How far can you go? How far before you get blisters, before your skin comes off?

How far will you go before you peel off this face and begin again?

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 445 You have no time for anyone. No time to justify yourself. You cannot wait. You do not care whether it will rain tonight or tomorrow. The heat will not keep you from working.

And your anger must have a chance to breathe.

446 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait as a Mask 1906

Eyeless – and so it is a mask.

As if I have lifted off my face – the lines and shadows and shape of my face – and placed it on a newspaper for you to look at.

You might say I have discarded my face for you to examine.

No eyes – just holes – so it is not all of me –

This is my shell – my own mask, my daily mask that I create over and over again –

Today, the mask has reached a certain perfection: look at this firm jaw these perfect lips – and the flesh on these cheekbones of such classic proportions – never changing, never moving –

Here is a forehead that dreams only of eternity –

But how can human eyes live with such a lack of emotion – ? Perhaps my eyes have died. Or have they simply disappeared?

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 447 Self-Portrait with a Hat and Veil 1906

In this hat and veil, in this sheer yellow veil, I am Eurydice in hell – Eurydice in a room in a hell where the curtains are as red as poppies in the sun – as red as the ripe seeds Persephone once bit into.

And she has taken charge now – She has smuggled in the scent of orange blossoms, brought in bolts of sea-green light – and the sea air with turquoise shadows – Sometimes I feel as if I am underwater. I chose to come here. But I am doomed. Doomed to hold on to these oddly coloured roses in my hand – pinkish lavender – Pinkish lavender jarring against the red curtains, the red panels of the hat around my ears – Pinkish lavender: the last two roses Orpheus left behind for me – If only he had given me flowers that were white or even yellow – then I wouldn’t feel so conspicuous, so out of place –

448 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait, Frontal, with a Flower in the Right Hand 1906/07

This is my face that greets me in a dream – out of focus – it is a face seen through fog, mist – a face seen through rain, through a rain streaked windowpane – How smudged it is and blurred as if by accident, as if I could not find the lines of my own face.

This is the face that Otto must see nowadays – out of focus – fading away – for I have left him for good. I stand before plum coloured flowers: Huge bushes – these rhododendrons – And in my right hand I hold a tiny white flower for Otto. ‘Let me go.’ I wrote to him – ‘Let me be free.’ And he will take the white flower with its whitish stem – almost ashen the way I painted it. He will call it his little white rose not knowing that it is a weed mimicking jasmine – He will call it his small snowdrop of petals not knowing the petals are wild – And the whiteness will remind him of moonlight.

And even now as I return to him, uncertain – I make a necessary compromise – And even now he will look at me and say ‘At last – at last you have come back.’

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 449 But he will never notice that my face has changed, that my face has become unreachable – forever out of focus for him –

450 COLLECTED POEMS A White Horse Grazing in Moonlight Paula Becker to Otto Modersohn a retrospective view of 1901

A white horse grazing in moonlight –

That was our love –

And instead of giving you a deep red rose I signed my initials in blood red paint –

That was our love –

I wrote ‘1901’ in bright red paint –

A colour wrung from the hearts of roses – I’m sure –

And you watched me as I undressed as I stood naked in the field – letting moonlight cover my skin –

Don’t remind me.

Don’t ask me for such love again.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 451 Otto with a Pipe Paula Becker to Otto Modersohn, 1906/07

Otto with a pipe.

Otto with a straw hat in profile, facing right.

Otto with spectacles, frontal.

Otto sleeping.

Otto reading at his desk – one hand supporting his head.

Otto with a pipe, in profile.

My private litany.

I could never truly find you. You never let me.

Why did I love you?

452 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait with a Lemon 1906/07

In the shade, especially in the shade, when she stood like that against the light – in the shade, her face looked darker, darker than it really was – and her arms exposed to the sun all morning glistened with sweat.

The noise of insects prickled across the air – the windless air – the heat opening and opening skin, cell by cell, all the way down, deeper – silt, marrow – where Death cries out hoping the soul will listen –

From the terrace she could be seen walking between the rows of lemon trees – now pausing, now turning around, looking for something – maybe waiting for someone –

The parrots were hiding. The crows were somewhere else. A child screamed – sulking, raging – a baby cried – And it was the time of day when the temple bells were silent.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 453 But there was movement within the silence. A movement in the waiting – A movement in the watching – More than a gesture –

The blue border on the end of her sari covering her head cast a blue shadow – a soft, cotton blue shadow across her face – And there, where the blue darkness of her sari met the darkness of her hair – was another shadow, another border – it was a fast brushstroke – thick cobalt blue disappearing into a maroon, ochre black – an orange, olive black – a hungry blue plunging into black –

A brushstroke so fast and so strong there was only one chance of getting it right –

When she bit into the lemon in her hand and lifted her head like that, the sari-end slipped off of her hair and she left it hanging down for a moment – then pulled it taut over her shoulders instead –

The green light from the leaves flickering across her throat – The cobalt blue living within the kohl streaked around her eyes –

454 COLLECTED POEMS Afterwards she threw the rind far away – almost out of the orchard – and then she held up another lemon to the light, the light she hid from as she stood there beside the trees –

Self-Portrait with a Sprig of Camellia Leaves 1906/07

I am Egyptian now – darker than the sun can ever make me –

Burnt umber, burnt sienna under a pale blue sky –

And I hold this sprig of glossy leaves – evergreen, glabrous –

I hold this sprig for Death –

Look, I will say, to Death take these leaves and smell them –

smell them –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 455 And What Will Death Do? 1906/07

And what will Death do?

What did he do in Faiyum?

Did he welcome the portrait of each new mummy, saying yes, yes, I recognise you – I have seen this necklace before.

Did he kiss each portrait, fingering the linen, the wood – saying yes – let the soul be free from the body.

Did he stare into their open eyes saying, yes, I will let your spirit return to your body – In my Kingdom I will let you keep these leaves –

Did he unfasten a door open a window, saying, come over here – saying, look at this – ?

456 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in the Left Hand Paula Becker to Clara Westhoff, 1907

Now that I am truly ripe with child – I don’t have the strength to paint myself naked before a mirror.

If I could, I would go to Paris right now –

Clara, you write to me from Berlin, from Oberneuland – but you speak of Rilke’s letters, Rilke’s words full of Cézanne’s light –

Cézanne’s big exhibition in Paris – where I should be with you – will soon be over. And I won’t make it this time.

From my eyes, my swollen eyelids, you can tell how heavy I must be, how lethargic –

So now I wait for you to bring me Rilke’s letters, the ones you promised – I need Rilke’s words to bring Cézanne into my room in Worpswede –

As for me, I give you colours of crockery.

I wear a sleepy blue: blue of a ceramic milk jug –

Even the sky looks milky today.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 457 Two flowers because of the second heart beating within me.

My left hand because it has to be.

I want this child.

These flowers are for you, Clara – for you, Cézanne –

458 COLLECTED POEMS Who has just Died? Clara Westhoff to Paula Becker, 1908

Mornings I wake up wondering who just died – and then I remember it was you –

I wake up wanting to touch you wanting to take you into my arms –

Today I thought of that winter afternoon almost three years ago – that afternoon we spent by the stove in your small atelier at the Brünjeshof – how you kept the fire going, throwing in little pieces of turf, the oven door squeaking each time you opened it – And how you wept, telling me that you could not live in Worpswede – how you longed for ‘the world’, for Paris – And I held you – I can still feel your shoulders, your back under my hands – your hair, your wet face –

Nine months have passed. Still, I wake up confused in the middle of the night wondering who has just died –

These days I am reading The Discourses of Gautama Buddha – trying to understand maya – But I cannot

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 459 let go of you – We should be reading this book together discussing it the way we went over Nietzsche’s Zarathustra

Today it rained all day and I turned towards the bust I made of you long ago in 1899, remember – when we had just met – Suddenly I felt that the shoulders were all wrong – and I wanted to rework your face to leave it the way I knew you, the way I saw you last – Perhaps you would laugh but I wanted to give it the ‘great simplicity’ that you reached for – But then again, maybe I only wanted to touch your face again –

460 COLLECTED POEMS Through the Blackness Clara Westhoff’s bust of Mathilde (Tille) Modersohn, 1915 Clara Westhoff to Paula Becker

Paula, your daughter is seven – she’s almost eight now. She came to me this morning – her clothes smelling of sadness.

Paula, if we had known each other as children then perhaps this is how I would remember you.

When Tille walked up to me I felt it was you stepping out of a photograph from your childhood –

She has your face, your golden red hair –

She sat so still as I walked around my atelier watching her face, studying the way she held herself, the way she sat in my chair – while the clay grew warmer, more pliant in my hands –

She answered my questions so earnestly – I wanted to laugh – And I wondered, what were you like as a child?

And then, as I continued working, forming Tille’s face, your face, I couldn’t help thinking – as I continued moulding Tille’s mouth her chin – I remembered the night

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 461 we had walked along the river, along the Weser – It was late – It was the first warm night in May but so dark, a new moon darkness everywhere – And suddenly from the other side of the river a nightingale called out – Its song so sharp we stopped talking. It sang out again and again each note ringing, resounding through the blackness – You held my arm – Remember how we stood there listening – amazed that we could hear it so clearly across the water – And how we felt that nightingale was calling out to us –

462 COLLECTED POEMS 21 November 1916 Munich, Clara Westhoff to Paula Becker

You died a day before my twenty-ninth birthday – but the news of your death reached me late – I was in Berlin.

And when I returned to Worpswede on the last day of November with dead leaves in my hands – dark brown and yellow – and a branch of red berries – for the colour – when I returned to Worpswede your house was empty.

Otto had left. Your sister, Milly had taken the baby.

I had asked my brother to place a bowl filled with fruits at your grave – pears, figs, pomegranates – Southern fruits you would have painted.

Later, your mother wrote to me with such joy about finding those fruits as if those fragrant colours were the trick to bring you back – as if you would return any day, any minute –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 463 What did I feel as I walked down that straight flat road, surrounded by birch trees – your trees – ? What did I feel? Rainer always asks.

I felt nothing. I was numb – frozen.

That was nine years ago. But how can I ever forget? How can I celebrate my life today without lighting a candle for you?

Rainer came by this evening to be with me again after so many years – Because of you he needs to speak with me. Whenever he wants to talk about you he comes to me.

Tonight he brought your journals, all your unpublished letters sent to him by your mother. He wanted my help, my advice – should he edit your writing? Start reading, he said. That was my birthday present.

I made a pot of tea and then another – We sat up late into the night reading your words – Hardly talking –

464 COLLECTED POEMS Later Rainer kept saying, where is Paula? But where is Paula? This is not really her. The person in these letters is too sweet, he complained – Paula was sharper, harder in reality – There must be something missing. I disagreed. Although he was partly right.

I remembered our first time together in Paris – Why didn’t you write about our visit to Vollard’s gallery? About Cézanne’s paintings on the floor, leaning against the wall – How you looked through them over and over again, quickly and then slowly – You held up so many paintings for me there in the dark corner – Canvas after canvas of French colours we had never even lived.

Why didn’t you write about that? Should it remain a secret?

Rainer wants me to tell him your stories, our stories that you never spoke of.

And I imagined him writing your life in his words –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 465 I remembered your old anger at him for putting his words into my mouth –

And so, this time I remained silent – I refused to explain anything.

Of course, we fought again over you. I defended you.

Tonight, I decided that I will make sure my journals are not seen by anyone for a long time after my death.

466 COLLECTED POEMS The Room Itself is Dying Clara Westhoff to Rainer Maria Rilke, circa 1921

Upstairs the glass glitters today – windowpanes hysterical with sun – I know there is sunlight pouring in through the gable windows – sunlight warming the wooden floor –

But I cannot bear to look.

Once we planned this house together – Remember – after the war – You blessed this house with a poem – a little charm you composed to keep us safe, to keep us together – A little charm that does not work.

And now this extra room on top, the ‘gable room’ that I had saved for you – for you to live in, write in – for you to be sheltered in your solitude – this room you have never seen – It is dying.

The room itself is dying of emptiness –

It is April now – spring even in Fischerhude. The wind hisses, suddenly restless through trees, flinging branches ripping half-opened leaves – The river quickens – Our daughter has forgotten your face – She says you have none.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 467 Another year has gone by and still you do not come to see us.

There are days when I think if Paula were still alive and if she lived here in this village, or nearby in Worpswede – if Paula were still alive – then, surely you would arrive at the station loaded down with your books and papers – Then, no doubt you would come to see Paula – And perhaps that way, I imagine, in her presence you would allow me to speak with you –

But she is dead – she who had brought us together so many times without even knowing that she did –

468 COLLECTED POEMS Ruth’s Wish Clara Westhoff’s posthumous bust of Rilke, 1936 Clara Westhoff to Rainer Maria Rilke

It was our daughter’s wish – Ruth wanted me to make a new bust of you – of you when you were older. She wanted something more than a photograph to remember you by –

How far can memory go, how deep – and still be fair? Can there be truth without love?

This time I lift your head up – I raise it – Monumental – Your eyes half-closed, you are lost within yourself – Your face is fuller, your hair thinning – You are beardless. Your lips are pressed together. There is something implacable – a sternness I knew.

You look firm. But I know you are still dreaming –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 469 16 April 1945 Clara Westhoff to Paula Becker

Three years ago when the first bombs started to fall on Bremen – I tried to move closer to God.

But it’s you I talk to most in my mind.

I am stuck in Fischerhude.

Today, the merchant Oelze stopped by with a bundle of papers. Manuscripts – he said, poems by a man called Gottfried Benn – I must keep everything safe.

So I opened my iron chest again.

And now Oelze’s papers lie with Rainer’s Cézanne letters, Rainer’s sonnets and elegies –

Bremen is no more. Oelze told me –

But tonight I will sit with you, with my memories –

All those letters about Cézanne, Rainer sent me were really written for you. I always knew. And in the end he meant the sonnets to be for you –

470 COLLECTED POEMS And the elegies, he wanted to place in a niche to your memory, he said –

Always you.

He loved Lou and he loved you, Paula – He needed you.

It was your death he kept within his heart – your death he could never accept.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 471 Was it the Blue Irises? Kunsthalle Bremen, 1985

The way I returned again and again to your self-portrait with blue irises made the guards uneasy.

The way I turned away from your self-portrait with blue irises made the guards uneasy.

Was it the blue irises floating around your face, was it your brown eyes illuminated by something in the blue irises?

How could you know, how could you feel all this that I know and feel about blue iris?

I was on the top floor with other paintings, other painters, but unable to concentrate on them because already I could hear the tone of voice your brown eyes would require.

So I rushed back down to be with you.

The look that passed between us must have lasted a long time because I could smell the light from the irises falling across your face.

The look that passed between us was full of understanding so I could imagine living with you and arguing with you about whether to put garlic in the soup.

I stared at the blue irises but in my throat there was the pungent fresh bitterness of watercress.

When I finally left you I noticed three guards following me.

By the time I got home I was furious at them for witnessing all this.

472 COLLECTED POEMS Clara’s Voice Written after listening to a 1953 recording of Clara Westhoff reading Rilke’s early poems

Old woman reading a young man’s poems – your Northern accent softened with Low German consonants – How often have I listened to your voice trying to understand you. Trying to imagine the young woman you were – Six feet tall – reserved but impulsive – A woman who once danced for hours with sailors on the deck of a stranded ship until you had to be carried off with blisters on your feet – Later, they called you ‘die Rilke’ – celebrating you for having been his wife – Inviting you to read his poems, to speak of the man you knew. And you obliged the public – afraid to disappoint, reluctant to say what you really thought. In this recording you sound like a grandmother – Listening to your gentle intonation, your patience – I imagine you reading stories to your grandson.

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 473 Lines Written in Venice about a visit to Mathilde (Tille) Modersohn Bremen, 1995

Where else but in Venice should this memory be written down.

It was my first visit – I brought you summer flowers – Pale pink roses, dark irises – Not knowing that all afternoon you would sit in a corner by the window – not knowing that beside you on the wall there would be a painting by your mother with those roses – precisely – as if the painting were a mirror reflecting the newly arranged flowers on the table –

Looking at your face I imagined if Paula had lived to be old – then this is how she would have looked, like you – Your hair faded but still long worn pulled back and coiled exactly the way Paula used to style her hair.

Your walls were covered with Paula’s paintings – your rooms filled with Paula’s things – porcelain vases, a decorated box – and the chandelier with a baroque angel, an angel surrounded by a wreath of candles, a garland

474 COLLECTED POEMS of tall slender candles – The chandelier Paula had lit minutes before she died.

Here in Venice there’s the sound of water slapping against boats – some docked, others far into their journeys – November sun burns across old glass window panes – sparkling, piercing – Colours stunned and rippling with reflections as if the glass were melting – Dark yellow paint, ochre and burnt reddish brown crumbles off houses – Houses seem to lean over the water – small bridges connect narrow streets – Mazes, cracked stones – Stones, wet and chilled from the water –

It’s your birthday today – I’ve spent the morning walking, getting lost – remembering you, how you liked to travel.

Once in a bank in New York the man standing behind you happened to notice your name written on your passport ‘Modersohn’.

Modersohn? He said, asking you about Paula. When he realised she was your mother, he told you about his escape from the Nazis with one of her paintings –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 475 But when he arrived in New York he had to sell it to survive –

He told you he felt honoured to meet you – invited you to his home in Brooklyn – But you felt so guilty so responsible for German history that you could not bear to visit him.

And then I remembered your openness – The story about two women, complete strangers who had knocked on your door – you welcomed them – And after they left you noticed they had torn out pages from your mother’s cookbook – pages in which she had written her intimate thoughts –

All your stories are so entangled in my mind –

And now, necklaces of Venetian glass remind me of your cousin’s daughter, my friend, who is more like a niece to you – I think of her, the bright colours she likes to wear.

I remember her gift to me after your death: The photograph of you newborn and asleep while Paula holds you – while Paula looks up at the camera – The photograph

476 COLLECTED POEMS that you kept in your room – the photograph in your old white frame, the frame slightly battered and not so white anymore – I’ve kept that photograph in your frame – it hangs in my room now right above my desk –

Fischerhude, 2001 Café im Rilke-Haus

Clara, your house is a café now – Restored, preserved – and named for one who never entered it –

Thick green, the grass in September –

Horses step out of the fog –

A stream from the Wümme still flows by your garden –

I drink tea and stare out the window –

And I have a stone in my pocket – a stone and an acorn –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 477 Worpswede, 2001 for Hille Darjes

Und wer ist das Mädchen? Das war meine Mutter.

Full moon in September – Three weeks too early to be a true harvest moon –

But look, still low in the sky that moon behind thick clusters of birch trees – pale yellow as if it were a huge melon ripening on a vine, entangled in the grass –

All afternoon I walked past fields between museums, past so many trees, birches, oaks – remembering you, Paula – your paintings, your colours burnt in my mind – Today I thought of you with so much pain – as if it were 1907, 1908 – and you had just died – as if you had been my dear friend, my sister –

Later, I listened to your grandniece reading from your journal, your letters – She wore your brooch – She has your power.

Later, we sat together looking through her old album –

478 COLLECTED POEMS photographs of you, of your entire family –

Who is this? And who is this? I kept asking –

That was Paula’s brother in Indonesia. That was the woman who loved him so much –

And who is that girl? That was my mother –

A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002) 479

Pure Lizard 2008

We drop Cassandra’s mantle in the dust. The king will not return. The king is dead. And look: the olives ripen, the lizards stretch. – Eleanor Wilner

I A Hidden Truth

A Hidden Truth

Those three monkeys: see no evil hear no evil speak no evil – actually wear kimonos. Tomorrow, they’ll wear saris. Truth stays hidden – it lives within their hands, within their palms which are so burnt – and scarred into a violent purple.

Those three monkeys: see no evil hear no evil speak no evil – They always knew they were women – Women, not monkeys. And one day the camera revealed their souls.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 483 The Fourth Monkey

The fourth monkey has been forgotten, despite her golden face, her golden hands, stained red from staunching the world’s blood.

How could you forget?

Don’t you know? She tried to cleanse Lady Macbeth.

She is, after all, do no evil.

Well then, find a place for her with see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.

But let her speak. Listen. She says:

‘Don’t bind me for a touch of Asia, a touch of Africa –

I have the full DNA.’

484 COLLECTED POEMS Two Monkeys

‘That’s quite a feat, to escape from a crocodile with your liver intact,’

says one monkey to another, as they eat chapatis, chapatis stolen from a cat.

‘Escape, escape! That’s the whole point of my life. It would be boring otherwise.’

‘Must we behave like monkeys?’ Second monkey continues. ‘Can’t we learn something else?’

PURE LIZARD (2008) 485 The Crow, his Beak and a Girl

How this crow keeps his beak full – He knows where to dance.

He follows a girl, a child of three, across her grandmother’s garden.

The girl is so thin, and she runs with a hot chapati in one hand, and a doll in the other –

The crow is close behind her. They zigzag through the spider lilies.

Soon the crow flies off with the chapati.

And he’s there again the next day, and the next –

And he always flies off with the chapati.

The first time is a shock for the girl – the suddenness, the dusty black wings flapping so close to her face –

But then she gets used to it, stops fearing his beak, which rarely touches her anyway. Now she simply watches – stares at the other crows who aren’t so brave.

486 COLLECTED POEMS Nine Poems in Response to Etchings by Paula Rego

The Crow’s House

They’ve stayed up all night on the sofa, in this crow’s house – and now it’s grey morning.

The maid won’t let the blackbird leave. The white cat is dizzy with disease.

A black dog has lost control of his neck muscles.

Suddenly, three holy ghosts appear in the background – They’ve fled from Lübeck and now they want to work together. They want to be innocent heralds of peace – And yet, they ignore the fallen baby, the bald, newly hatched head with a beak, unable to lift itself up, unable to do anything but cry –

But the crow won’t meet anyone’s gaze today.

The Crow and his Cat

How this crow loves his cat – A cat who is whiter than milk.

She is so lean and hungry – but he’s even hungrier.

His beak will pierce her throat any second.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 487 He’ll call it an accident, he’ll call it fate – a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Meanwhile, his white cat lies on her back and imagines another sort of feasting.

A Tube of Paint

A crow sits with his tube of paint – black paint.

Triumphant, fulfilled – he has just turned his white cats into tiger cats – he has poured some of his blackness into their stripes.

What fun he had holding the brush in his beak. He turned his head from side to side, twirling the bristles across their fur – he could feel their bones against each stroke – and oh how their muscles and ligaments quivered –

‘Don’t be afraid!’ he cried – ‘Soon these black stripes will swirl something more into your blood – and you’ll be able to understand me.’

But the cats are afraid. They’re still kittens, in the last months of their kittenish moods. And so they cower behind the crow – waiting for a chance to run away –

488 COLLECTED POEMS The Night Crow

This crow knows the stars are his discarded eyes.

Every day when he awakens he opens new eyes.

And every night his old eyes are flung far out into the skies.

This crow knows starlight comes from his own voice which has trapped the sun.

Of course, he shines brighter than those stars: his discarded eyes –

Sewing on the Shadow

Always on a full moon – month after month he comes to her window, chasing his shadow –

Always on a full moon he asks Wendy to sew it back on.

He thinks there’s no blood involved – He feels no pain. He believes the thread is invisible.

But Wendy sees every stitch before her – reddened with blood – and her own blood flows faster –

She’s sewing a riddle on to his skin, a code only she can decipher.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 489 And every month as she sews an egg ripens within her –

And every month she wonders whether the bleeding will begin on time –

Flying Children

The sky is washed blue, Araucana blue.

The sky is a giant egg opening to swallow children.

And, of course, the children wanted to fly.

Wendy is the calmest. She has just glimpsed her future growing on the other side of the garden. And now she knows she has nothing to fear.

She’ll just keep flying through these innocent years, Her face, not quite anywhere, but dreaming of the future – Yes, her entire face, eyes, nose, mouth, muscles, dreaming, waiting –

Wendy and the Lost Boys

Wendy wears lavender when she plays mother – Her fingers grow gentle, her face has changed.

She wears a long white apron like a nurse or a cook – and in her hair, a red ribbon because she’s still a girl.

490 COLLECTED POEMS She hums to herself becoming the essence of lavender – Tall, slender – the wind runs through her.

Even her face takes on the expression of lavender. Oh, she’ll never be a tiger lily, she never wanted to be such a warrior.

But oh how the lost boys love her, love her for being lavender. They’re waiting for their clothes, their shoes – they’re waiting for Wendy, for milk and honey.

The lost boys have become so small, they can barely walk. They crawl around Wendy, (like babies, not crocodiles) they need her to lift them up and hold them tight.

And Wendy keeps smiling because she knows her power, her strength. All these boys will listen to her – but she’ll escape before they touch her heart.

Mermaid Drowning Wendy

From a distance this mermaid looks like a seal. But when you get closer you can see she’s an old woman.

She’s the oldest mermaid in Neverland – and she wants to kill Wendy.

Wendy has everything the mermaid wants: Innocence and beauty and a pure heart.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 491 A pure heart pumping real blood. The mermaid cannot bear it any longer. Drowning is such a gentle way to go, the mermaid thinks – a silky slide to Death. And what’s so bad about dying? After all, the mermaid herself is already dead.

Wendy’s Song

Wendy couldn’t wait to have babies – and now she’s on her way. She’s such a good mother that other babies, even foetuses have flocked to her house. Now she’s not sure she wants so many. Still, she’ll try to feed them. She plans to grow something else besides roses in her garden. Meanwhile, she stirs her soup – a soup of blood in a pot the size of a bucket. It’s the blood of her anger where foetuses lie submerged. She must keep stirring so it doesn’t stick to the bottom. She wants to find a use for it – A purpose for this rich blood.

492 COLLECTED POEMS II Telemann’s Frogs

What is Exotic? for Hasso Krull

Sweden is exotic – and so is all of Finland.

Whortleberries certainly are.

Estonia is exotic – and so is the Estonian word for lizard: sisalik.

But the lizard herself is my sister – those hot afternoons when she comes indoors to hide –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 493 Pure Lizard

She is part lizard, part woman, and one of her ancestors must have been a monkey.

Her skin is pure lizard. Perhaps she’s also part chameleon. Her eyes are tiny. Her face is narrow, angular.

I am four in this memory, four when I see her standing on a wall – There’s a crowd listening to her. She can even speak Marathi. She’s just as tall as I am – but so old, and her skin hangs everywhere from the bones in her body.

I think she is a hairless monkey – and I want to get closer to listen, to speak to her.

I want her to tell me everything about monkeyhood. I want to see if she actually has a tail. I want to play hide-and-seek with her.

Now, what is she telling the people? She is shrill, crying out to them.

There is so much anguish rippling across her skin – such desperation in her voice. And yet, some people are laughing. I want to know why –

494 COLLECTED POEMS but I am pulled away, told that it’s time to go home.

I thought of her again today, still certain of my memory.

Who was she? Who is she? Where is she now – ?

My very own Sibyl –

Storm

The Goddess at your heels –

Her sari: a yellow storm.

Birds abandon you.

You’re on your own now with her.

Even if she speaks to you in anger, you are blessed.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 495 Bhagavati

On the train from Madurai to Thiruvananthapuram – how I wait for the flashes of red earth between the endless green of the coconut trees.

How I think of you, Bhagavati –

Here, the earth spills bright red from a gash in a hill – there a field is slashed deep enough for the red to show.

Where are you now? Have you become the soul of one of these trees? They say the Goddess lives here – could it also be you?

Look, everywhere the trees are turning greener, darker – as if they want to hide in the thickening sky, as if they too will shift to indigo.

I want to learn this all by heart, I want to understand the shape of the light.

The train rushes on faster and faster – so there is a breeze, so even the monsoon air turns a bit cooler.

But I would like to slow down Bhagavati, I would stop this train at least a hundred times between stations.

Bhagavati, how were you named? Why did your mother name you Bhagavati? You were born

496 COLLECTED POEMS and your mother thought ‘Bhagavati’ – Was it so simple? Perhaps she wanted you to be strong, even fierce – you were already beautiful – Perhaps she wanted the Goddess to keep you safe –

You were sixteen years old when they married you off to an older man who took you to America – How could your mother know about the tumour that would grow in your liver – You were twenty-seven, maybe twenty-eight – with three children: two boys and the youngest a girl, barely a year old. Who could imagine it was a tumour that made you sick? I remember chopping radishes in your kitchen – fat red ones, so slippery and so round – thinner and thinner I chopped them – It was a game to see how fast I could move the knife, how thin I could make the slices, until the red disappeared into slivers: wet threads of silk around the spicy white disks –

I was only fourteen then, but I knew you didn’t want more children – knew how you begged to have your tubes tied. I knew you feared your husband – how you protected your children from him – In the end you always spoke to my mother on the telephone, when the children were at school – yours and hers – In the end the doctors cut the tumour out from your liver – In the end that was all they could do – In the end we visited you in hospital and the first thing you said was ‘good-bye’. In the end the doctors could not explain what caused the tumour to grow – although

PURE LIZARD (2008) 497 there were studies already connecting the Pill to liver cancer – In the end my mother was convinced it was the Teflon, non-stick coating on your pots and pans that got mixed up with your food and poisoned your liver. In the end you sent for your sister – She was my age – and she hardly spoke to anyone. Remember? You were the age of my mother’s sister and I was the same age as yours – another circle – remember?

In the end you went back to Rajasthan to die in your parents’ home –

Bhagavati, the fields are full with young plantain leaves. It is the brightest green I have seen in a long time – Your daughter must be almost twenty-nine now – They say the Goddess lives here – But don’t ask me why – don’t ask me why I think of you today on my way to Kerala – Don’t ask me why I like to repeat your name, Bhagavati.

498 COLLECTED POEMS Coffee

The signs are mostly in Tamil at this tiny railway station.

It is the time between sunset and a completely black monsoon sky.

And then the vendors come, walking back and forth along the platform beside this train.

‘Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee…’ an old man cries out – even as I buy a cup and then another – ‘Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee…’ through the bars of the window.

He doesn’t bargain, doesn’t raise his price – Trusts the amount I give is correct. Wait, wait! I’m about to say, don’t trust me, don’t trust anyone – But there he goes –

‘Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee…’ he continues calling as if he lived beyond this world already –

He stares ahead, looking somewhere into the distance, beyond the train –

And I look at his dazed eyes: red, feverish – yet strangely focused – and his eyelids: red, swollen – but still, his face is quiet – yes, it is a small, quiet face.

He looks at the sky as if he’s searching for something.

Clouds move slowly, sliding across each other

PURE LIZARD (2008) 499 like large beasts, still sluggish as they awaken from a deep sleep –

The clouds move further and further apart – And suddenly: stars – stars of such brightness as if they’re on fire, as if they’ll explode any moment –

He looks at the sky –

Who knows what he believes. Who knows what starlight means to him.

500 COLLECTED POEMS Good Omens

Milk of green coconuts we drank this morning –

Milk of green coconuts –

Like drinking the earliness of morning, the clarity –

How can the body understand its soul?

How can the soul be so patient with its body?

We drove far out of Ahmedabad on our way to the step well –

What is the meaning of a journey?

And then it was already noon – and then, how we rushed in, running down steps to the well – Deeper

and deeper – the smell of moss filling our lungs – a cool wetness – sudden darkness –

I clung to pillars leaned back against walls – So afraid of falling in –

We peered down at thick water peeling itself away, away –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 501 Already shrunken puddles wanting to be gone –

How this water foamed –

A sob, a greenish black noise –

We imagined a time when people came here for water that was fragrant – almost salty, almost sweet like Ahmedabad water –

A time of plenty, of innocence – A time without oppressors –

When I climbed out stepping into the sun, a peacock flew up into a tree on the other side of the road – Such a tall tree for a peacock –

His long tail, especially long, hung down – brushing against dusty air, across large dark leaves swollen with humidity –

His tail so thick with feathers, their curved edges frayed here and there, curled like huge eyelashes over those eyes – those startled eyes –

Feathers ruffled, flowing yet almost electric with monsoon static –

502 COLLECTED POEMS His tail so heavy almost pleated together – glistening violet, black, violet – like silk – then sparkling blue with shadows of burnished green – all the gold hidden but still flashing out now and then as he moved from branch to branch uncertain, restless – But letting us watch him for so many minutes before he flew somewhere further away between other trees –

And we too turned another way –

We walked as if our souls were threatening to leave our bodies right here – as if Truth had suddenly appeared in every molecule around us – and we could not go –

What is the meaning of a journey?

Sometimes we stand and look at each other and say nothing, nothing –

Like blood glistening over a wound – The healing, invisible –

How long it has taken me to speak of this –

How does one continue? How shall I – ?

And what about the tangents the detours?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 503 Before we left you showed me the banyan tree I had forgotten – The banyan tree not far from the well – A tree so old, it has always been here, you said – So many vines and trunks – branches becoming shoots and new trunks – such a cluster – a shelter – And then, that gesture we have of standing before the tree close up – and looking way up at the sky beyond it – that gesture of touching it as if we want to memorise banyan bark – and then stroking the vines, patting the trunks, as if we were greeting a group of elephants –

504 COLLECTED POEMS Only the Blackest Stones

To get here you have to climb through hills where the fiercest monkeys live. You will see flashes of sunlight, the wind rippling across their honey-brown fur – And you might watch, entranced – but they will descend screaming, enraged, they will chase you away rushing you on to the snakes –

And if you worry about where to step you will never find your way.

Over here only the blackest stones can become snakes – cobras – little kings – some lie almost asleep beneath trees – their heads moulded into sleekness, such gentleness curled into the grass – Others rise up, hoods flared as if to say, welcome, welcome – but beware – They rise up and yet, they are frozen forever in that poise.

Nearby, an old man sits waiting for coins, for an offering of fruit – waiting for someone who needs to be blessed –

What will you say to him? What will you do?

Cloth dolls hang

PURE LIZARD (2008) 505 from these trees above the snakes: finger-sized flowers – Here and there tiny cradles dangle – green and pink prayers – dusty, dusty – even this faded yellow cloth, a faceless thing tied to a branch, begs for children to be born – many children – many –

Further up – there’s another path where steps lead to a terrace – And if you enter you are filled with the solitude of snakes – you are surrounded – Their black stone skins breathe in the heat – turmeric stained they stare at you and their souls pulse gold –

Despite the density of stone their souls are almost liquid, their souls are egg yolks – round, firm, slippery gold deep inside – somewhere there is movement insects breathing across leaves – a throbbing – as their blackness absorbs the heat –

Sometimes if you look away at the sky – you can find the words your mind needs against this silence –

Turmeric stained stone snakes –

506 COLLECTED POEMS they stare at you as if ready to listen –

A small girl breaks the silence – she calls out to her father and starts running – She zigzags between the snakes, running across the terrace – circling one way and then another – Her thin arms moving fast, bones jutting out of her elbows – She doesn’t stop.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 507 Parvati Temple, Poona

Once upon a time… so the story goes, a girl of two ran up the steps on the hill where Parvati sits. She ran up so fast, even her mother couldn’t keep up – Luckily, someone stopped the child before she reached the top, before she reached Parvati – and told her to wait for her mother. I think of this story as I climb the steps today knowing it was about my own mother who had lost her daughter. And in my mind I can hear my mother’s voice saying: ‘Don’t you remember? I always took you there – Yes, also when you were older.’ Today it’s still early – still the coolest part of the day. No one is here – except for the joggers, racing up and down, they are so oblivious to the view. It is my second day in Poona after so many years – and I am not oblivious. I can sit with Parvati for a long time. I can look into her stern eyes and wish for more dreams, more journeys – And then, when I stand up and turn around I can admire Nandi’s black stone skin forever – While Memory laughs in my face saying: ‘I dare you, I dare you to remember – ’

508 COLLECTED POEMS Whenever I Return

Whenever I return to this garden I am ten or eleven – Sometimes even twelve but never older –

This time, I come alone.

I find the corner where I always sat: a slab of stone beside leafy bushes. From there I watched everyone come and go –

Equidistant from neem tree and tamarind tree I stayed.

No one has died yet – no one is sick.

The ground is cooler here. Dragonflies skim over me – sometimes touch my hair sometimes brush against my face –

I don’t need to count the flowers – I know they are all there – even if they are still seeds, still hard waiting inside the ground – or even if they are already cut and taken by my mother –

On days like this my mother would have made buttermilk.

It is afternoon now – always afternoon when I return –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 509 My mother must be in the kitchen now – making tea – boiling milk – the whole house smelling of buffalo milk – and fresh tea –

Soon, my father will walk past me on his way home – He with his long stride, his fast pace – mosquitoes keep away from him – bats fear him – When he looks at trees does he still think about cholera?

Red ants shudder against earthworms.

But no one has died yet – no one is sick.

My brother is hiding somewhere. I think he’s behind the house – On days like this we played hide and seek –

Although I know other people live here now – Although it is my daughter who is eleven, almost twelve now – today, I am alone –

I am ten, barely ten: still far enough away from getting my period, far away from womanhood – far away from ever leaving this garden.

Don’t speak to me of exile. Don’t question my memory.

510 COLLECTED POEMS How can you understand the souls of brain cells?

How can you understand coefficients you have never even lived?

Only the palm tree mocks me – reminds me of Time – The palm tree that was never there before – Today it stands huge and awkward – a clumsy mistake planted in a strange place – the wrong place – It breaks the open circle of grass where we used to run –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 511 Telemann’s Frogs for Pearse Hutchinson

Reling. Die Relinge, he called them. Or perhaps, Möhmlein, Rühling, Roeling –

Sumpffrosch, Teichfrosch, Krotten – it is written, Wasserfrosch und Wassereidechse.

They are yellow-gold, almost reddish yellow, and their bellies are speckled black.

And for you, Pearse, I add: schwarz geschekigt.

Telemann’s frogs. They are here – have you noticed how they appear after the water music? They are elegant, so elegant, as if they were gods in disguise, or a gathering of enchanted princes.

One summer I listened to Telemann as if he were a dear friend, as if I expected him to come over for dinner any day.

I can still see myself, I can see her, the young woman I used to be.

512 COLLECTED POEMS Afternoon tea with Hamburger Ebb’ und Fluth. A foreign woman in a foreign country, in love with strangeness, otherness. She heard a language in which she could become someone else – a third person, a fourth person – Who is more alien?

Hamburger Ebb’ und Fluth.

Must there be an ocean nearby, a sea gulled breeze from the North Sea?

Or will the trams in Bremen do? The trams she watched from huge, arched windows beside her chair – trams sliding through the rain on Ostertorsteinweg, that old road leading to Hamburg –

To live on a street with such a name required Telemann.

But the trams interrupted with their sudden rush of speed, their metal and glass noise cutting through an endless screen of rain.

So she lifted her eyes from the page she was reading in your book – then listened again to the overture, again to the flutes, the violins – she listened again even more acutely before she returned to your world.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 513 *

Pearse, that summer I read your poems for the first time – Entered your Dublin, your Barcelona. Your 1950s echoing with Gaelic, with Castilian and Catalan –

That summer I kept returning to your words. And always, in the background: Thetis sleeping, Thetis awakening, Neptune in love – Ebb’ und Fluth, Ebb’ und Fluth, Neptune in love –

And always, love. Always, the aching pull of it – An unknown creature grasping the soul.

514 COLLECTED POEMS Buddha’s Lost Mother

The mask the mask-maker didn’t want to sell ended up with you – a favour, a gift you brought back from Korea.

A mask so human, a laughing shaman –

Smooth pale wood, heavy and firm –

Face of an old man, his long hair tied up into a loose knot on top of his head –

Face of an old man, who could be an old woman in reality.

An old woman in hiding –

Buddha’s lost mother.

Anonymous would have looked like this, I’m certain.

But will she feel at home over here, on our wall with the crocodile mouth from Indonesia, a deep red mask with whom she probably has nothing in common. Will she mind the pretending-to-sleep masks from Nigeria?

The scent of green ginger fills my kitchen.

Every day her laughter grows more pungent.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 515 Gale Force Winds

January – Gale force winds and the North Sea feels even closer.

Someone will drown today. Someone will need to be rescued.

This winter sun has peeled back our sky to a feverish, blinding blue.

I’m refilling jars with spices. As I release them, as I pour them from paper into glass, I recall my mother’s instructions, her recipes, her ginger cures for almost every ailment.

Our house with its spine of thirty-nine steps: a steep, winding mountain trail – our house from cellar to attic smells of turmeric and coriander, cumin, cinnamon, cardamom – but most of all, there’s the fragrance of red chilli.

Upstairs, my daughter’s budgies cry out – sun struck, wild, how these parakeets squawk and screech.

All morning our house shudders – groans as if in pain – sighs against the wind. Outside, the straightest, tallest birch tree sways back and forth, almost bowing down to our house. The tree moans, creaks as if in answer to our windows.

516 COLLECTED POEMS When I close my eyes, suddenly coriander and cinnamon are stronger – When I close my eyes I feel as if I’m on a ship already far out at sea. I could be anywhere: on the Indian Ocean, in the South Pacific –

Suddenly, I feel as if our house could be a ship, as if that were the greatest desire of our house: to become a ship. While the birch tree keeps calling, calling, in its strained, tortured speech as if it wanted to move indoors and become our mast, and steady our house against the wind, and help our house to sail out and fulfil itself, for surely today it would find the North Sea just around the corner –

While upstairs, two parakeets fly in circles, feathers lit by the sun, as if they knew all along, as if they knew everything about the need for such a journey –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 517 Living with Stones

It’s another age – The continents have rejoined each other, they’ve moved close together as tightly as they can, clasping each other like lost children.

And then, once again, they’ve split apart bursting out into new formations.

They keep sliding, unable to decide where they want to be.

Oceans that had never touched, suddenly meet – Waves roaring at each other, stones colliding, not knowing which shore they belong to.

We’ve collected those stones.

At first, they merely slept in our garden, hibernated on the wooden floors in our house.

Of course, they continued breathing.

And then, one day, their souls began echoing sounds from trees and ferns, and from cats that would never go near the sea.

Now I see them everywhere: on our windowsills, bookshelves – They’ve even taken over my desk.

518 COLLECTED POEMS How do they feel, living with strangers?

A huge, bluish grey stone from the Baltic, with patches of milky white, lies snug against Connecticut granite.

Driftwood and sand dollars, and the small, smooth black stones from the Pacific surround shell encrusted chunks, those creamy yellow fossils from Spain’s Atlantic cliffs.

Fragments, secret fragments from the Indian Ocean – Remember, remember: as we stepped out of the water in Durban, white butterflies encircled us – followed us –

An inconspicuous stone from the Yellow Sea –

Startling white coral from the Strait of Makassar –

Somehow they’ve learned to live with us.

These nights they argue with the moon, challenge the stars –

These nights they’ve started to navigate the mood of our silence, the rush of our sleep –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 519 Piece Caprice for Bob Zieff, the composer

Piece Caprice – How bamboo grows sheltering a stone Buddha.

Morning prayers linger in the air – Goldfish awaken the pond’s surface.

Whose garden have I entered? Whose world do I walk in? Could it also be mine?

Piece Caprice – Chet Baker’s trumpet fills my room, Paris spills out with your tune, Bob, and 1955 begins again – Oh yes, there’s a balcony – Oleander, roses, wild jasmine – Terracotta soaks up excess water –

‘But have you heard the version with violin?’ You ask. ‘See how a violin changes the mood – Does Dick Wetmore come closer to you?’

Piece Caprice – What is the meaning of so much colour, of all this blue?

You, blue-footed boobies, with your bright turquoise dance – Tell me why blue? Must blue always enchant?

520 COLLECTED POEMS *

Piece Caprice – You, blue-tongued lizards of Australia, have you swallowed indigo? What makes you think your huge blue tongues will frighten me? Why blue?

Piece Caprice – And then, there was Vajradhara. In the story I was told:

All the blue from the skies, and the blue from the seas, yes, the most intense blue from eternity lives within this Buddha’s skin.

This Buddha, Vajradhara. He smiles. For even his tiniest hairs are dark blue, and even his meditation is blue.

His face, the colour of a morning glory: blue streaked with white, luminous with water and sun –

Tibetan lapis lazuli blue, Chinese white –

Brushstrokes learnt in Kashmir, Nepalese shadows –

There’s a strong wind from somewhere – it must be a celestial wind.

And then, Tibetan light: intense and pure, and strangely gentle.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 521 A light I wish existed within my soul.

Now look again at this Buddha, Vajradhara: such strength in his slender fingers – such grace, such power in his lithe form –

As if the artist had meant to create a leopard, or a deer – but at the last moment had formed his lines into the shape of a man.

He sits with his head inclined, his waist slightly bent as if he were listening, just listening and swaying, almost dancing to a music we cannot hear.

All his garments swirling, encircling him in pale rose red and lavender, pink, pink, and malachite green, pale green – How his scarves flutter in these mountaintop winds.

Piece Caprice – Whose world do I walk in? Whose world will I understand?

522 COLLECTED POEMS Whose Ghost Is This?

It is a face unknown to her –

A man, never seen before – at least, not by her.

Narcissus would have followed him, instead of his own reflection in that lake.

More patient than Apollo, more eloquent than Orpheus –

Imagine all the colours of the sea reflected in his eyes, and his eyes ever changing with the light.

And the light, ever shifting through the sea, and through the sky –

Yet, the sea is far away –

Whose ghost is this, returning?

Who is it that enters unbidden?

Will she touch his face? Will his hair smell of the sea? And his skin, will it taste of salt?

And then – ?

Too simple to say it’s the beginning of desire, the beginning of beauty tightening within her being.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 523 But what else?

He dares to speak to her, and she dares to answer back –

He describes a garden, he speaks of flamingos –

He suggests a departure for the truly unknown.

And is she brave enough?

Hyacinths

Is that a girl or a boy, that long-haired child who runs across your fields?

You shrug, don’t answer, but show me hyacinths –

Hyacinths: bluish violet, dark lavender ones – Thick fleshy stems rubbery green bulbs squeak against each other as you arrange them in water – You choose a clear glass vase so we can watch the mud swirling out, the green becoming greener – Those stems soon swollen with water –

524 COLLECTED POEMS Jasmine Tastes Bitter

What happened to them?

Where are they now, the ten Sibyls Augustinus sought and knew and listened to?

All his muses silenced so quickly –

Jasmine tastes bitter, richly bitter after so much sun – And look, the bees have returned.

Everyone has forgotten how to speak with a Sibyl, forgotten what gifts she might like –

Suji A naming ceremony

He said: One syllable is not enough. And three syllables are far too many. But Suji sounds just right.

So Suji remained.

Half English, half Hindi, half joking –

Isn’t that what you wanted? Pasta for the rest of your life? And red wine?

Suji semolina slippery

leaves of basil awaken your tongue.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 525 Monkey Woman

Your theories cannot explain her life. How will you explain the monkey from Durban, the one who lives in her kitchen? His stance, almost human, his limbs, smooth tropical wood, hands cupped around his mouth as if he were calling out to Pinocchio.

Your theories cannot explain her life.

Real monkeys have taken up all the space in her mind. They are loud, hungry. There’s the sound of rustling branches, the smell of leaves being torn. This is exile, she says, when you don’t know where to keep the monkeys.

Now she waits for the year of the monkey. Now she touches the jade-green smile of a broad-headed monkey, pale green porcelain, mother and child bought from a Korean man in New York City. Mother and child match a tiny monkey bought in Korea, a tiny, open-mouthed monkey, crying O, O, O… as if he had just bitten on a piece of ginger.

Pale green porcelain, the glaze reflects a German sky, clouds rushing through such wet blueness. The glaze even turns shadows translucent.

526 COLLECTED POEMS She thinks they speak to her and she tries to understand them. ‘Oh, where are you going?’ She hears them say. Her fingers memorise the mother’s smile.

While on the other side of the room, cast-iron monkeys from Andalusia are wary, inscrutable. She thinks they guard her soul.

Lightning

Lightning – a snake’s tongue – Your green life charred black and white. Who can speak of it?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 527 In the End

In the end one might go away and speak to the snakes on Medusa’s head.

Who knows what secrets they hoard.

The trick is to remain calm, to begin with philosophical questions:

Ask them why the hero sings alto, always – why the hero’s voice never goes deeper than a tenor.

Alto that sings of lilies – tenor resilient as a green vine –

Ask them why the hero has a woman’s voice.

We were told the snakes are often hungry, unreachable – for they make Medusa swim far out into the sea.

We were told the snakes are blind, told that they’re tired of being stuck on Medusa’s bruised head. And now they refuse to speak.

But who has ever bothered to listen to their story?

528 COLLECTED POEMS Korean Angel Dieser Engel soll dein Haus beschützen. – Ria Eïng

You bring me another angel.

She does not terrify. She’s not fierce. She’s not even angry. Nor is she sullen. There’s nothing spiky about her.

How will she guard my house?

For this is the angel of gentleness – water and light sliding across stones. This is the angel of your strength.

She’s Korean, I can tell she’s your secret.

Her face is open. You’ve scooped it out into openness: into the beginning of something.

A faceless face. It remains.

A lidless, eyeless space.

Shall I call it a socket?

But there is clarity.

I can imagine a face hidden by shadows and yet illuminated by the soft sheen of pearls through fog.

But it remains a faceless face.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 529 And yet, this space could be a wooden well for a doll – it could become a ring for your thumb – but it’s far too large, alas, some would say, if only, if only…

Her face is open: a hole through her brain, a hole through the sky – there’s a membrane in the back of her mind, sheer silk blossoming and blossoming with light.

Or is it a halo?

Soul-catcher?

Empty space waiting for someone’s soul?

Off-white on almost white, dreaming of? What? Striving for? What? Truthful white? What’s genuine?

What do you mean?

White sand, fine-grained white sand all the way down to the horizon – Off-white colours of raw silk –

Raw silk you play with, twisting it around your wrists, your shoulders –

White butterflies skimming across pale straw.

Sun bleached yellows.

Uncooked rice and sea salt in your hands.

How did you make her live?

530 COLLECTED POEMS Look, the instructions are in Korean: a firm script, striding in black at such precise right angles.

Her dress is a secret code, billowing with radio stories, resilient rice paper rustling with radio static she calls magic.

Six crows give up but a blackbird stays.

We speak of acupuncture, we speak of next winter – When shall we meet again?

You point at the wedge of wall between two windows, where light floods in, smelling of birch trees – light washes in like a silent tidal wave –

Midsummer northern European light – It is endless, brighter than eternity.

That’s where we place the angel, on a new nail – soul-catcher halo breathing in all the light as we speak of acupuncture –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 531 kikku no sekku

Red chrysanthemums give me five suns in the sky. The bees are confused.

White chrysanthemums dream of white swans with hot blood. White clouds bring no rain.

Orange petals smell sharper – turmeric hunger burns a dragon’s tongue.

It’s virus weather. Blossoming chrysanthemums will cool your fever.

Harvest moon yellow, chrysanthemum silk yellow – who stole from whom?

A bee sleeps between wet chrysanthemum petals – bereft and queenless.

Green shadows grow long – Chrysanthemums yearn for birds – I pour tea for you.

532 COLLECTED POEMS Green tea steeps again – Chrysanthemum buds open – newborn in autumn.

What fragrance is this? Yellow chrysanthemums breathe, crave a tiger’s voice.

Fat spiders climb up white spider chrysanthemums – sticky white rice steams.

Harvest-moon-faced, this golden chrysanthemum sways – an infant cries out.

Star within star within star unfolds, white petals tinged green – do your eyes ever close?

Lightning – she lingers – a chrysanthemum bows down. Hair tangled with bees.

Birds hover over such deep red chrysanthemums. The bees are fearless.

Orange, bronze, violet – these petals never clash. Will you walk with me?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 533 III Sad Walk

The Imagination in response to a painting by William Johnstone

Three horizontal brushstrokes and the imagination is delighted.

Land and sea and sky all grey – black grey, white grey – silk unravelling into translucent watery grey.

There’s texture: waves and stones and clouds –

Three horizontal brushstrokes –

The imagination believes it’s four in the morning, it’s summer – and we’re on the shore by the open Pacific. Still too early to know more, but the fog will lift the day will be blue.

Three horizontal brushstrokes –

The silence in a breath not taken before green tea is poured.

Water in a brush controlled with a flick of the wrist.

534 COLLECTED POEMS One of those movements: incidental to all appearances – deceptive, unconscious, and yet attainable only after sixty, maybe seventy years of painting.

Three horizontal brushstrokes –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 535 She Slipped Through the Suez Canal

She slipped through the Suez Canal on a steamer that left Southampton, a steamer destined for Bombay.

And years later, it felt like someone else’s life.

She slipped through the Suez Canal –

And then it was a song she liked to sing, a memory she liked to open, where she was she.

A steamer destined for Bombay –

‘Returning home’, it was called back then in 1964 – not visiting but returning.

Home was always far away.

Being seven she didn’t understand the sudden silence after dinner – the nervousness on board, why no one spoke to children anymore.

It was a night crossing. Slow, tense – with everyone listening to the steamer’s noise and a jerking, halting movement – stops and starts that kept her awake.

But she knew the stars were out offering their help. She had seen the moon, and she was certain there were night birds somewhere – calling, calling – she was certain she had heard them crying all night –

536 COLLECTED POEMS And then, there was the hoopoe in the Gulf of Aden – but now she’s jumping ahead.

She slipped through the Suez Canal –

And years later, as she gave birth, she remembered that journey –

The Light that Unfetters the Soul Am I naive, Vanessa, to expect that in this country, I will see, in a miraculous moment, the light that unfetters the soul and gives it the wings to fly like a free bird, unencumbered by feelings of guilt or contrition? Will such a moment ever come? – Aharon Megged

Will such a moment ever come? And is this light available only in one country, in one place?

Or could it be almost anywhere? So each soul must find its own light, its own geography –

And where does one begin? How does one choose a country, a season, a form of light?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 537 And look: the olives ripen, the lizards stretch for Eleanor Wilner

And look: the olives ripen, these fruits the shape of human eyes, these little stones – thousands hang on trees. They’re resistant to the wind; dull green, blind. Yet their hard skins grow warm as spring changes into summer, as wildflowers take over; everywhere the lizards stretch, the thin slivers of their bodies licked by sun, pale browns and greens and black stripes glisten.

She leans back against a tree, holds her breath for a few seconds, keeps the lizards in her gaze. She stretches in the sun; the smell of rosemary mingles with the smell of sea; in the distance children call out to each other. The infant in the basket beside her stirs; she touches him before he makes a sound. The lizards in her gaze, she leans back again. Her book lies open, almost forgotten. Her scribbled notes resemble the curling stems of vines and lizards’ feet. She strokes the infant’s legs, dares not touch his face, dares not awaken him before he’s hungry for her milk. The smell of sea mingles with the smell of goat cheese and olives, and the smell of rosemary. The lizards are not afraid. Today they won’t dart away. They want to live beside her silence, her milky solitude that grows across the fields; they want to be close to her quietness, full of the infant’s sleep.

538 COLLECTED POEMS Three Poems from South Korea

Bamboo in Gyeongju

Bamboo in Gyeongju – bamboo in Gyeongju –

One wants to say it over and over again – oo, oh, oo – oo, oh, oo

And the bamboo in Gyeongju is tall and lush and wild beside small grassy hills, hills that are actually tombs.

Here, the earth has the silhouette of a sleeping woman –

Let’s hope she’s sleeping, sleeping and not sick or poisoned or dead –

Long ago, when the tiger still smoked with the hare, one could say she slept soundly and deeply. She slept a sleep that refreshed her profoundly – Long ago, when the tiger still smoked with the hare –

Still, the bamboo in Gyeongju grows tall and every stone lives, and I want to believe that soon, the giant stone turtle will move –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 539 King Munmu

Some say his ashes have been eaten by the sea. Others believe they lie cradled within a beautiful urn still intact, somewhere at the bottom, beneath a rock –

But we know King Munmu’s soul lives underwater within the body of a dragon.

Nights he spits out stones – gems for the girls, such blues and greens –

Girls who walk along the beach slowly, deliberately – lipsticked precisely, long-skirted and lean – they share orchid-coloured intimacies –

Hands balancing stones, they walk through seaweed –

The air smells of algae, of dried fish –

Old women have come here to pray, to meditate – they’re waiting for the dragon, especially his tail, they feel so sure of seeing –

They long to watch it lash the waves, slap the sea to attention – as if that would offer protection, as if it would bring back the dead –

They sit motionless, listening – while the dragon dives deeper, his tail gliding down as he slips further away from the shore –

540 COLLECTED POEMS Because of the Moon Gyeongju, 2007

Because of the moon, the fullness, the gold, we step outside –

Because of the moon, because of the movement of the clouds, we go to the pond and keep walking around it –

Because of the moon we listen to frogs –

Because of the moon we still feel the young monk’s song, yes, we feel his deep voice, his words from this morning within our bones, his athletic devotion, the richness of his prayers this evening – all this we cling to, all this still echoes within us even as we listen to the frogs –

Because of the moon we follow narrow paths further and further into the thicket –

Because of the moon when we close our eyes we still see the face of a bodhisattva carved so faintly in the rock that one can see it only from a certain distance, a certain angle –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 541 Because of the moon we return to the pond, oddly shaped, huge – and watch how moonlight snags on bamboo, how shadows slide, black and sheer, nudging greenness –

Because of the moon we stay outside –

Finding India in Unexpected Places for Martin and Connie Mooij

A street in Bath, a bus in Medellín, a gesture in Gyeongju –

A yellow fragrance in Oaxaca, Oleanders on the isle of Skopelos –

Memories distort geography.

But how did the Mayas learn about elephants, about Ganesh, and the precise shape of his ears?

542 COLLECTED POEMS Six Entries from a Witch’s Diary for Robin Skelton

Japanese maple: the sun bleeds through its young leaves. A soldier walks by – Athletes cry out, so alert – They keep on playing war games.

Even the doctor left the bat in her bedroom all day – Did it sleep? Waiting for darkness, somehow she will help it find its way.

iii

Flying fox, it’s you I fear, as mosquitoes swarm at dusk, and tamarinds snap in sudden gusts of wind – how long will you stay in our garden?

Umbrian lizard glistens: black-streaked green jewel – but the tail trembles, and blood shines pink through its skin. How your loud shoes change the tune.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 543 v

A chameleon sways rocking back and forth with each step – We’re north of Durban. Five poets climb out of a jeep and wait for this dancer to pass –

Filigreed lace feet clinging to a whitewashed wall – ‘Don’t write only about lizards!’ my daughter says. Little does she know my life is lizards –

544 COLLECTED POEMS Zinzirritta

It’s easy to love swallows. I watch them as they circle high above the rooftops – now swooping down, now darting up, zipping by faster and faster – my dolphins of the air with their high-pitched squealing, squeaking song – how they swerve between these old, red-roofed houses, north German houses, not far from the sea.

Such energetic feeding lasts the whole evening, as if they wanted to catch every insect before the bats emerge.

It’s the bats I’m waiting for, trying to understand –

As a girl, in Poona, I remember running away from them, afraid they would bite off my ears, or worse, that they would manage to squeeze themselves deep inside my inner ears, my head – two at a time –

Flying rodents, flying foxes – I’ve been collecting the roots of their names, their photographs –

Here in Lübeck, in Ravenna, they are tiny, harmless –

Pipistrello I like to call them – and zinzirritta, mesmerising zinzirritta –

What sound contains their essence? Their true nature?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 545 Flittermouse, flickermouse, flindermouse flintymouse, Fledermaus –

Their young ones fly a crooked loop – lopsided stop and go – black leaves falling, falling – but then rising up suddenly, as if caught by the wind –

Hreremus, leather flapper, flapper, shaker –

Leather flapper, your wings tremble –

Your skin: shiny, moist, part hairless, part velvet – your thin silk just as thin as ours.

Incessant

Incessant, unearthly speech from creatures so close to the earth –

These night crickets in Caracas –

Mechanical birds, I thought at first, computer sirena voices –

How I turn and turn trying to follow them.

How they interpret and reinterpret Erik Satie –

And they must know Philip Glass –

Precise, constant, they take over – even my private night.

546 COLLECTED POEMS Unexpected Blackness

Caracas, July 2005

Because I had never seen a black squirrel I thought it was the blackest thing on earth.

Blacker than the blackest Labrador,

blacker than the blackest face of a langur,

blacker than Kazuko Shiraishi’s hair which the squirrel appraised in its own fashion.

Never mind obsidian, let alone a raven.

Don’t think of the deepest well on a moonless, starless night.

Forget coal, forget oil. This squirrel was blacker than the blackest core within our earth.

And what did we do, Kazuko and I?

We stood there wondering ‘What next?’

Would this squirrel dare to let go of the bark on its tree and leap over across Simón Bolívar’s shoulders?

Or was it tame enough to show respect?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 547 We stood there learning this squirrel by heart, following its well-fed, glossy movements –

We stood there learning this blackness by heart, a blackness pulsing through sun slashed trees, rippling with so much light, we felt we must begin again, alter our journey, prolong our silence, relearn our selves –

548 COLLECTED POEMS Sad Walk for Bob Zieff – remembering our endless conversations

Who would have thought a sad walk would lead to pozole?

I could take this story almost anywhere –

Let Time be a wide, tight spiral – so Kierkegaard could still be walking down the streets of Copenhagen – how adept he is at leaping over puddles – It’s the sort of day when windows must be opened – and in the distance a man can be heard singing, while someone nearby is tuning a piano – It’s the sort of day when children get lost.

We speak of Kierkegaard as we follow the movements in a Chinese sculpture – glistening porcelain blossoming with lotuses, Buddhas and Barbie doll heads.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 549 Only in spring does the year feel new. Only in spring do we begin to crave lemons and hyacinths – while girls swirl by in skirts with lime green pleats.

It’s a young man’s sadness I hear – a young man’s sadness filled with sea air –

Is Time within you, or is it outside?

I want the Atlantic Ocean to be a part of my garden.

I want to listen to violins as I step in the water.

550 COLLECTED POEMS IV Solo Piano

Radishes

Somewhere the Great Chain of Being continues unfolding as I chop radishes, as I chop off their tough, scraggly tails, it’s mice I’m thinking of, hundreds of mice and all their tails – and the largest vein in the centre of each tail – Not large at all but a pulsing filament – Fine, so fine – And how one day, I searched for that vein in a hundred tails – simply to inject each one with a virus: encephalitis – Whose child will be spared? Whose life?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 551 Jane Eyre in the Lab

Don’t you remember? It was the Indian woman, Kamal, who brought her in, who brought Jane Eyre all the way down to Pathology, our almost secret lab hidden in the basement of this hospital.

It was October in Baltimore, a day when the wind wanted to swallow everything.

It was the sort of day that made our boss, Dr Arnold, seek out Mozart.

It was the week the surgeons had left for their convention. It was a week without tumours, a week without mastectomies.

Dr Arnold remained in his office, uninterrupted, with Mozart. He turned the volume up higher and higher as if that would eradicate cancer.

After three days Jane Eyre felt at home in our lab. She preferred to sit by the radio. She was not disturbed by the fluorescent lights that flickered and hummed and buzzed like swarms of desperate insects. And the smell of hydrochloric acid was never unbearable to her.

We had plenty of time to get reacquainted with Jane.

552 COLLECTED POEMS But she was quiet, reluctant to speak, even as she watched us endlessly.

And yet, she persisted in asking questions. How can you trust ——? A machine? A surgeon? A man? What will happen to those women waiting in their beds upstairs? Why do we never see them?

Kamal remembers that day she slid the book out of her bag. A hardback library edition, dark evergreen embossed with gold. Kamal remembers her hands stroking the pages, how she started reading:

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

Oh, to be in England, Kamal thought, and to feel a rain so penetrating… She wanted to weave her own pain with fierce weather.

So Kamal, 24 years old and newly bereft, sat by the microscope and took Jane’s sorrow into herself.

Sometimes, Dr Arnold walked in and watched Kamal and nodded. ‘Good, you took my advice. You might as well read,’ he would say, ‘there’s nothing else to do.’

And Kamal felt she was the dearest reader of Jane Eyre’s tale. She could almost hear Jane say:

PURE LIZARD (2008) 553 But this is not to be a regular autobiography.

I longed to go where there was life and movement.

Sometimes, Kamal grew restless. She paced up and down airless corridors. She lingered outside Dr Arnold’s door, just to hear the violins.

And one day, Jane smiled to herself and walked up to Irena, yes, Irena, from Moscow, a scientist who worried about her twelve-year-old daughter’s desire for high heels. Hello, Jane said to Irena, I wonder, she almost stammered, would you tell me how – would you teach me some Russian?

Nights, Kamal wrote long letters to her sister in London.

‘Oh, to be in England, in autumn. Lucky you.’ She wrote and felt even closer to Jane.

Jane, I will not marry him, I cannot. Never.

Kamal imagines saying.

Come with me, Jane. Stay with me. I am not very tranquil in my mind.

Kamal wants to say.

Where shall we go? Jane asks, reading her mind –

554 COLLECTED POEMS And yet, Kamal could not forget the list of tumours, the list of names and dates of birth of women she never saw. All those women, upstairs, in their white beds waiting for the surgeons to return.

Kamal remembers how one day, that very week, on her way out she heard screams from the autopsy room. Piercing, incessant screams and then, a curious laugh or a sob from a room known for its silence.

While Dr Arnold remained uninterrupted, in his office, with Mozart.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 555 Nine Poems in Response to Lithographs by Paula Rego

Girl Reading at Window

While Jane reads she becomes the sea and the sun and all the reflections in the glass –

She becomes the window’s clouds and flies and dust, the window’s eggs and spiders, voice and soul, the window’s obedient daughter –

And now, the window has a new story to tell.

Loving Bewick

Don’t interrupt –

When I’m loving Bewick you don’t exist for me.

I mean to absorb all this calcium –

I’m good at endurance, swallowing pain, my angry words –

But this is love. Bewick gives me new words to replace my rotten ones.

I want my teeth, my spine to be as strong as his beak.

Don’t laugh. I’m going to learn how to do it.

I’m going to become Bewick – his words, his feathers, I’m going to live with a bird’s vision growing inside me.

556 COLLECTED POEMS Crumpled

Crumpled like a newspaper, Jane says.

Smudged, eroded.

Not just my skirts and undergarments – my soul too, all crumpled.

My face, my fingerprints – all crumpled.

What must I do to make you understand?

Jane in a Chair with Monkey

Jane cannot look at her monkey –

Today she’s Medusa and must ignore everyone she loves.

Tomorrow, it’s her monkey’s turn to play Medusa.

Jane’s Back

There’s nothing as sturdy and as straight as Jane’s back.

Her spine is not the breakable kind.

And the nape of her neck is a rectangular white slab.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 557 It’s the sort of back one can turn on the world.

And yet, the world won’t notice.

Nonetheless, Jane’s back will grow stronger. It will grow into a door – Solid oak it wants to be – with a texture everyone will want to touch, a door, everyone will try to open.

Bertha

Bertha: all plum-stained, ripe – Bertha sits on the floor, legs outstretched, arms about to be crossed against her breasts – all plum-stained, love-stung, in full bloom, even over-blossomed moist petals – and such a fragrance of magnolias – all plum-stained, over-ripe, sly desire – Bertha sulks a tropical rage strong enough to rip coconuts off trees – She’s not insane, oh no – She’s just angry at the man who left before she had a chance to speak –

Biting

In reality Bertha is young and shapely.

But no one knows this, no one except the man who visits her secretly, disguised as her brother.

558 COLLECTED POEMS Baa baa black sheep, take off your mask –

Look how he forces her – makes her bite him again and again –

And then, one day he’ll say she needs to be killed.

The Keeper

Whenever Jane sees Grace Poole with Bertha she kneels and prays for her own mother.

Grace Poole and Bertha – Mother and child. They demand worship, adoration.

But no matter how much Jane prays, no matter how much her knees ache, No one will ever give her a mother’s love.

Lucky Bertha. She knows how to be irrational and mad. It’s just the right sort of insanity for Grace Poole.

Grace can hold Bertha down and still stare out the window at trees, clouds and at the swallows who are searching for a new Thumbelina to rescue.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 559 Come to Me

‘Come to me.’ He says, raising his blind eyes to the light.

‘Come to me!’ He thinks I’m a rabbit or a dog. But I’m not.

I’m a cat. And I’ll come and go as I please.

And then, Jane twists her mouth and gathers up her skirts. Her hands, clenched tight – poised as if to tear her clothes –

560 COLLECTED POEMS Four Poems in Response to Paintings by Paula Rego

The Cadet and his Sister

He wants to go. It’s getting late. But she insists on tying his shoelaces the way she used to when she was six and he was three.

She threw down her gloves. Her handbag popped open. But he keeps looking at the road ahead, at the trees.

And so in times of need he’ll remember the smell of eucalyptus leaves.

If he comes back from the war he’ll marry a girl who’s just like his sister.

If he dies she’ll name her son after him.

She doesn’t know that soon enough she’ll have a baby, a boy who’ll be just like her brother.

A child only she will understand.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 561 The Maids

Lice in your hair, Madame? The maid asks.

No, she answers herself, it’s only a spider on the nape of your neck. Here, let me take it off.

Thank you. Madame sighs. Madame used to be Monsieur – but then got tired of being a man.

She wanted more pink and red in her life.

Stay with me Marie, will you – Madame whispers to her maid. And won’t someone take Louise to the zoo?

By ‘someone’ Madame means Teresa. Teresa, that sly dreamer who has broken so many plates.

But little Louise with her golden hair already tangled, doesn’t want anyone to touch her.

Marie used to love Madame when Madame was Monsieur.

And now she wishes her true Madame would come back.

562 COLLECTED POEMS The Soldier’s Daughter

The soldier’s daughter can pluck a goose faster than you can blink –

She loves it, sinking her hands into flesh still warm and supple and ripping out the soft feathers damp with death –

The soldier’s daughter is the one who’s golden. Butter on those lips, peaches and cream – Her thick legs gleam, all muscle.

Her grandmother can’t sleep, prays for her night and day – Prays for the goldenness to always stay.

The soldier’s daughter sends her father to war. It’s to protect her, to defend her that he goes –

A small man with a big heart he knows that soon enough his daughter will begin laying golden eggs –

The Policeman’s Daughter

The policeman’s daughter, with her tiny waist and her Greek nose, is the most beautiful girl in town.

Trained to perfection, nothing can stain her.

Who else would dare to wear a white dress while cleaning those boots?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 563 The policeman’s daughter is a natural queen –

And the policeman, that stubborn man, listens only to her.

She’s the only one who can tell him what to do – the only one who can talk back to him.

She’s the only one who knows how to clean his boots.

Look, how easily her arm slides into the boot and how the boot goes all the way up stopping just inches below her shoulder.

Now her left fist is jammed in, while her right fist bears down with the cloth –

Her energy looks like anger. But she’s not angry, she says.

The policeman’s daughter is a natural queen –

Next year she’ll marry the doctor’s son – A boy who wants a strong woman.

But tonight she’ll stay at home – and keep the cat from losing her virginity.

564 COLLECTED POEMS Portrait of a Young Man in his Study, Venice, 1528 in response to a painting by Lorenzo Lotto

It started with a lizard that fell out of his heart. She lives on his desk now, amidst his letters.

And then his love returned his ring with a rose the day before she died.

No wonder he’s so pale, he hasn’t stepped out in weeks – He cannot eat, cannot sleep –

They’ve taken his infant son far away to another country –

He spends his nights reading –

But the lizard is good company and doesn’t mind anything.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 565 The Old Man Who Is Not for Günter Kunert

The old man who is not really that old, sits naked with thirteen skulls piled up high on his table.

Is it his desk or is it a corner of his dining table?

Other people he knows prefer to keep vases full of roses and bowls overflowing with fruit – especially apples. Other people prefer to keep apples nearby.

But his skulls stay – even the grass-stained ones. They need to speak to him. Look, how impatient they are, all talking at the same time, interrupting each other.

The old man simply listens.

Flesh is still lavender, supple – even pink – and today’s light is still golden – golden, filled with pollen, thick with countless spores. So golden, and yet it grows cold. Love waits on the other side of the room – love bends to undress, she has undressed – now she bends to pick up a fallen ribbon – and now, turning away from the skulls love takes a deep breath –

566 COLLECTED POEMS Felice Beato Enters Sikander Bagh Lucknow, March 1858

Felice Beato enters Sikander Bagh and rearranges the bones in the courtyard of our palace, our battered, demolished palace –

Corpses that are actually skeletons – He gives us the first photographs of human remains, of a massacre he wants to recreate in an albumen silver print, so you’ll remember what happened in November 1857. Two thousand men slaughtered and left to rot. It was easy to find bones that were never buried –

How would you like our memories to be preserved?

Turn the page, the album leaf, on which Beato’s Sikander Bagh appears, and you’ll see Martin Richard Gubbins, Financial Commissioner, in the province of Oudh, narrator of mutinies, rebellions – with his wife, Harriet Louisa, and daughter, Norah Louisa, sitting with their tidy flowers, waiting to be served tea, and more –

Yes, the very same Gubbins who killed himself in 1863.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 567 The Smell of Lilacs

The smell of lilacs strengthened his nerves –

And he couldn’t live without the smell of rotten apples –

This is where he sat and wrote Wilhelm Tell in six weeks –

And when he was tired he laid his head upon his desk and took a nap.

He had two sons, Karl and Ernst. And eight years after his death, his widow, Charlotte, wrote this to Ernst, the younger one:

The desk has been newly stained and stands under Karl’s picture. It’s not meant to be used, only by you – if you want. It’s comforting to me now to see this desk – it was painful before.

We kept lilacs for the butterflies – And every May, they blossomed.

And every May, she cut some branches and brought them in the house.

568 COLLECTED POEMS These nights are so bright, we cannot sleep. The moon keeps us awake and then, we wait for the nightingale.

These nights we listen to the animals outside, their hunger taking over our lives.

Four bears live with five monkeys in a zoo.

Their keeper wants them to fight but they don’t.

Every day they can smell human flesh burning, burning – It makes them sick.

The barbed wire, on the other hand, feels important.

* From the zoo one can see the crematorium.

And over here we have the prisoners’ latrines. It’s hard to keep everything clean.

Near the crematorium there’s a cellar with forty-eight hooks for the hangings.

And over here we have new barracks for those who are good with their hands.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 569 *

And over here between the bears and the monkeys and the crematorium –

between the prisoners’ latrines and the cellar with the forty-eight hooks for the hangings –

they brought Schiller’s desk, to save it from the bombings.

And then, they ordered their prisoners to make a copy of it. But what did those prisoners think?

And can you imagine what they said as they measured Schiller’s desk?

I imagine them silent, each lost in his own numbness. Some of the workers were Norwegian.

Even Willy Werth, master craftsman, famous for his model ships – Viking ships – I imagine him silent.

Were they given apple wood? How far could they go? Did they look back to the eighteenth century?

What sounds did they hear through the windows? Could they hear the bears and the monkeys?

570 COLLECTED POEMS And if they spoke? Did they speak of Schiller, what they had learnt in school?

And were they free to speak their minds? What would you have said, what would you have done to save your life?

18 October 1943.

At last, the copy of Schiller’s desk is delivered.

A copy easily mistaken for the original.

A copy made in Buchenwald by prisoners.

And then, Schiller’s own desk is stowed away in Nietzsche’s house.

It is 1943.

And I ask:

During these days did anyone sit at Schiller’s desk – at the copy of his desk?

And if so, then, what was done – what was written there?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 571 328 Mickle Boulevard, Camden, New Jersey

As we stood by your bed, I thought of whales –

And then our guide said:

‘Looking at Walt here – he wasn’t too bad. But for the last eight years it was pretty hard.’

A few minutes later we were reprimanded for tripping over your green suede shoes.

Such beautiful shoes, deep moss green guarding your papers –

Piles and piles of your papers all scattered just so – orderly disorder watched over by your womanly, elegant shoes – your tomboyish shoes – delicate, clean and so new I couldn’t believe you ever wore them.

Your parents watched us in every room – especially your mother.

Walt, your whole house is refurbished now – true to history – brighter than ever – windows sparkle like wet eyes – Sepia lads suddenly dust free, vibrant again –

The buttery wallpaper reminded us of Italy, of vanilla ice cream in Florence.

Our guide allowed us to linger at every corner, every threshold – his face intense with so much information he wanted to give and give –

572 COLLECTED POEMS The way he led us to your kitchen, it was clear he lived with you.

Across from the stove Mary Davis’s fainting couch gleamed sleek and smug and almost bristled – lying stretched out with a large cat’s languid, twitching alertness –

Then, we were led outdoors into your garden –

November sun on a day in 2003 – a cold wind ripping down ginkgo leaves slivers of milky gold to match your fresh wallpaper –

We were told, you liked to walk out here, we were told, Mary planted herbs –

Our guide knelt beside a bed of Lambs’ Ears. ‘Take some of this,’ he urged, ‘take all of it – no one else will and the winter will kill it.’

His hands poised to tear out swathes of leaves, roots and all –

We stopped him and then stood mute –

Lambs’ Ears – thick velvet a dull white-green paler than your shoes –

I took one leaf, still fragrant – faintly, lightly fragrant – I took one leaf and left the rest for winter –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 573 Abstractions Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 2004

The lost boys of Sudan don’t want to be called ‘the lost boys’. They tell me this over and over again. They want to speak about the imagination, about ideas and how what others call ‘abstractions’ are not truly abstractions. Ideas are real, but where do they come from? They ask me – How do you get ideas for your imagination? What do you mean, the imagination is always there? Where is it? Ideas are animals and birds – Ideas are birds and the imagination has to be everything: the forest and the lake – The imagination has to make them want to stay, the imagination has to catch them.

Meanwhile, there’s a lost girl who won’t follow ‘the lost boys’ –

She’ll sit beneath a tree and let her fingers grow longer and longer –

574 COLLECTED POEMS Circling Over Medellín

Everyone gets off here except us – we keep circling over Medellín, up and down the mountain.

Two hours have passed. We sit boxed in glassy metal, metallic glass – sparkling new cable cars where we’ve become the hosts.

Entire families pass through showing us where they live now, where they used to live – Where they were robbed, where someone was killed – Here and there and here –

We look at their gardens, at their Medellín green – at the brown of their earth and the shape of their homes –

What gardens? Over here? In these neighbourhoods?

Patches of dirt, a few flower-pots between houses piled up on each other – shacks all along the mountain. Red brick everywhere: the one beautiful, man-made colour stuck onto this land.

And yet, there are trees: small, vibrant, upthrusting lushness –

And leafy bushes with their dark miraculous glistenings to match any knife –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 575 Clothes put out to dry, arranged as if they were sending out signals to outer space –

Over there, a girl sits reading – And then, a woman steps out on her terrace with the wash –

While on the other side, a boy out on his roof yet squeezed between walls, tries to fly a kite – his house slanting, built at an angle on top of another house –

Oh, how that boy on his roof tries to fly a kite.

576 COLLECTED POEMS A House of Silence Medellín 2005

This is where the murderer meets the sister of his victim, the wife, the children –

This is where they work, side by side, not knowing who the other is.

Not allowed to speak, we’re told, they must speak with their hands, they must make something out of clay.

A deaf-mute boy is the first to greet us, fatherless at seven – He places his sculpture in our hands:

A man and a woman in a tight embrace – their spines cut deep as rivers in their perfect, passionate backs.

Other children create clay figures who are born chopped up – legs and arms, torsos and even heads, lined up side by side.

The one I ask about is a pre-Columbian head with a cradle on top, and a baby inside, intact – I’m convinced it was made by an artist, a woman.

But no, I’m told, it was a boy of nine, dead already, shot dead – and no one to claim his work. Take it, they say, take it. Nobody wants it.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 577 Devibahen and Harilal in Pennsylvania And for memory I had substituted inquiry. – George Lamming

For weeks they have been staring out my window –

Reduced to their black and white existence on my bedside table, they stare at the colours of a Pennsylvania October.

Colours they would have worn, I’m told –

Devibahen’s sari, a delicate chidri – She has wrapped herself in a thousand leaves and flowers, reddish brown stems, dark as the Japanese Maple in our garden.

Harilal, alert in his black topi, about to return to work at the mill – a textile mill.

It is April or May 1941, in Ahmedabad, after lunch – A day when Datta Khopker came by with his camera –

Here they are in the middle of life, their last child will be born this year –

Their eldest daughter watching from the doorway –

Who would have thought Harilal would die five years later –

The grandfather I never met.

578 COLLECTED POEMS Devibahen, I only knew as a widow, forever in white –

If only Datta Khopker had taken more photographs –

of the garden, the street, of the house, of my mother –

If only Harilal had lived.

It’s the same story: if only –

We pray to them now for our own lives –

I imagine they see me – Devibahen and Harilal in Pennsylvania, surrounded by trees.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 579 Green Acorns

Once again I’m the seven-year-old girl who stood alone by the fence in a school yard in New Orleans – beneath an oak tree – Sun flickering shadows through leaves, sun twitching a lion’s tail in the stillness –

My hands full of green acorns – their smooth skins already scratched and dug into by my nails – Clear sap sticky on my fingers –

The other girls ran away as soon as they heard the music. But I stayed and watched and watched and didn’t know what it was I saw. My fists tightening around those acorns, so the green peeked out between my knuckles – Did I understand anything?

For I know I gasped at the beautiful, at the silky purple and black – at the sun glinting on brass, at the sparkling and shining everywhere on their old, creased faces – I know I gasped at the slow, slow crooked dance – a dance with earth itself, it seemed to me.

It was a small procession – hadn’t I just learnt to spell that word? And the music: that sound swept through me and around me and stayed.

580 COLLECTED POEMS Did I understand anything as I heard the beginning of their song? Their voices so hoarse – and I stood more motionless than in ‘freeze tag’ and was numb with looking at their tears and their smiles full of grief – numb with listening to a song I wanted them to continue singing and not stumble or hesitate – as if my watching could help them continue walking around the corner onto the next street. And yet, I didn’t want them to leave.

And still, I don’t want them to go.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 581 He Farms for Beauty for Jane and Wolfgang Müller Pennsylvania, 2003

He farms for beauty – rents land from a doctor in town.

Land veined with darkness – white quartz rich soil.

Look at the short apple trees, deliberately stunted, all their strength diverted into clusters of countless fruit.

Rows and rows of small branches bent, almost distorted, with their burden of apples.

Today, the sunflowers stand like tomboys. A tall, poised, cocksure stance –

Here’s a field Persephone would have run into –

She would have worn a green dress or else a yellow one –

She would have hidden between such stalks and leaves. She would have stayed between these sunflowers.

Dark heads camouflage bees – bees burrowing down into spongy colours, soft browns and purples streaked with ochre powder.

And the broad leaves, rough as a man’s unshaven cheek –

Leaves on stems thrusting upwards, upwards at each node

582 COLLECTED POEMS along the stalks.

Once cut, these leaves wilt fast without water – Look how even now the ones in your hands bow down with a dancer’s gesture of limpness.

Each sunflower stands with so many green arms hanging, elbows bent at sharp angles.

Tournesol, girasol,

surya-mukhi.

A thousand little suns mirroring their Great Beloved in the sky –

Behind the sunflowers, another field – behind that field, a wall of trees rustling their early October colours – Still so much green slowly giving way to deep yellow and brown – A rare flash of red lures birds –

And behind those woods, blue, dark blue, azure mountains, a haze of indigo, turquoise and lavender against a watercolour, water-clean sky –

He farms for beauty – This year the sunflowers are simply there for the sake of being there –

Next year, he says, next year, I’ll go for honey.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 583 All afternoon he works on a tombstone for his dead neighbour – the man wanted his grave marked with a stone from his own yard.

Bees interrupt, making him look up and turn towards the sunflowers – His eyes unshielded, vulnerable to the dust rising from the stone – a huge slab, thick as a body.

The sunflowers wait – Their petals, yellow blades that never fade – One would think their round faces are prickly, thorny with danger – but no, such softness cushions bees –

And the apples? His wife picks them today while Persephone watches from the fields –

584 COLLECTED POEMS Phytoremediation

Do they gasp for air? Pores choking on metallic dust for the lack of ozone – Or do they choke on the idea of excessive ozone in mixed up atmospheres? Bees crawl across their faces. Do they gasp in pain? Or is it joy? Are they drunk on sunlight, drunk on blue air? Their greens and yellows reeling with the wind – These sunflowers, so tall, almost gawky, they are faster than Death. Undemanding queens – What do they know? Spartan beauties, I call them, sisters of cacti, for they need so little, almost nothing from the soil. Do they never tire of looking at the sun? The sun over Chernobyl, for example, where they live – roots soaking up radioactive uranium – stems humming radioactive cesium, radioactive strontium – a chemical heat buzzing with zeros – What do they mean with their glances? Their electric, burning glances – still beseeching bees, still daring birds to eat their seeds, still glaring at the sky – Still egging on the sun –

PURE LIZARD (2008) 585 Do Not Use the Word ‘Erosion’ Lightly

Rock-dust, sand, erosion –

Do not use the word ‘erosion’ lightly.

Remember the Gobi desert from school?

Flying over it, we see a train, and imagine such noise down there –

Noise buffered by sand, sand hushed by space –

Now it’s endless sand. Seen from the skies it’s vaster than ever –

Do not call it ‘golden’, even if it is golden.

How many of us fly over it eating kimchi and rice? How many of us will write about it?

Sand eats into Beijing, and we think of bacteria, viruses –

Fever. Dried skin, dried fish –

Do not use these words lightly.

‘We’re all turning into deserts,’ says the girl next to me.

Must emptiness frighten?

This void is hypnotic.

586 COLLECTED POEMS Sand bruises and wounds your noble ideas –

What now?

Will you draw a circle around your soul?

PURE LIZARD (2008) 587 Solo Piano: After Listening to Philip Glass Death poems are mere delusion – Death is death. – Toko (1710–95)

You’re so right, Toko, death is death, and snow is snow –

Why write deluded poems?

Why ignore birth?

One year the winter solstice revealed my daughter’s soon-to-be-born face to me.

But this year the darkness takes the life of a man I should have met.

Basho’s dream still wanders over withered fields,

And I read Ryushi:

Man is Buddha – the day and I grow dark as one.

The piano is neutral: a calm surgeon.

Snow falls and falls and continues falling for hours, seven hours, eight –

Snow falls as if some great goddess of the skies were shaking feathers out of her hair –

Extravagant, her movements – as if driven by love and madness –

588 COLLECTED POEMS But are they feathers? Or flowers?

Large flakes – large as the largest roses, magnolias –

Wind blown – these bright petals pile up fast, covering broken roots, bones –

Flowers that yearn to be birds – the wind makes them swerve this way and that –

Feathers, flowers – now they fall like parachutes, drift down the way some jellyfish sink, drawn into the current –

And how well the piano knows this: falling snow, solstice darkness, texture of a skull’s forehead –

Snow falls and falls filling up the open mouth of a dead man.

Thickness and wetness in the air, and yet, lightness, as the wind cuts through –

While elsewhere women watch their children from kitchen windows.

Whose turn is it now to tell a story?

Secluded but happy in its being, the piano brings back memories of a girl in a long black coat, a red scarf around her neck and throat, leading a black Labrador through the snow.

PURE LIZARD (2008) 589

Notes

Notes to Brunizem p. 7 ‘ (Udaylee)’: untouchable when one is menstruating. p. 9 ‘ (Shérdi)’: sugar cane. p. 14 ‘Nachiketa’: Yamaraj: the god of death. p. 24 ‘A Different History’: Sarasvati: the goddess of knowledge. She presides over all the Fine Arts and is worshipped in libraries. p. 48 ‘Search for My Tongue’: The Gujarati is translated into English within the poem itself.

Notes to Monkey Shadows p. 96 ‘Maninagar Days’: Hanuman is the son of the wind god Maruti and Anjana, a goddess turned into a monkey by a curse. Hanuman is the most powerful, most intelligent and most learned of the monkeys. He is also considered to be the ‘Ideal of the perfect servant: A servant who finds full realization of manhood, of faithfulness, of obedience. The subject whose glory is in his own inferiority’ (P. Thomas, Epics, Myths and Legends of India). This ideal servant-master relationship is especially evident in Hanuman’s devotion to Ramachandra in the epic Ramayana. p. 113 ‘A Different Way to Dance’: Ganesh, the son of Shiva and Parvati, is the elephant-headed god in Hindu mythology. He is a symbol for wisdom and prudence. It is important to note that Ganesh did not always have an elephant’s head, but acquired one after Shiva through a misunderstanding chopped off his original (human) head. p. 142 ‘A Story for Pearse’: The quotation is the title poem from Pearse Hutchinson’s collection, The Soul that Kissed the Body (Oldcastle, Co. Meath: The Gallery Press, 1990). p. 150 ‘The Mad Woman in the Attic’: This poem refers obliquely to various paintings by Hartmut Eïng. The italicised lines are quotations from Ivan T. Sanderson, Follow the Whale (New York: Bramhall House, 1956). p. 152 ‘The Fish Hat’: This poem refers to Pablo Picasso’s painting, Femme assise au chapeau poisson (Sitting woman with fish hat), 1942. p. 163 ‘Rooms by the Sea’: This poem refers to Edward Hopper’s painting, Rooms by the Sea, 1951.

NOTES 591 p. 165 ‘Sunlight in a Cafeteria’: This poem refers to Edward Hopper’s painting, Sunlight in a Cafeteria, 1958. p. 166 ‘Portrait of a Double Portrait’: This poem refers to Eugène Brands’ painting, Dubbelportret van een zwangere vrouw (Double Portrait of a Pregnant Woman), 1951.

Notes to The Stinking Rose p. 212 ‘Cow’s Skull – Red, White and Blue’: This poem refers to Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting, Cow’s Skull – Red, White and Blue, 1931. p. 213 ‘Skinny-dipping in History’: All parts in italics are quotations from John Ashbery’s poems. p. 223 ‘Pelvis with Moon’: This poem is a response to Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting, Pelvis with Moon, 1943. p. 227 ‘Ninniku’: When Buddhism came to Japan in the sixth century AD the Japanese adopted a new word for garlic, ninniku, the characters for which mean ‘to bear insults with patience’. Buddhist monks are permitted to use garlic for its medicinal properties. The Japanese have never been enthusiastic garlic-eaters. This information from: Stephen Fulder and John Blackwood, Garlic: Nature’s Original Remedy (Healing Arts Press, Vermont, USA) 1991. p. 232 ‘Mars Owns this Herb’: The title of this poem is a quotation from Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. p. 234 ‘Bear’s Garlic at Nevern’: Sheila na Gig is the Welsh fertility goddess. Devi is the Sanskrit word for goddess. p. 248 ‘The Good Farmer’: Knoblauch is the German word for garlic. p. 252 ‘Garlic and Sapphires in the Mud’: The title of this poem is a line from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. p. 257 ‘A Gujarati Patient Speaks’: The epigraph is a quotation from Otto Friedrich, Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations (Lester & Orpen Dennys Ltd, Toronto, Canada) 1989. p. 274 ‘More Fears about the Moon’: This poem partly addresses itself to a poem by Eleanor Wilner, ‘Fears about the Moon’, in her book Other- wise (University of Chicago Press) 1993. p. 276 ‘Lizard, Iguana, Chameleon, Salamander’: This poem is a response to a series of paintings by Jakobine von Dömming. p. 280 ‘ (Riyaj)’: riyaj, meaning practice, praxis, rehearsal, and/or a meditative discipline, is a term used by Indian classical musicians to

592 COLLECTED POEMS describe their solitary hours with music. For some it is an exercise in musical grammar that seeks future completion, for others it is deeply individual and whole. (Based on Kabir Mohanty’s definition.) p. 288 ‘Water’: The quotation in this poem is a line from a popular devotional song by the poet-saint Narsinh Mehta (1414–81).

Notes to Augatora p. 310 ‘A Swimmer in New England Speaks’ and p. 313 ‘The Snake Catcher Speaks’: Many thanks to Nachiketa P. Bhatt for sharing information about snakes. p. 314 ‘Surus to Hannibal’: I am very grateful to Gisbert Haefs for information about Surus and Hannibal. p. 320 ‘History is a Broken Narrative’: The line ‘You take your language where you get it’ is from Eleanor Wilner’s poem ‘The English Department’ in her book Shekinah, published by The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984. The variations on this line are my own. ‘Bobrowski’ is, of course, the German writer Johannes Bobrowski (1917–65). p. 340 ‘The Hole in the Wind’: Special thanks to Theo Schuster and Regina Munzel for providing me with valuable documents and journals pertaining to the history of Juist and to ship wrecks in the North Sea.

Notes to A Colour for Solitude

Author’s Note On a cold morning in March 1985, I visited the Kunsthalle Bremen for the first time – indeed it was my very first visit to Germany. And it was there in the Kunsthalle that I had my initial encounter with Paula Moder- sohn-Becker’s paintings. I knew of Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) through Rilke’s famous poem Requiem für eine Freundin (‘Requiem for a Friend’) which he had written for her in 1908. And I knew that she had also been a close friend of Rilke’s wife, the sculptor Clara Rilke-West- hoff (1878–1954). Aside from that, however, I did not know much about Modersohn-Becker’s life, nor did I know about the importance of her contribution to German and European art. The first true modernist in German art, her work defies all attempts at categorisation. However ‘simple’ and straightforward Modersohn- Becker’s subject or approach, the result is always unusual and

NOTES 593 frequently provocative. She discovered Cézanne’s work for herself in Paris in 1900 before he was famous. Her work was open to influences from many artists such as Maillol, Gauguin, Rousseau, Van Gogh, as well as the ancient Faiyum painters of Egypt. This is not to imply that her work was derivative. Instead, she transformed these influences within her work and made them her own. Some of her last paintings are said to anticipate Picasso’s work: works by Picasso she would not have seen because she was already dead by then. Equally modern and sensi- tive in her life, Paula Modersohn-Becker’s beliefs had nothing to do with dogmas or ideologies. Today, she is considered by many to be the most significant German woman painter of the twentieth century. Modersohn-Becker died in 1907 at the age of thirty-one, of embolism, eighteen days after giving birth to her only child, a daughter. She left behind a vast body of work. During the last seven years of her life (which exclude her early years of study) she produced 560 paintings, 700 drawings and 13 etchings. Early critical response to her work was hostile. Fortunately, there were those such as Gustav Pauli (director of the Kunsthalle Bremen) and the German sculptor Bernhard Hoetger who recognised her genius and supported her work. Soon after Hitler came to power, Modersohn-Becker’s paintings were entartet, condemned by the Nazis for being ‘degenerate’. The Nazis confiscated some of her paintings (those that were in German museums) and sold them abroad, mainly to museums in the United States. The bulk of her work was hidden ‘illegally’ by friends and by her daughter – thus saving them (the paintings) from harm during the Third Reich. During her lifetime, Modersohn-Becker sold only three or at most four paintings. Rilke, impressed by her work, was the first to buy one of her paintings in 1905: Säugling mit der Hand der Mutter, 1903 (Infant with its Mother’s Hand) in an act of genuine friendship and out of his wish to encourage her and to provide practical support for her work during a time when she had decided to leave her husband, Otto Modersohn. It has been only in the last twenty-five years or so that Paula Moder- sohn-Becker’s work has gained, however slowly, the respect it has been deprived of. And yet, she is still largely unknown to the general public outside Germany. To return to that March day in 1985: from the beginning, I was very moved and struck by Modersohn-Becker’s paintings. Two weeks later, I returned to Iowa where I was a student at the time and almost immediately wrote my first poem in response to one of her self-portraits. It is now entitled ‘Was it the Blue Irises?’ and was first published in Brunizem. Much later, after I received my degree, I married my German friend, the writer Michael Augustin, who had invited me to Bremen in the first place. And then, I started to live in Germany. My interest in Modersohn-Becker can be traced to Clara Rilke-West- hoff (whose friend she was) and ultimately to Rilke and to Rilke’s work.

594 COLLECTED POEMS I had started reading Rilke’s poems in 1974. Then, very much under his spell and keen on reading everything he had written, I turned to his letters and journals. Soon, I became aware of Clara’s presence and especially of her silence. Her silence, the fact that she had not left any extensive written record of her feelings (to my knowledge then), considering her problematic relationship with Rilke and given Rilke’s verbal expansiveness, intrigued me and it bothered me. Clara’s silence inspired me to break that silence and to imagine what she might have said. I wrote my first poem in Clara’s voice in 1979. This poem, now entitled ‘No Road Leads to This’ (first published in Brunizem) grew out of my desire to give life to Rilke’s abstract notion of love as ‘two solitudes greeting and saluting each other’. At that time (1979), of course, I had never been to Germany and so did not have a clue as to what Worps- wede looked like. Maps, pictures and written descriptions of the place proved to be useful. Ultimately, however, the physical world I created in the poem had to be imagined. Little did I know that many years later, I would be living just a few miles away from Worpswede, in the imme- diate neighbourhood of the Kunsthalle Bremen which accommodates the works of the major Worpswede artists, including Clara Rilke-Westhoff. Clara Rilke-Westhoff was a sculptor at a time when it was unheard of for women to engage in such strenuous artistic work. Indeed, in those days, the word ‘Bildhauerin’ (sculptress) sounded ridiculous to German ears. However, she quickly won the respect and admiration of her teachers, Max Klinger and Auguste Rodin. In fact, it was through Clara that Rilke became acquainted with Rodin. Clara Rilke-Westhoff’s work is even more unknown than that of Modersohn-Becker’s. Owing to her continual financial difficulties, she could not always afford the mate- rials for her work and so she produced relatively few pieces of sculpture. She is most famous for her remarkable busts of Rilke, especially the one created in 1905, which Rodin admired tremendously. In 1994, after I wrote my second poem connected with another Modersohn-Becker self-portrait, now entitled ‘Self-Portrait on My Fifth Wedding Anniversary, 25-5-06’ (first published in The Stinking Rose), I thought of eventually writing a sequence of poems entirely devoted to and drawing their inspiration from Paula Modersohn-Becker’s paintings, especially the self-portraits of which there are more than fifty and which appear at every stage of Modersohn-Becker’s artistic develop- ment. By that time (1994), I was long familiar with Paula’s biography and with her letters and journals. The German language itself had a new resonance for me as I watched my small daughter grow up. (More recently, listening to her learn and recite Rilke’s poems for school has added another dimension to my relationship with Rilke’s work.) My poems grew out of this atmosphere. One does not usually associate poetry with research. I, however, find myself increasingly drawn to subjects that demand research: subjects that are either historical events or historical figures. Ironically, I find

NOTES 595 that the facts often free the imagination to probe deeper, to imagine things that otherwise could not have been imagined. Practically all of my research was conducted in German. However, since English is my language, the poems are in English. Paula and Clara, of course, had spoken in German to each other. And so, in a sense, there was always a certain amount of linguistic tension that I experienced in the making of this book. At the same time, there were days when I was not aware of the language I was working in. There were days when I was only aware of the sounds, rhythms, colours and emotions involved with my ‘characters’ or ‘speakers’. Over the years, I have been to many art exhibitions dealing with Modersohn-Becker and some of her more famous contemporaries in different parts of Germany and in other countries in Europe. Since my early days in Bremen, I have known the actress, Hille Darjes, who is Modersohn-Becker’s grandniece. Hille’s mother grew up with Paula’s daughter, for it was Hille’s grandmother, Milly Rohland-Becker (Paula’s sister), who looked after the newborn Mathilde right after Paula’s death. Knowing Hille Darjes, who introduced me to Mathilde (Tille) Modersohn, has of course given me a more personal link with Paula Modersohn-Becker. The book started with poems in response to Paula’s paintings but then included Clara’s sculptures and started to explore the close friendship between the two women. And then, the poems inevitably included Rilke – and Paula’s and Clara’s perception of him, especially in connection with their portrayals of him in paint or in bronze. I say ‘their’ perception of Rilke, however, it is of course ‘their perception’ as I have imagined it. For although Paula’s letters and journals have largely survived, there is a great deal she did not comment on. And when she was most deeply immersed in her painting, she left no written record of her thoughts. Here, I should add that Clara has not been entirely silent. Her private journals, however, still remain sealed and unavailable. Various people, including Paula, have recorded their memories of Clara and their conversations with her and I have found these memoirs useful in imagining Clara’s voice. As a poet, I have been more interested in exploring and imagining what has been left unsaid and what has been left aside for speculation by biographers and art historians. Therefore, Clara’s (and Paula’s) relative silence has been more of an inspiration to me than a hindrance. Modersohn-Becker’s own relationship with Rilke was also quite complex. Many biographers believe that Rilke married Clara Westhoff impulsively on the rebound when he learned that Paula was secretly engaged to the much older painter, Otto Modersohn. Paula herself was astonished by Rilke’s decision to marry Clara and grew increasingly disillusioned as her own marriage disappointed her and as she felt Rilke prevented her from seeing Clara Westhoff (her dearest friend), the way she had been accustomed to in the past. So far, to a large extent, Rilke has had the last word regarding both Clara and

596 COLLECTED POEMS Paula. I wanted to change that, to restore the balance, so to speak. My own life in Bremen and my frequent visits to Worpswede have no doubt entered the poems, even where it is not apparent. And my experience of the weather, the landscape, the language and the music of northern Germany has surely affected my perception of the colours in Modersohn-Becker’s paintings. At the same time, being the ultimate foreigner, I retain the perspective of an outsider. And perhaps to some extent, responding to Modersohn-Becker’s work has been a way for my mind to enter and try to understand a totally alien culture and country. In the end, of course, there are the poems, just the poems, for there is so much that cannot be explained or analysed in rational, numerical terms, or even in prose. Sujata Bhatt, 2001

Notes about the Text 1. The titles of the poems responding to Modersohn-Becker’s self- portraits and other paintings are in some cases taken from the paintings, however, in other cases, I have given them my own titles. 2. Most of Modersohn-Becker’s and Rilke-Westhoff’s work can be found in museums in Bremen, Worpswede, Fischerhude and in other parts of northern Germany. 3. In the poems, partly for the sake of clarity, to avoid confusion, and partly out of a desire to restore their own, original identities to them (which incidentally, each in her own way tried to return to), I have referred to Paula Modersohn-Becker and Clara Rilke-Westhoff by their maiden names.

Notes to Pure Lizard p. 538 ‘And look: the olives ripen, the lizards stretch.’ This title is the last line from Eleanor Wilner’s poem, ‘Anti/o, Cassandra’, from her book, The Girl with Bees in Her Hair (Copper Canyon Press, 2004). Anti/o is demotic Greek for ‘goodbye’. p. 568 ‘The Smell of Lilacs’: I am indebted to Dieter Kühn for his excel- lent study, Schillers Schreibtisch in Buchenwald (S. Fischer Verlag, 2005), which provided much of the information and inspiration for this poem. Charlotte’s letter, quoted in this poem, is my translation from the original. Thanks also to Michael Augustin and Walter Weber for their three-hour radio documentary, Ein Abend für Friedrich Schiller, broadcast by Radio Bremen.

NOTES 597

Index of Titles

(Russown) 229 (Shantih) 259 (Shérdi) 9 (Udaylee) 7

16 April 1945, CW to PB 470 21 November 1916, CW to PB 463 29 April 1989 177 3 November 1984 66 328 Mickle Boulevard, Camden, New Jersey 572

Abstractions 574 After Dinner in Conil 308 After the Earthquake 317 Ajwali Ba 104 Allium Moly and Odysseus 244 Although She’s a Small Woman 195 An India of the Soul 256 And look: the olives ripen, the lizards stretch 538 And What Will Death Do?, 1906/7 456 Angels’ Wings 131 Another Act for the Lübecker Totentanz 36 Another Day in Iowa City 39 Another Portrait of Bartolo 161 Ars Poetica 378 At the Flower Market 182 At the Marketplace 70 Augatora 300

Baltimore 43 Bamboo in Gyeongju 539 Barcelona 306 Bear’s Garlic at Nevern 234 Because of the Moon 541 Beeswax and Snakeskin Head 359 Belfast, November 1987 175 Bertha 558 Beyond Edinburgh 172 Bhagavati 496 Birthday Totem Pole 352 Biting 558

INDEX OF TITLES 599 A Black Feather 358 Black Sails, PB to RMR, September 1900 390 Black Swans for Swantje 262 The Blue Snake Who Loves Water 221 A Brahmin Wants the Cows to Eat Lots of Garlic 241 Broom, Wind and Bird: Zeitwanderer 356 Brunizem 83 Buddha’s Lost Mother 515 Buffaloes 6

The Cadet and his Sister 561 Chutney 217 The Circle 371 Circling Over Medellín 575 Clara’s Voice 473 Coffee 499 A Colour for Solitude, PB to RMR, 1906 426 Come to Me 560 Consciousness 282 Counting Sheep White Blood Cells 148 Cow’s Skull – Red, White and Blue 212 The Crow and His Cat 487 The Crow, his Beak, and a Girl 486 The Crow’s House 487 Crumpled 557

The Daily Offering 101 A Detail from the Chandogya Upanishad 369 Devibahen and Harilal in Pennsylvania 578 Devibahen Pathak 125 Diabetes Mellitus 316 The Difference between Being and Becoming 23 A Different History 24 A Different Way to Dance 113 Distances 168 Do Not Use the Word ‘Erosion’ Lightly 586 Don’t Look at Me like That, CW to PB, 1905 420 The Doors are Always Open 8 The Dream 298 Durban: A Visit to the Botanical Gardens 302

The Echoes in Poona 155 Elsbeth, PB to CW, July 1902 405 Equilibrium 368 Eurydice Speaks 62

600 COLLECTED POEMS Fate 265 Felice Beato Enters Sikander Bagh 567 Finding India in Unexpected Places 542 A First Draft from the Artist 246 The First Meeting 21 First Rain 286 Fischerhude, 2001 477 The Fish Hat 152 Flying Children 490 For My Grandmother 17 For Nanabhai Bhatt 12 The Found Angel 349 The Fourth Monkey 484 The Fox and the Angel 357 Franz Marc’s Blaue Fohlen 164 Frauenjournal 291 Frightened Bees 237

Gale Force Winds 516 Garlic and Sapphires in the Mud 252 Garlic in War and Peace 231 The Garlic of Truth 57 Gazpacho 307 Genealogy 261 Girl Reading at Window 556 The Glassy Green and Maroon 102 Go to Ahmedabad 78 The Good Farmer 248 Good Omens 501 Green Acorns 580 Green Amber in Riga 334 Groningen: Saturday Market on a Very Sunny Day 147 A Gujarati Patient Speaks 257

He Farms for Beauty 582 Hey, 47 A Hidden Truth 483 History is a Broken Narative 320 The Hole in the Wind 340 Honeymoon 328 A House of Silence 577 How Far East is it Still East? 200 Hyacinths 524

Icicles Hang from the Reeds of Our Roof, CW to PB, February 1902 401 If a Ghazal were like Garlic 251

INDEX OF TITLES 601 If You Named Your Daughter Garlic Instead of Lily or Rose 242 The Imagination 534 In Her Green Dress, She is, 1905 413 In the End 528 Incessant 546 Instructions to the Artist 245 Iris 5 Is it a Voice? 360 Is there More Truth in a Photograph?, PB to her sister HB, 1906 436 It Has Come to This 224 It Has Not Rained for Months 254

Jane Eyre in the Lab 552 Jane in a Chair with Monkey 557 Jane to Tarzan 337 Jane’s Back 557 Jasmine Tastes Bitter 525 Jealousy 269 Jerusalem 330 Just White Chips 171

Kalika 16 The Kama Sutra Retold 26 Kankaria Lake 110 Kaspar Hauser Dreams of Horses 270 The Keeper 559 kikku no sekku 532 King Munmu 540 Korean Angel 529

Language 335 The Langur Coloured Night 91 The Light Teased Me 211 The Light that Unfetters the Soul 537 Lightning 527 Lines Written in Venice 474 Living with Stones 518 Living with Trains 40 Lizard, Iguana, Chameleon, Salamander 276 Lizards 20 Łódź 333 Looking Over What I Have Done 47 Looking Through a French Photographer’s Portrayal of Rajasthan with Extensive Use of Orange Filters 31 Looking Up 295 Love in a Bathtub 174

602 COLLECTED POEMS Loving Bewick 556

The Mad Woman in the Attic 150 The Maids 562 The Mammoth Bone 362 The Man in the Artist’s First Draft Speaks 247 ‘Man Swept out to Sea as Huge Wave Hit Rock’ 198 Maninagar Days 96 Mappelmus 67 Marie Curie to Her Husband 56 Mars Owns this Herb 232 Meeting the Artist in Durban 376 Mein lieber Schwan 63 A Memory from Marathi 303 Menu 28 Mermaid Drowning Wendy 491 Metamorphoses II: A Dream 71 Monkey Woman 526 Monsoon with Vector Anophelines 273 Montauk Garden with Stones and Water 368 More Fears about the Moon 274 Mozartstrasse 18 133 Muliebrity 17 The Multicultural Poem 372 My Mother’s Way of Wearing a Sari 363

Nachiketa 14 Nanabhai Bhatt in Prison 107 The Need to Recall the Journey 178 New Orleans Revisited 324 The Night Crow 489 Ninniku 227 No Road Leads to This, CW to RMR, 1901 396 Nothing is Black, Really Nothing 218

The Old Man Who is Not 566 One of the Wurst-Eaters on the Day After Good Friday 264 The One Who Goes Away 191 Only the Blackest Stones 505 Ophelia in Defence of the Queen 272 Oranges and Lemons 33 Orpheus Confesses to Eurydice 267 Otto with a Pipe, PB to OM, 1906/7 452

Paper and Glass 35 Parrots 215

INDEX OF TITLES 603 Partition 315 Parvati Temple, Poona 508 Parvati 29 The Peacock 4 Pelvis with Moon 223 The Pharaoh Speaks 253 Phytoremediation 585 Piece Caprice 520 Pink Shrimps and Guesses 46 A Poem Consisting Entirely of Introductions 366 Poem for a Reader who was Born Blind 370 A Poem in Three Voices 239 Point No Point 196 The Policeman’s Daughter 563 Polish-German Woodcarver Visits Vancouver Island 205 The Pope, Tito and the WHO 316 Portrait of a Double Portrait 166 Portrait of a Young Man in his Study, Venice, 1528 565 The Puppets 45 Pure Lizard 494

Radishes 551 Red August 118 A Red Rose in November, PB to CW, 1905 417 Reincarnation 18 A Room in Amsterdam 327 The Room Itself is Dying, CW to RMR, circa 1921 467 Rooms by the Sea 163 The Rooster in Conil 169 Rosehips in August 250 Runic, PB to CW, 1905 421 Ruth’s Wish, CW to RMR, 1936 469

Sad Songs with Henna Leaves 76 Sad Walk 549 Salt Spring Island 209 Saturday Night on Keswick Road 74 The Sea at Night 160 Search for My Tongue 48 Self-Portrait as a Life-Sized Nude, 1906 437 Self-Portrait as a Mask, 1906 447 Self-Portrait as a Nude Torso with an Amber Necklace, 1906 431 Self-Portrait as a Standing Nude with a Hat, 1906 438 Self-Portrait as Anonymous, 1906 433 Self-Portrait as Aubade, 1897 383 Self-Portrait as My Sister, 1897 386

604 COLLECTED POEMS Self-Portrait Done with Red Chalk, 1897 385 Self-Portrait in Front of a Landscape with Trees, 1903 410 Self-Portrait in Front of Window Offering a View of Parisian Houses, 1900 388 Self-Portrait on a Hot Day in Paris, 1906 445 Self-Portrait on My Fifth Wedding Anniversary, 25-5-06 429 Self-Portrait Wearing a Blue and White Striped White Dress, 1906 440 Self-Portrait with a Hat and Veil, 1906 448 Self-Portrait with a Lemon, 1906/7 453 Self-Portrait with a Necklace of White Beads, 1906 423 Self-Portrait with a Sprig of Camellia Leaves, 1906/7 455 Self-Portrait with a Wreath of Red Flowers in Your Hair, 1906 424 Self-Portrait with an Oversized Hat and a Red Rose in the Right Hand, 1905 422 Self-Portrait with Blossoming Trees, 1903 408 Self-Portrait with Coppery Red Hair, 1897/98 387 Self-Portrait with Garlic 243 Self-Portrait with Scratches, 1903 406 Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in the Left Hand, PB to CW, 1907 457 Self-Portrait with Yellowish Green, 1906 441 Self-Portrait with Your Jaw Set, 1905 414 Self-Portrait, Frontal, with a Flower in the Right Hand, 1906/7 449 Sewing on the Shadow 489 Sharda 278 She Finds Her Place 25 She Slipped Through the Suez Canal 536 The Shirodkar Suture 326 Sinking into the Solstice 183 Six Entries from a Witch’s Diary 543 Skinny-dipping in History 213 Skintight with Ice 361 The Smell of Lilacs 568 The Snail-Ear 353 The Snake Catcher Speaks 313 The Soldier’s Daughter 563 Solo Piano: After Listening to Philip Glass 588 Something for Plato 22 Squirrels 296 Sruti 287 The Stare 93 Stingray 354 The Stinking Rose 225 Storm 495 A Story for Pearse 142 Sujata: The First Disciple of Buddha 3 Suji 525

INDEX OF TITLES 605 Sunlight in a Cafeteria 165 Surus to Hannibal 314 Swami Anand 10 A Swimmer in New England Speaks 310

Tail 77 Telemann’s Frogs 512 The Three Sisters 202 Ther is No Rose of Swych Virtu 238 This Room is Part of the NYC Subway System 367 Through the Blackness, CW to PB, 1915 461 To My Muse 81 A Touch of Coriander 233 Translation: Meditation on a Poem by Hasmukh Pathak 283 A Tube of Paint 488 Two Girls in a Landscape, 1901 399 Two Girls in Profile in a Landscape, charcoal, 1903/04 412 Two Girls with their Arms Across their Shoulders, 1906 444 Two Girls, Two Sisters, PB to CW, 1900 389 Two Girls: Nude, One Standing, the Other Kneeling in Front of Red Poppies, 1906 443 Two Girls: One Sitting in a White Shirt, the Other, a Standing Nude, 1906 442 Two Girls: The Blind Sister, 1903 409 Two Monkeys 485

Understanding the Ramayana 121 The Undertow 68 Unexpected Blackness 547 Until Our Bones Prevent Us from Going Further 184

Victor, Whiskey, Juliet, 2 2 3 207 The Virologist 305 Vogelfrau 355 Voice of the Unwanted Girl 318 The Voices 280

Walking Across the Brooklyn Bridge, July 1990 158 Wanting Agni 59 Was it the Blue Irises? 472 The Washing on the Line, 1901 398 Water 288 We are Adrift 194 Well, Well, Well, 84 Wendy and the Lost Boys 490 Wendy’s Song 492

606 COLLECTED POEMS What Does One Write When the World Starts to Disappear? 187 What Does the Flower of Life Say, Frida Kahlo? 216 What Happened to the Elephant? 116 What is Exotic? 493 What Is Worth Knowing? 37 When the Dead Feel Lonely 199 Whenever I Return 509 White Asparagus 167 A White Horse Grazing in Moonlight, 1901 393 A White Horse Grazing in Moonlight, a retrospective view of 1901, PB to OM 451 Who has Just Died? CW to PB, 1908 459 Whose Ghost is This? 523 The Wild Woman of the Forest 204 Wine from Bordeaux 139 A Wintry July in Bremen 249 The Woman they call Abuela 331 The Women of Leh are such – 34 The Woodcut 44 The Worm 238 Worpswede, 2001 478 The Writer 75 Written after Hearing about the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 64

Yellow October 138 You are the Rose, CW to RMR, 1905 415 You Kissed My Eyelids, PB to RMR, March 1902 402 You Spoke of Italy, PB to RMR, 1906 434 You Walk into This Room and 67 Your Postcards 309 Your Sorrow 210 Your Weyerberg Gaze, CW to RMR, 1901 394

Zinzirritta 545

INDEX OF TITLES 607 Index of First Lines

(aatla phoolo neechay nay aatlo lambo samai) 283

(aav ray varsad) 286

(jal athva pani) 288

(lahsoon ki jad mai charpara russ) 229

A brushstroke 438 A crow sits with his tube of paint – 488 A man walks out of a pub in Berlin. 320 A mirage. 393 A street in Bath, 542 A tree can become like that only in New England’s fall, 138 A white horse 451 A woman eats her heart out 269 A woman kills 290 A Dutch fisherman 362 Aaji, there was an eleven-year-old girl 17 After all these years 278 After the earthquake 317 All morning 368 Although 195 Always on a full moon – 489 An old gardener plants a rosary 238 And if I paint myself serene 408 And look: the olives ripen, 538 And so the Romans said: 232 And what will Death do? 456 Arbutus, ash, cedar 205 As we stood by your bed, 572 At night 194 At night 437 At the foot of Takhteshwar hill 107

Balance the ace of spades 354 Bamboo in Gyeongju – 539 Beauty that is Italian – 442 Because I had never seen a black squirrel 547

608 COLLECTED POEMS Because of the moon, 541 Beeswax and snakeskin – 359 Before you could become a grandmother 328 Bertha: all plum-stained, 558 Black sails: greased and tarred – 390 Blutwurst in the morning 264 Broom married Wind 356 Brunizem, I say 83 Bubble gum pink, rubber duck pink tulips 36 But I am the one 191 But the soul will be the colour of turmeric 256 But what if you change 210

Cinderella had glass slippers 102 Clara, your house 477 Come on, take off your turban, 81 ‘Come to me.’ He says, 560 Crumpled like a newspaper, Jane says. 557

Dark blue stones. 252 Days my tongue slips away. 48 December fourth or fifth, 183 Deep in the forests of New England: 71 Do they gasp for air? 585 Don’t ask me to explain myself – 355 Don’t interrupt – 556 Don’t look at me 420 Don’t you remember? 552

Eighty-six years old or maybe 331 Elsbeth: 405 Everyone gets off here 575 Everyone must keep away – 63 Everything I want to say is 225 Everywhere you turn there are goats, 8 Eyeless – and so it is a mask. 447

Felice Beato enters Sikander Bagh 567 Fetus after fetus lost. 274 First, a sound from an animal 280 First, there was Moly: 244 First, you think of water and then, of course, the surface of the water. 213 Fishermen don’t swim in the sea. 161 For days 44 For weeks this is how 152

INDEX OF FIRST LINES 609 For weeks 578 Forget Rilke – 417 Fox says: 357 Freak waves, rollers, 198 From a distance 491

Go walk the streets of Baroda, 78 Great Pan is not dead; 24 He farms for beauty – 582

He holds out his lips, 22 He said: 525 He wants to go. 561 Her hand sweeps over the rough grained paper, 5 Here, in July, red-winged blackbirds 335 Here, 64 Hey, are you there 46 His loud sharp call 4 How can I know 245 How can I tell you about it 84 How did the tea taste 125 How I enjoyed 67 How this crow keeps his beak full – 486 How this crow loves his cat – 487

I am Egyptian now – 455 I am heavy with child – 394 I am kind to some 47 I am sitting in the Spielplatz 133 I am so red now 282 I can recall that age 131 I feel heavy, sticky. I’ve been 253 I have thought so much about the girl 17 I hesitate to say 333 I know about you. 238 I like the size 169 I rarely speak to anyone – 310 I walk over bones 410 I want to meet 164 I want to paint runic faces. 421 I wanted to apologise 370 I will become amber. 429 I won’t buy 66 I’m still living in that evening 43 I’m the sort of man who prefers 247 Icicles hang 401

610 COLLECTED POEMS If only the earth 187 If this myth is alive 29 If truth is impossible 414 Imagine the sun 369 Imagine, if Gandhiji had 316 In her green dress, she is 413 In Kosbad during the monsoons 10 In New York 158 In peace they rubbed garlic paste 231 In reality I am diminished. 422 In reality 558 In the dream 298 In the end one might go away 528 In the kitchen – cloves of freshly peeled garlic. 243 In the morning, while Kalika combs 16 In the shade, especially 453 In this dream my grandfather 12 In this hat and veil, 448 Incessant, unearthly speech 546 Is it a voice 360 Is that a girl or a boy, 524 Is there more truth 436 It has been a cold July 249 It has not rained for months. 254 It has to do 372 It is a face unknown to her – 523 It is June. 113 It is the coriander – the green leaves 233 It started with a lizard 565 It was a cry 91 It was a lack of faith. 267 It was like being ordered 148 It was more animal-purple 101 It was our daughter’s wish – 469 It would be a place 251 It’s a loud darkness tonight, 20 It’s another age – 518 It’s easy to love swallows. 545 It’s summer all right. 163

Jane cannot look 557 January – 516 Japanese maple: 543 Jerusalem, I hold on 330

Kite-paper-blue sky 35

INDEX OF FIRST LINES 611 Last year 402 Lice in your hair, Madame? 562 Lightning – a snake’s tongue – 527 Look at the young jade-coloured artichokes! 70 Look how you turned on 67 ‘Look, look!’ You call out 234

Meaningless black marks 77 Milk of green coconuts 501 Mornings I wake up wondering 459 Mother, I am the one 318 My blind sister 409 My daughter 260 My face is distorted: 388 “My father’s been to your country,” I begin – 39 My name is Philemon. 376 My parrots have been quiet all morning. 214 nada es negro, realmente nada. 218 Ninniku, ninniku 226 No road leads 396 Now that I am truly ripe 457 Now the dark sister is thinner, taller – 412 Now when she cries 178

Of course I know 426 Of course, you would smile 265 Oh but he wanted a wife, 25 Old woman 473 On the terrace 415 On the train from Madurai 496 Once again 580 Once in the ocean over here 168 Once upon a time… so the story goes, 508 One day the pure, clean rhesus monkeys 155 One Japanese fishing boat lost at sea 200 One morning, a tall lean man 3 Only paper and wood are safe 7 Orpheus, I tell you I’m not in hell, 62 Otto with a pipe. 452 Outside 221

Parrot green, lime green, 441 Paula, your daughter is seven – 461 Piece Caprice – 520 Prince Hamlet! I’ve had enough 272

612 COLLECTED POEMS Rage is such a pure emotion. 202 Rainer, dear friend, I cannot 434 Reading your new book today 142 Red chrysanthemums 532 Reling. 512 Rock-dust, sand, erosion – 586 Roß, Roß, he growls his word for horse 270

Seventeen years old, he arrived 305 She has just eaten mushrooms and celery 166 She is 494 She lies beneath marigolds, tulsi, roses and roses 59 She says: 216 She slipped through the Suez Canal 536 She was nineteen years old then 315 She would travel far 242 She’s three months old now, 177 Sing me sad songs and I’ll be happy 76 So he can drink 241 So where does the body house the soul? 23 Some days Jyoti’s house smells 118 Some say his ashes 540 Sometimes the dark girl 444 Sometimes the nine-year-old boy 110 Somewhere 551 spoke to Emily Carr 204 Suppose the mind 368 Sweden is exotic – 493

Take a clove of garlic 237 Take the broken spade home 352 Tatamkhulu Afrika walks ahead – 302 That Van Gogh’s ear, set free 37 ‘That’s quite a feat, 485 The best story, of course, 75 The best way to catch 313 The birch tree outside my window 361 The bird was fat-brown limp feathers, 14 The bird the woman 371 The butterflies started dying in September. 309 The ceiling fan turned on: full power. 273 The Chiefs: 224 The children outside my window 74 The desert sky when it’s blue sliding into grey 223 The diaspora women who thought Culture 217 The dress itself 440

INDEX OF FIRST LINES 613 The equations are luminous now. 56 The fire is in your hair – 387 The fourth monkey has been forgotten, 484 The gaze in the mirror: 383 The Goddess at your heels – 495 The good farmer follows 248 The half-open, half-empty head of garlic 250 The hole in the wind where the scream lives – 340 The hot air balloon convention floats 295 The large eye was still fresh, 147 The light teased me 211 The lost boys 574 The mad woman in the attic 150 The man thinks: 165 The mask 515 The old man who is not 566 The older one has straw blonde hair 399 The policeman’s daughter, 563 The Pope, Tito and the WHO 316 The poppies glow with poison – 443 The puppets on every window-sill, every shelf 45 The scratches are intentional, 406 The sea at night, all black 160 The second time 33 The signs are mostly in Tamil 499 The sky is orange 306 The sky is washed blue, 490 The smell of lilacs 568 The snail that used to be 353 The soldier’s daughter can pluck a goose 563 The son of the man 326 The squirrels have been chasing each other 296 The sunlight 325 The way I learned 9 The way I returned again and again to your self-portrait with blue irises 472 The wind is a ghost today 398 The wise old men 18 The woman on the street corner 334 The women of Leh are such – 34 The young widow 6 Their wings are clipped. 262 Then Roman Svirsky said, 26 There are at least three 68 There is that moment 93 There’s nothing as sturdy 557

614 COLLECTED POEMS There’s something very right about it. 212 These days 363 These seashells aren’t even beautiful. 171 They are always there 96 They’ve stayed up all night 487 This crow knows the stars 489 This is a story 104 This is my face that greets me 449 This is my soul: 431 This is the right half of my torso – 358 This is the time of year 199 This is where the murderer meets 577 This memory begins 303 This mouth is preparing itself 423 This poem began after 366 Those three monkeys: 483 Three horizontal brushstrokes 534 Three years ago 470 To get here 505 Today I’ve become an angel. 239 Today I’ve invented a man 139 Travelling 172 Two girls, two sisters – 389

Und wer ist das Mädchen? 478 Upstairs the glass glitters 467 Usually, when I’m sick 157

We found a room 327 We sit in your studio of found objects: 349 We sit outside on the balcony 308 We sleep in 367 We spent all day 184 Wendy couldn’t wait 492 Wendy wears lavender 490 Wet, black, invisible-shadow-sheer 28 What happened to the elephant, 116 What happened to them? 525 What has happened over here? 31 When I run past the uncounted trees, 21 When the steering gave out, the woman in the driver’s seat 207 When they bowed 121 When we go to the flower market, 182 Whenever I return to this garden 509 Whenever Jane sees 559 Where else but in Venice 474

INDEX OF FIRST LINES 615 Wherever I go 40 While Jane reads 556 Who are you? The frog asks: 276 Who speaks of the strong currents 167 Who would have thought 549 Whose face is this? 386 Why did I say I had to leave? 337 Why did you latch on 258 Why name a place Point No Point? 196 Will such a moment ever come? 537 Windoge, vindauga, wind eye – 300

Years later we’ll remember the bathtub, 174 You are almost blind in one eye – 314 You are Italian now – 385 You are one of many, you are all three 433 You are the perfect journalist: 175 You asked me whom I envied most: 378 You bring me another angel. 529 You come here every day for lunch 307 You died 463 You have just eaten strawberries – 424 You, who first said sruti, 287 You wore purple 209 Your face is flushed 445 your photographs 47 Your theories cannot 526 You’re so right, Toko, 588 You’ve painted a thin man 246

616 COLLECTED POEMS