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By Robert Creeley caves.final 8/5/05 11:01 AM Page 38 THE 2005 PHI BETA KAPPA POEM Caves by Robert Creeley Robert creeley ’47 died on March 30, shortly after being tions, made it clear that “plain” need not mean simple or easy. In named the poet for the Literary Exercises conducted annually by 2004, Creeley visited French caves renowned for their prehistoric Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter during Commencement week. paintings, and, she said, was moved to consider the impact and In his memory, at what would have been a fitting homecoming influence of caves, their stone walls as a medium, and the paint- (Creeley was born in Arlington, which borders Cambridge, and ings made upon them. first published his poetry in an undergraduate literary journal), As an introduction to her reading, Vendler briefly interpreted portions of a recent work, “Caves,” were read during the ceremony. her four selections in light of that experience. The first section Phi Beta Kappa vice president Judith Vichniac noted that the recalls a child’s love of caves and spaces where he found solitude prolific Creeley had published more than 60 books. Her brief nar- and room for the making of art. The third captures the astonish- rative also hinted at the wide geographic reach of his energetic life: ing experience of entering the caves in France and seeing the he left Harvard in 1944 to become an ambulance driver in India works that unknown artists were compelled to make on those and Burma for the American Field Service. He returned for a year, dark walls. The di∞cult fourth section metaphorically recapitu- married, and dropped out again without completing his degree. lates life from the birth passage to death, as the poem moves to- Later stopping points included a farm in New Hampshire; France ward the suggestion that art is the legacy to posterity—the an- and Majorca; the experimental Black Mountain College, famously swer Creeley found to the “what’s left” at the conclusion of the associated with Franz Kline, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and sixth and final section, where he explains the di∞culty of art- Paul Goodman, where Creeley taught and edited the Black Mountain making: the struggle to keep current with life even as one cap- Review; the San Francisco of Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Philip tures its echo passing by. Whalen, and other poets; the University of New Mexico; SUNY- “Caves” appears here, complete, by courtesy of Penelope Cree- Bu≠alo; and, most recently, Brown University. Citing the Bollingen ley, who married Robert Creeley in 1977. She was present in Prize judges, Vichniac noted the “stubbornly plain language” of Sanders Theatre for the reading on June 7. To hear Professor Creeley’s “instantly recognizable,” pared-down poetry. Vendler reading the poem, visit the Web edition of this article at Porter University Professor Helen Vendler, who read the selec- www.harvardmagazine.com. �The Editors Illustrations by N a o m i S h e a caves.final 8/5/05 11:01 AM Page 39 So much of my childhood seems on wings of fancy, of persistent seeing to have been spent in rooms— of what’s been seen here too, right here, at least in memory, the shades on this abstracting page. Can I use the green, pulled down to make it darker, the when you’re done? What’s that supposed to be, shaft of sunlight at the window’s edge. says someone. All the kids crowd closer I could hear the bees then gathering in what had been an empty room outside in the lilacs, the birds chirping where one was trying at least as the sun, still high, began to drop. to take a nap, stay quiet, to think It was summer, in heaven of small town, of nothing but oneself. hayfields adjacent, creak and croak � of timbers, of house, of trees, dogs, elders talking, the lone car turning some Back into the cave, folks, and this time we’ll get it right? distant corner on Elm Street way o≠ across the broad lawn. Or, uncollectively perhaps, it was We dug caves or else found them, a dark and stormy night he down the field in the woods. We had slipped away from the group, got shacks we built after battering his mojo working and before at trees, to get branches, made tepee- you know it had that there like enclosures, leafy, dense and in- bison fast on the wall of the outcrop. substantial. Memory is the cave one finally lives in, crawls on I like to think they thought, though they seemingly didn’t, at least hands and knees to get into. If Mother says, don’t draw of something, like, where did X put the bones, on the book pages, don’t color what’s going to happen next, did she, he or it that small person in the picture, then really love me? Maybe that’s what dogs are for, you don’t unless compulsion, distraction but there’s no material surviving dictate and you’re floating o≠ caves.final 8/5/05 11:01 AM Page 40 pointing to dogs as anyone’s best friend, alas. and no one seems to have forced them. Still here we are no matter, still hacking away, There’s a company there, tracks slaughtering what we can find to, leaving of all kinds of people, old folks far bigger footprints than any old mastodon. and kids included. Were they having You think it’s funny? To have prospect a picnic? But so far in it’s hardly of being last creature on earth or at best a a casual occasion, flat on back with company of rats and cockroaches? the tools of the trade necessarily You must have a good sense of humor! close at hand. Try lying in the dark Anyhow, have you noticed how everything’s on the floor of your bedroom and roll retro these days? Like, something’s been here before— so as you go under the bed and or at least that’s the story. I think one picture is worth ask someone to turn o≠ the light. a thousand words and I know one cave fits all sizes. Then stay there, until someone else comes. � Or paint up under on the mattress the last thing you remember, dog’s snarling visage Much like a fading o≠ airplane’s motor or the sound of the freeway as it almost got you, or just what you do think of as the minutes pass. at a distance, it was all here clearly enough and no one goes lightly into a cave, � even to hide. But to make such things Hauling oneself through invidious on the wall, against such obvious strictures of passage, the height of the entrance, the long twisting limits, to work in intermittent dark, cramped passage, mind flickers, a lamp flickering light not even held steadily, lit flickers, lets image project what it can, what it will, see there all those insistent di∞culties. war as wanting, see life as a river, They weren’t paid to, not that we know of, see trees as forest, family as 40 September - October 2005 caves.final 8/5/05 11:02 AM Page 41 others, see a moment’s respite, settle down, straighten hear the hidden bird’s song, goes the pillow and try to sleep. along, goes along constricted, self- Tomorrow’s another day hating, imploded, drags forward and that was all thousands in imagination of more, has no and thousands of years ago, time, has hatred, terror, power. myriad generations, even No light at the end of the tunnel. the stones must seem changed. � The gaps in time, the times one can’t account for, The guide speaks of music, the the practice it all took stalactites, stalagmites making a even to make such images, possible xylophone, and some the meanings still unclear Saturday night-like hoedown though one recognizes businesses, what, every three the subject, something has to four thousand years? One to be missed, overlooked. looks and looks and time is the variable, the determined No one simply turns on a light. as ever river, lost on the way, Oneself becomes image. drifted on, laps and continues. The echo’s got in front, The residuum is finally silence, begins again what’s over internal, one’s own mind constricted just at the moment it was done. to focus like any old camera No one can catch up, find fixed in its function. some place he’s never been to with friends he never had. Like all good questions, this one seems without answer, This is where it connects, leaves the so-called human not meaning anything one behind. It makes its own way can know. This is where and takes what it’s found one goes in and that’s what’s to find as its own and moves on. beyond any thought or habit, an arched, dark space, the rock, � and what survives of what’s left. It’s time to go to bed Copyright © 2005 by Robert Creeley again, shut the light o≠, Harvard Magazine 41.
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