Collected Poems books by alan stephens The Sum (1958, Alan Swallow) Between Matter and Principle (1963, Alan Swallow) The Heat Lightning (1967, Bowdoin College Museum of Art) Tree Meditation and Others (1970, Swallow Press) White River Poems (1976, Swallow Press) In Plain Air (1982, Swallow Press) Water Among the Stones (1987, privately printed) Stubble Burning (1988, Robert L. Barth) Goodbye Matilija (1992, Living Batch Press) The White Boat (1995, Buckner Press) Away from the Road (1998, Living Batch Press) Collected Poems (2012, Dowitcher Press) Selected Poems (2012, Dowitcher Press) Running at Hendry’s: Sonnets (2012, Dowitcher Press) Alan Stephens COLLECTED POEMS 1958–1998 Edited by A.A. Stephens Dowitcher Press Santa Barbara, California Acknowledgments are given to the original publishers. Copyright 2012 by A.A. Stephens alanstephenspoems.com All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Cover art: Tom Stephens Book design and composition: Valerie Brewster, Scribe Typography isbn 978-0-9857812-1-7 (hardback) isbn 978-0-9857812-0-0 (paper) 35798642 first printing Dowitcher Press www.dowitcherpress.com For Fran Contents Away from the Road (1998) Fragment on a Theme by Ausonius 5 The Teacher 5 Gerontic 6 Watching the Shorebirds that Winter Here 8 Back in 1946–47 8 Untitled 9 Two Pieces out of a Winter Morning 10 High Summer 11 Under Cricket Music 12 Homage to Gensei 14 Herders Moving a Flock Down Highway 395 15 A Memorial in the Neighborhood 16 Three Studies from Two Days 19 A Pull-out by the Sespe 20 Away from the Road 21 Sophocles: Antigone 332–372 24 A Last Time 25 The Fox 25 Refl ecting Pool 33 A Sip of the Manzana 40 Names of Trout Flies 43 vii The White Boat (1995) i long shadow time Long Shadow Instants at Hendry’s Beach 51 The Clubman 52 The Morning of Glenn Gould’s Funeral 52 ‘For the life of a man comes upon him slowly …’ 53 Old Man Afraid 53 The Watch Dog 54 Geron the Heron 54 ii some mountain poems Prologue: Variation on a Theme by Frost 55 A Passing Thought in the Cascades 56 An early spring day … 56 Manzana Cow and Dragonfl ies 57 Fall in Spring 58 A recent spur-of-the-moment hike … 59 iii over at the academy Martial of Bilbilis 61 So-and-so Reassesses Yeats 61 Reading 61 Fragment of the History of the West 62 Song 62 Professor Bath’s Talk on Shakespeare’s Sonnets 63 One Who Is Cultivated 63 Anthem for the New Institute 63 viii iv far from yoshitoshi A Few Aspects of the Moon Dusk — city and harbor lighting up below 64 Have to fi nd me a clump of grass 65 At last the big moon cleared the grove 65 How fi ne if Tsukioka … 65 Going to Pine Mountain again! 65 Smashed on the pavement up ahead 66 One for the laments our time begets 66 Out to mail a letter 66 At 3:00 a.m. out of bed 67 Darkness comes on … 67 This cold full moon … 68 I lie awake in the small hours 68 Well, moon, enough of these 69 Some-time-later Words 69 With a Half Hour to Revisit Yoshitoshi’s One Hundred Aspects of the Moon at the Museum The two scholars with their oarsman 70 Stillness of evening … 71 The courtier Fujiwara no Yasumasa stands 71 The ebbing moonlit sea has drawn 71 The child Kintoro … 72 Flooded with moonlight … 72 v two women in the middle distance The White Boat 73 Molly Baugh 76 ix vi odd pair ‘Is the Universe Trivial?’ 79 Ballad of the Subfusc Day 80 Water Among the Stones along the matilija (1987) An inordinate attachment 85 i. To My Matilija 86 ii. Festivity 88 iii. On a Hillside 88 iv. Catch and Release 89 v. Study of Wild Oats #1 90 vi. The Harbinger 91 vii. Study of a Baby Rattlesnake 92 viii. At the Concert, After a Day Up There 92 ix. Homage to W.C.W.: The Prickly Phlox 93 x. Visit 94 xi. Draft from the Matilija 94 xii. Study of Wild Oats #2: The Fisherman 96 xiii. John’s Lizard 97 xiv. A Leopard Lily 98 xv. In Late March Up There 99 xvi. The End of Something 100 xvii. Yucca whipplei 101 … and a low wind in the alder grove 102 x from Goodbye Matilija on the north fork (1992) Dream Vision 105 Recollection 113 After-words 114 from Stubble Burning (1988) These too, for Fran 117 At Charlotte 119 Geron Muses 122 Geron Among the Lit Reviews 122 Geron’s Guidance 122 The Two Fields, Where I Used to Live 122 Geron Stops Listening 124 Day Thoughts, Night Thoughts 124 Afterword 129 Geron at 3:00 a.m. 130 Geron’s Song 130 Night Piece 130 Geron’s Winter Walk 135 xi In Plain Air (1982) Note 139 winter dusks Autumn: Island 140 ________ at Eighty-Six 140 The Fall Plowing Back Home 141 The Man of Feeling 142 At Los Olivos and Alameda Padre Serra 143 Mid-October 148 Night Piece 149 A Light Rain in the Late Evening 150 a puff of smoke A Puff of Smoke 151 First Deposition 156 work Pure Perception 157 The Weather Man 157 The Gnomes 158 Work 158 Inside Inside 159 Late Song: Ambush 159 Second Deposition 160 and these And These 161 Five O’Clock 161 Dec. 19, 1975 162 xii The Study Window 162 March 16, 1976 162 The Window: in Time of Drought 163 A Young Slug on the Counter 164 Soliloquy 164 The Ross’s Gull 165 In the Canyon 166 Spring 168 End of September 168 Reader Listening 168 … and leaving, then 169 Third Deposition 170 toad sweat Fragment (… Self ) 171 Father and Child 172 Meeting Old Mr. Jim Porcupine 173 The Career 174 Winter Child 174 In the Habitat of the Magpie 175 The Accident 175 Near the Stairs 176 Fragment (… and still) 176 running at hendry’s Note 177 After Work: Foreword 178 1. Down Here After Being Kept Away … 178 2. Commotion 179 3. Liberté, Fraternité 179 4. Beach Litter 180 5. 180 6. The Pelican-watcher (1) 181 xiii 7. The Pelican-watcher (2) 181 8. Running with My Sons 182 9. Running with My Sons 182 10. More Hap 183 11. Delights of Winter Evenings Down Here 183 12. God-light 184 13. House 184 14. Running Late 185 15. Running Late, Having Held the Class … 185 16. Running Against a Cold Wind 186 17. And the Fat One Gripping a Bottle … 186 18. Running with a Poem from the Latest TLS … 187 19. Moon Measuring 187 20. Sonnet in Printer’s Greek 188 21. Death Song 188 22. Visitation 189 23. Colleague with a Notebook 189 24. Loiterer 190 25. The Big Wave 190 26. Running in America 191 27. Light Like the Beautiful Trout Fly Name … 192 28. Running in the Rain, High Tide 192 29. Christmas Down at the Mission 193 30. Freezing 193 31. Running in the Early January Cold 194 32. The House that Cliff -hangs 194 33. Willets under an Overcast 195 34. The Nympholept 195 35. The Bare Winter Beach 196 36. Running with Another TLS Poem … 196 37. Running in the Rain Again … 197 xiv 38. Running 198 39. Big Waves in Wind … 198 40. Old Rocks out in the Late Light 199 41. A Quiet Fourth 199 42. A Quiet Fourth 200 43. The Other Runner 200 44. Dog-days I 201 45. Dog-days II 201 46. Anniversary 202 47. The Partly-written Page 202 48. Company 203 49. The Rebecca Mae 203 50. Night-piece 204 50. continued. 204 51. Sanderlings Here 205 52. “Who prop, thou ask’st …” 205 53. Running with the Pollution 206 54. Slinking Off 206 55. Pelican Halcyon 207 56. Spell Breaking 207 57. Coming Down to Run in Dark and Fog 208 58. Heron Out There 208 59. The Honesty Boys 209 60. The Desolation Light 210 61. News 210 62. Heron Shapes at Dusk 211 63. Noon Swimmers, Plovers … 211 64. Heron Totem 212 65. Politics: Reading the Papers 212 66. Sunday Run: Starting Out 213 67. In Public: Liberté, Fraternité 213 xv 68. What the Sea Muttered 214 69. What the Wind Hissed 214 70. Topophilia 215 Running at Sundown and Dark 216 from Tree Meditation and Others (1970) Note 217 — suppose the words came in 219 To Fran 219 The White Dog Truth 220 The Three Sisters 220 The Green Cape, with Voices 221 Welcomer 227 Clearing 228 Variation from a Theme by Marsden Hartley 229 Desert 230 The Fugitive 230 One Morning 231 Moon, Rain 231 Various Presences 232 Home Rock 233 Surf Perch and Wandering Tatlers 233 A Breath 234 Late to Pray 234 Balances 235 Season 235 Cube Balanced on One Corner 236 As It Happens 236 xvi The Dragon of Things 237 Late February 240 Scribbling Poems on a Visit Home 240 Lore 241 Short Walk Alone 242 A Day in the Back Country 242 Sounds 247 The Heavily Watered Whiskey … 248 The Heat Lightning (1967) i. First Twenty-four Hours 251 ii. Second Evening 253 iii. Tree Meditation 254 iv. Elegy: The Old Man 262 v. The Summer 264 vi. Unattended 266 vii. The ‘Pasture’ 266 viii. The Trophy 268 from Between Matter and Principle (1963) Be with me … 273 Moments in a Glade 273 One of the Mantises 275 My Friend the Motorcyclist 275 Outside the House, Under Moonlight 276 xvii The Elephants: Leconte de Lisle 277 A Cherry Tree 278 A Cedar 278 Socrates Entranced 279 Hap 281 The Open World 282 from The Sum (1958) A Walk in the Void 287 The Baby Cockatrice 287 The Daimon’s Advice 288 The Death of a Buff alo 289 Viatic 289 The Vanishing Act 295 Small Song 296 Two Photographs of an Old Poet 296 “You Need a Change of Scene” 297 White River Poems (1976) Note 299 book one Conversation with Shades 301 xviii book two what happened: questions and answers Prologue 308 i.