Collecte Works (39 page)

Adams differed: What is freedom

to their thousands upon thousands

who cannot read or write—

impracticable as for the Elephants Lions

Tigers Panthers Wolves and Bears

in the Royal Menagerie of Versailles

Our minister at Paris: Lafayette

gave dinner at my house ten days before

the fall of the Bastille

The argument at table
disfigured

by no tinsel
—cool

as Xenophon Plato Cicero

2

Adams to the unexploding projectile

from the forest of Virginia:
Where was you—

Jefferson said Dear friend, I was Stoic-trained

but longed for Tranquility—

Monticello, Horace, Epicurus

I value the passions

(the senses stimulate the mind)

though yours drew you away from me

Friend Acrid to his friend Jefferson:

—no doubt you was fast asleep

in philosophical Tranquility

when ten thousand People paraded

the streets of Philadelphia

Katharine Anne

A poor poet
divining Gail

The baby looked toward me

and I was born—

to sound, light

lift, life

beyond my life

She wiggles her toe

I grow

I go to school to her

and she to me

and to Bonnie

War

The trees full of snipers, the new kind

              of bird

Men on the hunt for Russian furs

       for Ukrainian sausage

                    and Chinese girls

They floated past a crescent moon

               to Sicily—

strings of diminished pearls

       In each pearl-parachute

                     a tommy gun

The Russian—only a man from Georgia

               USSR

could dance like that

        My baby son?—in some

                      secret zone

Harpsichord & Salt Fish

THOMAS JEFFERSON

I

My wife is ill!

And I sit

               waiting

for a quorum

II

Fast ride

his horse collapsed

Now
he
saddled walked

Borrowed a farmer's

unbroken colt

To Richmond

Richmond How stop—

Arnold's redcoats

there

III

Elk Hill destroyed—

Cornwallis

carried off 30 slaves

Jefferson:

Were it to give them freedom

he'd have done right

IV

Latin and Greek

my tools

to understand

humanity

I rode horse

away from a monarch

to an enchanting

philosophy

V

The South of France

Roman temple

“simple and sublime”

Maria Cosway

          harpist

on his mind

white column

and arch

VI

To daughter Patsy: Read—

read Livy

No person full of work

was ever hysterical

Know music, history

dancing

(I calculate 14 to 1

in marriage

she will draw

a blockhead)

Science also

Patsy

VII

Agreed with Adams:

send spermaceti oil to Portugal

for their church candles

(light enough to banish mysteries?:

three are one and one is three

and yet the one not three

and the three not one)

and send salt fish

U.S. salt fish preferred

above all other

VIII

Jefferson of Patrick Henry

backwoods fiddler statesman:

“He spoke as Homer wrote”

Henry eyed our minister at Paris—

the Bill of Rights hassle—

“he remembers…

in splendor and dissipation

he thinks yet of bills of rights”

IX

True, French frills and lace

for Jefferson, sword and belt

but follow the Court to Fontainebleau

he could not—

house rent would have left him

nothing to eat

…

He bowed to everyone he met

and talked with arms folded

He could be trimmed

by a two-month migraine

and yet

             stand up

X

Dear Polly:

I said No—no frost

in Virginia—the strawberries

were safe

I'd have heard—I'm in that kind

of correspondence

with a young daughter—

if they were not

Now I must retract

I shrink from it

XI

Political honors

              “splendid torments”

“If one could establish

              an absolute power

of silence over oneself”

When I set out for Monticello

         (my grandchildren

                   will they know me?)

How are my young

                        chestnut trees—

XII

Hamilton and the bankers

would make my country Carthage

I am abandoning the rich—

their dinner parties—

I shall eat my simlins

with the class of science

or not at all

Next year the last of labors

among conflicting parties

Then my family

we shall sow our cabbages

together

XIII

Delicious flower

of the acacia

or rather

Mimosa Nilotica

from Mr. Lomax

XIV

Polly Jefferson, 8, had crossed

to father and sister in Paris

by way of London—Abigail

embraced her—Adams said

“in all my life I never saw

more charming child”

Death of Polly, 25,

Monticello

XV

My harpsichord

my alabaster vase

and bridle bit

bound for Alexandria

Virginia

The good sea weather

of retirement

The drift and suck

and die-down of life

but there is land

XVI

These were my passions:

Monticello and the villa-temples

I passed on to carpenters

bricklayers what I knew

and to an Italian sculptor

how to turn a volute

on a pillar

You may approach the campus rotunda

from lower to upper terrace

Cicero had levels

XVII

John Adams' eyes

               dimming

Tom Jefferson's rheumatism

                               cantering

XVIII

Ah soon must Monticello be lost

                    to debts

    and Jefferson himself

                                           to death

XIX

Mind leaving, let body leave

Let dome live, spherical dome

and colonnade

Martha (Patsy) stay

“The Committee of Safety

must be warned”

Stay youth—Anne and Ellen

all my books, the bantams

and the seeds of the senega root

The Ballad of Basil

They sank the sea

     All land

               enemy

He saw his boats stand

     and he

              off the floor

of that cold jail

     (would not fight

               their war)

sailed anyway

      Villon went along

               Chomei

Dante

     and the Persian

              Firdusi—

rigging

      for his own

               singing

Wilderness

You are the man

You are my other country

and I find it hard going

You are the prickly pear

You are the sudden violent storm

the torrent to raise the river

to float the wounded doe

Consider

the alliance—