Authors: Louise Glück
except the wildness people call nature,
the chaos that takes over.
You took me to a place
where I could see the evil in my character
and left me there.
The abandoned cat
wails in the empty bedchamber.
PARABLE OF THE DOVE
A dove lived in a village.
When it opened its mouth
sweetness came out, sound
like a silver light around
the cherry bough. But
the dove wasn't satisfied.
It saw the villagers
gathered to listen under
the blossoming tree.
It didn't think: I
am higher than they are.
It wanted to walk among them,
to experience the violence of human feeling,
in part for its song's sake.
So it became human.
It found passion, it found violence,
first conflated, then
as separate emotions
and these were not
contained by music. Thus
its song changed,
the sweet notes of its longing to be human
soured and flattened. Then
the world drew back; the mutant
fell from love
as from the cherry branch,
it fell stained with the bloody
fruit of the tree.
So it is true after all, not merely
a rule of art:
change your form and you change your nature.
And time does this to us.
TELEMACHUS' DILEMMA
I can never decide
what to write on
my parents' tomb. I know
what he wants: he wants
beloved,
which is
certainly to the point, particularly
if we count all
the women. But
that leaves my mother
out in the cold. She tells me
this doesn't matter to her
in the least; she prefers
to be represented by
her own achievement. It seems
tactless to remind them
that one does not
honor the dead by perpetuating
their vanities, their
projections of themselves.
My own taste dictates
accuracy without
garrulousness; they are
my parents, consequently
I see them together,
sometimes inclining to
husband and wife,
other times
to
opposing forces.
MEADOWLANDS
3
           How could the Giants name
           that place the Meadowlands? It has
           about as much in common with a pasture
           as would the inside of an oven.
New Jersey
was rural. They want you
to remember that.
Simms
was not a thug. LT
was not a thug.
           What I think is we should
           look at our surroundings
           realistically, for what they are
           in the present.
That's what
I tell you about the house.
No giant
would talk the way you talk.
You'd be a nicer person
if you were a fan of something.
When you do that with your mouth
you look like your mother.
You know what they are?
Kings among men.
           So what king
           fired Simms?
THE ROCK
Insignia
of the earth's
terrible recesses, spirit
of darkness, of
the criminal mind, I feel
certain there is within you
something human, to be
approached in speech. How else
did you approach Eve
with your addictive
information? I have paid
bitterly for her
lapse, therefore
attend to me. Tell me
how you live in hell,
what is required in hell,
for I would send
my beloved there. Not
of course forever:
I may want him
back sometime, not
permanently harmed but
severely chastened,
as he has not been, here
on the surface. What
shall I give him for
protection, what
shield that will not
wholly screen him? You must be
his guide and master: help him
shed his skin
as you do, though in this case
we want him
older underneath, maybe
a little mousy. I feel confident
you understand these
subtletiesâyou seem
so interested, you do not
slide back under your rock! Oh
I am sure we are somehow related
even if you are not
human; perhaps I have
the soul of a reptile after all.
CIRCE'S POWER
I never turned anyone into a pig.
Some people are pigs; I make them
look like pigs.
I'm sick of your world
that lets the outside disguise the inside.
Your men weren't bad men;
undisciplined life
did that to them. As pigs,
under the care of
me and my ladies, they
sweetened right up.
Then I reversed the spell,
showing you my goodness
as well as my power. I saw
we could be happy here,
as men and women are
when their needs are simple. In the same breath,
I foresaw your departure,
your men with my help braving
the crying and pounding sea. You think
a few tears upset me? My friend,
every sorceress is
a pragmatist at heart; nobody
sees essence who can't
face limitation. If I wanted only to hold you
I could hold you prisoner.
TELEMACHUS' FANTASY
Sometimes I wonder about my father's
years on those islands: why
was he so attractive
to women? He was in straits then, I suppose
desperate. I believe
women like to see a man
still whole, still standing, but
about to go to pieces: such
disintegration reminds them
of passion. I think of them as living
their whole lives
completely undressed. It must have
dazzled him, I think, women
so much younger than he was
evidently wild for him, ready
to do anything he wished. Is it
fortunate to encounter circumstances
so responsive to one's own will, to live
so many years
unquestioned, unthwarted? One
would have to believe oneself
entirely good or worthy. I
suppose in time either
one becomes a monster or
the beloved sees what one is. I never
wish for my father's life
nor have I any idea
what he sacrificed
to survive that moment. Less dangerous
to believe he was drawn to them
and so stayed
to see who they were. I think, though,
as an imaginative man
to some extent he
became who they were.
PARABLE OF FLIGHT
A flock of birds leaving the side of the mountain.
Black against the spring evening, bronze in early summer,
rising over blank lake water.
Why is the young man disturbed suddenly,
his attention slipping from his companion?
His heart is no longer wholly divided; he's trying to think
how to say this compassionately.
Now we hear the voices of the others, moving through the library
toward the veranda, the summer porch; we see them
taking their usual places on the various hammocks and chairs,
the white wood chairs of the old house, rearranging
the striped cushions.
Does it matter where the birds go? Does it even matter
what species they are?
They leave here, that's the point,
first their bodies, then their sad cries.
And from that moment, cease to exist for us.
You must learn to think of our passion that way.
Each kiss was real, then
each kiss left the face of the earth.
ODYSSEUS' DECISION
The great man turns his back on the island.
Now he will not die in paradise
nor hear again
the lutes of paradise among the olive trees,
by the clear pools under the cypresses. Time
begins now, in which he hears again
that pulse which is the narrative
sea, at dawn when its pull is strongest.
What has brought us here
will lead us away; our ship
sways in the tinted harbor water.
Now the spell is ended.
Give him back his life,
sea that can only move forward.
NOSTOS
There was an apple tree in the yardâ
this would have been
forty years agoâbehind,
only meadow. Drifts
of crocus in the damp grass.
I stood at that window:
late April. Spring
flowers in the neighbor's yard.
How many times, really, did the tree
flower on my birthday,
the exact day, not
before, not after? Substitution
of the immutable
for the shifting, the evolving.
Substitution of the image
for relentless earth. What
do I know of this place,
the role of the tree for decades
taken by a bonsai, voices
rising from the tennis courtsâ
Fields. Smell of the tall grass, new cut.
As one expects of a lyric poet.
We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.
THE BUTTERFLY
Look, a butterfly. Did you make a wish?
           You don't wish on butterflies.
You do so. Did you make one?
           Yes.
It doesn't count.
CIRCE'S TORMENT
I regret bitterly
the years of loving you in both
your presence and absence, regret
the law, the vocation
that forbid me to keep you, the sea
a sheet of glass, the sun-bleached
beauty of the Greek ships: how
could I have power if
I had no wish
to transform you: as
you loved my body,
as you found there
passion we held above
all other gifts, in that single moment
over honor and hope, over
loyalty, in the name of that bond
I refuse you
such feeling for your wife
as will let you
rest with her, I refuse you
sleep again
if I cannot have you.
CIRCE'S GRIEF
In the end, I made myself
known to your wife as
a god would, in her own house, in
Ithaca, a voice
without a body: she
paused in her weaving, her head turning
first to the right, then left
though it was hopeless of course
to trace that sound to any
objective source: I doubt
she will return to her loom
with what she knows now. When
you see her again, tell her
this is how a god says goodbye:
if I am in her head forever
I am in your life forever.
PENELOPE'S STUBBORNNESS
A bird comes to the window. It's a mistake
to think of them
as birds, they are so often
messengers. That is why, once they
plummet to the sill, they sit
so perfectly still, to mock
patience, lifting their heads to sing
poor lady, poor lady,
their three-note
warning, later flying
like a dark cloud from the sill to the olive grove.
But who would send such a weightless being
to judge my life? My thoughts are deep
and my memory long; why would I envy such freedom
when I have humanity? Those
with the smallest hearts have
the greatest freedom.
TELEMACHUS' CONFESSION
They
were not better off
when he left; ultimately
I was better off. This
amazed me, not because I was convinced
I needed them both but because
long into adulthood I retained
something of the child's
hunger for ritual. How else address
that sense of being
insufficiently loved? Possibly
all children are
insufficiently loved; I
wouldn't know. But all along
they each wanted something
different from me: having
to fabricate the being
each required in any
given moment was
less draining than
having to be
two people. And after awhile
I realized I
was
actually a person; I had
my own voice, my own perceptions, though
I came to them late. I no longer regret
the terrible moment in the fields,
the ploy that took
my father away. My mother
grieves enough for us all.
VOID
I figured out why you won't buy furniture.
You won't buy furniture because you're depressed.
I'll tell you what's wrong with you: you're not
gregarious. You should
look at yourself; the only time you're totally happy
is when you cut up a chicken.
Why can't we talk about what I want to talk about?
Why do you always change the subject?
You hurt my feelings. I do
not
mistake
reiteration for analysis.
You should take one of those chemicals,
maybe you'd write more.
Maybe you have some kind of void syndrome.
You know why you cook? Because
you like control. A person who cooks is a person who likes