WHEN SPRING COMES. . . ~

D O U G L A S      C R A S E

When Spring Comes First
To West 21st Street


The day we discovered the world
Was the day it had also been there all the time,
Furious to be documented in the seasons which grow on us
So unnoticeably. At Montauk the lighthouse again
Is closer to the sea and above Dyckman Street
The nets have been spread to catch the running shad,
Fewer though not less vigorous than they used to be.
In the bookstores even the lichens are said
To be in danger now (the lichens, think of that)
But in the city we've got the sparrows going at it
Flagrante deluxe before our eyes, apparently
Unembarrassed by DDT. It must be spring
And the blood badgering underneath the skin
Is one of the spring ephemerals perking up
Before the overpowering shade of summer does it in.
Considering its circumstance, the smell of sweet bay
In the Bronx is close to sickening in sentiment:
What have we done? Is it true the English
Could have called Long Island as they did, Eden?
Anyway, if the seas keep warming up it will all be gone
And it may be our sense of this that unlocks the day,
Bringing trout lilies and marsh marigolds into mind
As the last of the concerts are letting out uptown,
And this that brings 800 to watch the egrets
In Jamaica Bay (one hundredth of a percent:
Viewed thus, "population per capita" is really small).
Stolen, our love of the world
Must be stolen from the world the way hepaticas
Steal light from the climax forest
Where alone they are able to grow. Too much with us
And too soon, the world extends its canopy
To alter the feel as well as color of the air.
How much time we have is hard to say
But, swift as the camera's shutter when it flowers,
That's how swift we're going to have to be
As the bloom of swamp maples reddens into the past
Just like the sun. The speed of the seasons
And their slant remain untouched and unidentified
Until the beauty of something beautiful makes the day.


—————————
Douglas Crase
The Revisionist
Litte, Brown 1981

ROBERT DUNCAN & JOHN WIENERS ~

SING A SONG OF BASIE ~

GWENDOLYN BROOKS ~

WHERE ~

Where

down

along

slipped

moss dark

hollow never

too wide so

we can leap

back &

forth I

like to see

your hair

brighten

through the

hemlocks

stream

He Told Her I Was Very Sore

from pounding spikes upward

all day into old beams

and I am

out in the sun

resting flat on a pile of fresh planks I see

her come up through the woods trail to

massage my troubled shoulders

she is golden

green leaf top blouse

a very easy stride and gentleness

watching her come closer I am nearly healed

I See Forever

Although chilly

We were there at daylight

And walked from

Where you slipped off your shoes

Nothing but water — a salt air —

The toss of a hill

Where we sat, ladling these small stones

Even smaller

Which quickly filled the pockets of your dress

I Cut A Massive Maple Tree Down

I cut a massive maple tree down

Long long ago

I sculptured the tree stump into a chair

I sat up there

I also sat up there with my baby son

I sat up there with my love

I later saw my love sitting up there alone in the sun

She had a checkered red and black wool shirt

Thrown with the blondest hair

Then a chipmunk sat there for longer than you would think

And today I tore the carbonized tissue stump apart with my hands

All of it, very easily

And my son visited us with his wife for part of the afternoon

And in a week she was gone

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

 

RICHARD WILBUR & ROBERT LOWELL ~

ADVENIAT ~

M O R E

The tree farm's endless

rows of pines — my road to

his nursing home

There it was —

the old man's face

at a newsstand in Florence

I don't know

who's cutting our names

into the headstone

Bird tracks

in snow —

Dear Francis

Eyes shut tight —

there's

the old place

Finally graceful —

driftwood on

an iced-in shore

A small bird's song

the furnace

switches on

———————————

from Adveniat

John Martone

Red Moon Press

2018

DRIFTER'S ESCAPE ~

CHASING PIRATES ~

JAZZ AND POP ~

A beautifully made book and illustrated

with deeply appraised essays of 57 albums

that should have you playing the albums

as you read ~

Superb!

R E A D      M E

CRISIS ~

CHILDREN OF THE MIDDLE WATERS ~

ORPHIC PARIS ~

I was going to include a recent interview with Henri Cole

but I found the presentation by the interviewer so over wrought

and ruining the elegant spacing and timing of Cole's

own presentation that I left well alone.

This is a lovely book.

As is.

R E A D     M E

New York Review of Books

2018

AN INTERVIEW WITH HENRY MILLER (PART 2) ~

Folkways Records

AN INTERVIEW WITH HENRY MILLER (PART !) ~

Folkways Records

LIAM O' FLYNN ~

1945 ~ 2018

SEAMUS HEANEY ~

THIS LIFE ~

This Life

It’s just a rolled up candy wrapper or two or three. Gold foil ball. Since we eat little candy, when we do we play a game passing the rolled up foil back and forth to one another. Often as a playful hindrance. Down the front of her blouse. Down the back of my shirt. Under her bedroom pillow. In my boot. On her jar of yogurt in the refrigerator. In my cereal bowl. It won’t give up for days and days, and sometimes some weeks, until one or both of us forgets where we left the ball, and either the other didn’t find it or suddenly had to get back busy with real life. That damn real life. So what should we call this life?

In The Land Of Slush

They have been together and in love so long now

That when they think of an earlier life apart, it

Isn’t possible. Or it seems another life entirely.

After all it was childhood only before they met.

Somewhere within the love a child was born,

Came into his own, left. They returned to what

They had before the child was born as if wooded

Branches closed in together like wings of a large bird.

When he told her she was beautiful during a quiet

Meal, it was as if she had never heard the word before

Even though he brought it to her in every imaginable

Way each day. Walking together in a land of slush at

The end of winter in a  bleak town meant very little

When there is beauty. It could vanish in an instance

So don’t be bothered with those who hate you for it.

In that same instance others would grab it, gladly, and

You would be looking in. She carried a heavy package,

The rain was new spring but cold as snow, you held

The umbrella for her as you both walked, & talked.

Pal Goose

On that sunny day

I opened your pen door

And let you out —

You loved the sun

Sun on snow

Making tracks to the pond —

Because it got too busy

But I have no excuse how

I forgot to close your

Pen door and left home

Sometime in the evening

Faraway, thoughts to you and

The open door but I would get back

The moon was out, and you

Loved the moon —

The raccoon was out, and he

Hunts by the moon —

The next morning you were

Found dead with eyes open

Suddenly flat and huge on the snow

Too big for raccoon to even bother with

Whose blood-tracks tricky designed away

And then as if he noticed how obvious

Seemed to wash his murderous paws

Off in the snow and vanished

You were our third gander

In twenty years, flocks of

Geese once upon a time mixed

With ducks and chickens and when

Our rooster died you were the new

Rooster for the chickens —

It looked funny, it looked

Practical, you fit

I miss you now when I split

Wood and wait to hear your call

Loud and sudden and part of me

———————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

 

RED FLAG DRIVER ~

EARLY LEONARD COHEN ~

LET NO ONE JUDGE YOU ~

KENNETH PATCHEN READS WITH JAZZ ~

Folkways Records

FRANK O' HARA & ED SANDERS ~

HANG ME, OH HANG ME ~

BROTHER ANTONINUS & MICHAEL MCCLURE ~

EDDIE BOYD ~

DULCE MARIA LOYNAZ ~

XXVI

   You know a man by his love. Love is his natural fruit, the one most

his, the one most free from his surroundings. 

   Love is the only thing that buds, grows and ripens with all the

simplicity, purity and grace of an orange on an orange tree or a rose

on a rosebush.

   There are men who do not love, but nobody knows anything about

them. They have nothing to say to the anguish of the world.

   Love is man's reward. It is his birthmark. Like a red-hot iron,

it brands him. It makes it possible to pick him out of a crowd, to

recognize him, to know him.

   You cannot know a man by the pirouetting words he puts on like

so many colored sequins. You cannot know him by the work of his

hands or the work of his mind because it's life that bestows such

work or rejects it. Be it chance or be it destiny, life giveth and life

taketh away.

    There are many who pass straight through life because they

never turn to face the winds, and there are others who bend like a

bow to find their balance tin the storm, and there are still others who

project themselves beyond, through the wind, shot forth on the sharp,

quivering arrow within.

   The noble word is certainly prophetic. And a useful work gives

us hope. But only love reveals, in a rapid flash of light, the beauty of

a soul.

——————

Dulce Maria Loynaz

ABSOLUTE SOLITUDE

selected poems

translated from the Spanish by James O' Connor

Archipelago books, 2016

MOTORCYCLE ~

LORINE NIEDECKER (SPANISH) ~

A very handsome new edition of Lorine Niedecker

published in Spain as a bilingual companion ~

showcasing a seasoned sequence from 1928-1970.

Highly recommend.

R E A D      M O R E