The First Nobel Truth

The First Nobel Truth

Faithful mother…

perhaps after all it’s I who must try to save you.

So I will continue to set before you little bowls of colors

bright and pure if possible,

for what is needed in misfortune is a little order and beauty.

                                                            Czlaw Miloz

                                                from “My Faithful Mother Tongue”

Look—I’ve cut off the tongue—

            or left it lie on the floor

            of the mouth, a badger

            finally, a pine cone finally,

            stiff in its armor.  Who

            can talk about the world

            and how we live in it

            without words without using

            them?  Cellists.  Painters.

            Mute nuns, whose every

            step and breath exude

            prayer or is supposed

            to, or forgiveness, or is

            supposed to—but really it’s just

            cold butter slapped on moldy    

            bread and tearing it in two

            half for me and half for you

            and really it’s just teeth

            when you’re eating on the run—

            and when, after all these years

            it’s set down here or in the string

            and the draw of the bow or

            on the pinch and squeeze of

            nearly full tubes of viscous rage

            we can say brush or string or

            silence:

            every time I remember you I want

            to remember you differently. 

            I want the long driveways pocked

            with ruts and broken toys, the base-

            balls lost in the tall unmown

            grass beside to be smoothed out

            and found out.  I want all the shot

            dogs alive again and warm.  And

            loved. 

            I want bread and butter and straw-
            berry jam and the ooze of juice through

            the bone stone wall of my teeth.

            Wanting is too much, I think.  Wanting

            is changing what is utterly set, it is

            a chapped breast, uncapped after all

            these years, it is vast in its own

            cemetery.  But listen: here’s

            the beauty in standing at the foot

            of the tomb and asking you

            to come out.  You can

            say no.  Refuse.  You can change

            the whole scenario.  Or I can.

            I can play you paint you pray you

            the way a mouth softens, wets

            its lips, receives, after a long,

            long while, that kiss.  I’m telling you

            it’s possible.  All it takes

            is dying.  You did it.  On the cold

            linoleum floor your whole life

            relaxed like warm wax—all that

            was stiff before (and would be again)

            went soft in you, went, just went,

            and after all those years in your tower

            someone finally, the someone in you

            who still had a match, struck

            the stone wall and lit the nearly buried

            wick and stayed while it sputtered

            and coughed, while it licked the sides

            of its mouth, while it flamed and flamed

            and flamed, rose up the walls

            and caught you and whispered …

           

            yes, that’s the story I want to tell

            about you.  A different truth.  Free

            of bruise, or at least healed

            of them, and your wrists stitched

            and your tongue anchor weighed.

            And mine.  Only quietly—only

            penitently.  The shoals are just star-

            board.  And I am returning.