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I
Wherein is Described a Man, Alone, Who Wakes in the Night.
A man alone, awake again in the dark, the dark of night. Light from
the parking lot, a shape on the wall, the same shape always at the
same time, cut through with the lines of a shadowy tree. A feeling
of breath, of being breathed. Sound: of movement, of nervous struggle,
breath caught, breaths catching; panic, animal panic. Sound, again
from above, above in the dark.
He has been reading, trying to read,
reading Rilke, the Duino Elegies, those Elegies, that poetry (in
the half-light of a Nazi cell Bonhoeffer reads his death in these
coded words and in the coming darkness refuses to bargain, refuses
to exchange questions for warnings--that poetry could do something,
anything). They are full these words, these Elegies; so full, full
of telling. But for him they are too full, filled up, tell nothing;
they overflow, always overflowing. The Elegies leave no room for
others, no room for him who reads them, reads them with the windows
open in an empty room. The moon rises, rises in the east, again
and again--and again, the noises from above. Like heavy wine
on a hot night the Elegies leave him seeing the world from the back
of a dark room.
II
Wherein is Revealed One of the Uses of Poetry
He holds a book of poetry in his left hand, sees Rilke standing
there in another empty room filled only with himself and the idea
of love, a love for her, impossible her. He (him, not Rilke) feels
the slight weight in his left hand grown suddenly heavy (Bonhoeffer
grown heavy at the end of a rope, at the end of the war), and recoils
from it, this banal weight, throws the Elegies at the ceiling. The
noises stop. He, the first man, alone, says these words, out loud
in the night: "But I am not Bonhoeffer. I am not Rilke. I am
not." He says these words, then realizes (smiles in the dark),
realizes he has thrown Rilke at a family of raccoons in the ceiling
(poetry that has done something, anything).
III
Wherein is Related the Day After a Dream and the Man Who Makes
Bets With Himself
Sleeping now the man dreams of younger winters, and of a single
shark's fin. The day after this dream (of a shark's fin, lonely
and scarred above the grey snow) he leaves his house. He leaves
his house and sees things, all things, as contests, wins and losses;
so he bets, bets with himself, bets on everything, wagers on the
outcome of each moment: the attitude of a bird upon landing, the
bus seat chosen by a man who hurries, the change of a light from
green to yellow to red, the shift of a cotton skirt, the next use
of a useless word, a dropped glove, the clatter of cutlery on the
other side of a room--everywhere the possibility of divagation;
above all else the beauty of the aleatory.
A need then, his need, to divide,
to organize, a need to expose the rough seams of fate. The settling
and resetting of internal wagers--a way to participate, a way
to owe himself something. His debt mounts, he remembers everything
and wonders at all this unobserved loss, wonders if it counts or
not, if it counts towards something--he bets and loses, again
and again, loses again.
IV
Wherein a Part of his Past, a Beginning and Ending, is Revealed
He
is on his side. Can feel the grit in the bed through the worn fabric
of his old corduroys. She is eating toast with jam, goes to kiss
the pale band of exposed skin that shines on his body from right
hip to small of back. He can think only of the crumbs stuck to her
lips, the crumbs that will stick to his skin. He recoils. She rises
in silence and goes into the bathroom. This is the beginning of
their last day.
They'd met at the back of a
large room, had both sought the same defensible position. She claimed
as an ancestor a black baseball player who'd pretended to
be white in order to play in the major leagues; he said he believed
her and so was granted a single kiss anywhere on her body. He chose
the palm of her left hand, and from there grew that which would
kill them both.
V
Wherein Are Related the Urban Perlustrations of a Man Who Keeps
a Record of His Loss
So he walks; he walks and keeps a tally in his head, a record of
loss--as one marks days on the wall of a cell. He walks through
painterly scenes, familiar scenes, scenes filled with light that
he knows to be important and beautiful: great dark buildings at
dusk etched round with empty streets; pale muscular women in shirt
sleeves, yellow steam rising from their bodies; gapped-tooth train
cars left alone, lonely at the edge of coppergreen forests; girning
half-hidden faces, colourless behind panes of cracked glass. He
walks through shadow, of different type and kind, with colour, without
(an absence of light he knows to be important). He walks along many
streets, never two so parallel they cannot meet. He tries never
to repeat himself, on a street, in a scene; he knows this city,
knows it moment upon painted moment, knows it cannot bear another
instant of repetition--he knows all of this in the very fist
of his brain.
VI
Wherein Are Related the Generative Ruminations of a Man Who
Walks and Sees Things in the Shadow of a Large Building
He walks, thinks of her, she, loved by Rilke, by him, by anyone;
he walks, thinks of her, creates, begins to create, creates her
(as one might create the noise of an animal in the ceiling or the
weight of a hanged man in the left hand). He sees her there, a half
creation, his, half-created, sees her in one shadow, then another,
sees her there standing--he walks toward her, stands close
to her in the darkness of a great building, their breath above them
spinning.
VII
Wherein are Related the Words Spoken by the Man to the Woman
He thinks, thinks these words, can only think these words: the
face of my beloved turned to me at dusk: said nothing, said nothing.
He thinks these words, finds now he is saying them, saying them
in the dark of the great building, saying them, finally, to her.
Finally and again to her.
VIII
Wherein is Related the Answer of the Woman to the Words Spoken
by the Man
And she, in the dark, without light, answers, can finally answer;
and so answering thinks, then says, says again, says again to him:
each small breath, each small breath: imperfect rehearsal for
imperfect death. |
