Koethe - North Point North

In times small room Whatever lies beyond its borders Couldnt have been, like an imaginary perfume Nobody knows how To even dream of again. I suppose it was an ordinary day In the extraordinary world where Nothing ever happens, when in something like the way A poem begins I entered upon a street Id never imagined before, all the while Concealed by that close sense of self I know now is my true home, and by a passive style That seemed to repeat My name, that tried to consume My entire world, that brought me to the entry Of a small hotel where an image Of my own face stared at me from another country, From another room. 2. Expulsion from the Garden Its hard to remember one was ever there, Or what was supposed to be so great about it. Each morning a newly minted sun rose In a new sky, and birdsong filled the air. There were all these things to name, and no sex.

The children took what God had given them A world held in common, a form of life Without sin or moral complexity, A vernal paradise complete with snakes And sold it all for a song, for the glory Of the knowledge contained in the fatal apple. At any rate, thats the official story. In Masaccios fresco in the Brancacci Chapel The figures are smaller than youd expect And lack context, and seem all the more tragic. The Garden is implicit in their faces, Depicted through the evasive magic Of the unpresented. Eves arm is slack And hides her sex. There isnt much to see Beyond that, for the important questions, The questions to which one constantly comes back, Arent about their lost, undepicted home, But the ones framed by their distorted mouths: What are we now? What will we become? Think of it as whatever state preceded The present moment, this prison of the self.

The idea of the Garden is the idea Of something tangible which has receded Into stories, into poetry. As one ages, it becomes less a matter Of great intervals than of minor moments Much like todays, which times strange geometry Has rendered unreal. And yet the question, Raised anew each day, is the same one, Though the person raising it isnt the same: What am I now? What have I become? 3. Duomo Something hung in the air, settled in my mind And stayed there. I sometimes wonder What I set about to find, and what intention, However tentative, hid behind the veil That evening in the dormitory, and is hiding still Behind each days interrogation, each successive station On this road Ive followed now for almost forty years. It isnt poetry, for the poems are just a pretext For a condition I have no name for, floating beyond language Like the thought of heaven, but less defined.

I kept it to myself until I thought it spoke to me In my own voice, in words in which I recognized my name. I wasnt there. The streets Id walked through just a week ago Were empty, there was silence in the square In front of the cathedral, and the light in the Galleria Was the clear light of a dream, of a fixed flame. The places I had seen were places on a page. The person I had been was sitting in a room, Dreaming of a distant city and a different room And a moment when the world seemed old again, and strange. I find it hard to talk about myself directly.

The things I say are true, and yet they feel like exercises In evasion, with the ground shifting beneath my feet As the subject changes with each changing phrase. The cathedral wasnt tall, but it dominated the square Like a Gothic wedding cake, its elaborate facade Masking a plain interior, much simpler than Chartres or Notre Dames. Standing in the vault I had the sense of being somewhere else, Of being someone else, of floating free of the contingencies Of personality and circumstance that bore my name. I went outside and climbed the stairs to the roof. Behind the spires the old stone shapes gave way to office towers and factories And then the suburbs beyond, all melting into air, into mere air, Leaving just the earth, and the thought of something watching from afar. I climbed back down and went inside.

The sense of dislocation That Id felt at first felt fainter now, as things resumed their proper order. There were vendors selling guidebooks, and people talking. Somewhere in the gloom a prayer began. I stared up at the dome One last time, and then walked out into the sunlight And the anonymity and freedom of the crowded square.