Free A Wave by John Ashbery Page B

promoter, are few,
    But they last well,
    Yielding up their appearances for form
    Much later than the others. Forgetting about “love”
    For a moment puts one miles ahead, on the steppe or desert
    Whose precise distance as it feels I
    Want to emphasize and estimate. Because
    We will all have to walk back this way
    A second time, and not to know it then, not
    To number each straggling piece of sagebrush
    Is to sleep before evening, and well into the night
    That always coaxes us out, smooths out our troubles and puts us back to bed again.
    All those days had a dumb clarity that was about getting out
    Into a remembered environment. The headlines and economy
    Would refresh for a moment as you look back over the heap
    Of rusted box-springs with water under them, and then,
    Like sliding up to a door or a peephole a tremendous advantage
    Would burst like a bubble. Toys as solemn and knotted as books
    Assert themselves first, leading down through a delicate landscape
    Of reminders to be better next time to a damp place on my hip,
    And this would spell out a warm business letter urging us
    All to return to our senses, to the matter of the day
    That was ending now. And no special sense of decline ensued
    But perhaps a few moments of music of such tact and weariness
    That one awakens with a new sense of purpose: more things to be done
    And the just-sufficient tools to begin doing them
    While awaiting further orders that must materialize soon
    Whether in the sand-pit with frightened chickens running around
    Or on a large table in a house deep in the country with messages
    Pinned to the walls and a sense of plainness quite unlike
    Any other waiting. I am prepared to deal with this
    While putting together notes related to the question of love
    For the many, for two people at once, and for myself
    In a time of need unlike those that have arisen so far.
    And some day perhaps the discussion that has to come
    In order for us to start feeling any of it before we even
    Start to think about it will arrive in a new weather
    Nobody can imagine but which will happen just as the ages
    Have happened without causing total consternation,
    Will take place in a night, long before sleep and the love
    That comes then, breathing mystery back into all the sterile
    Living that had to lead up to it. Moments as clear as water
    Splashing on a rock in the sun, though in darkness, and then
    Sleep has to affirm it and the body is fresh again,
    For the trials and dangerous situations that any love,
    However well-meaning, has to use as terms in the argument
    That is the reflexive play of our living and being lost
    And then changed again, a harmless fantasy that must grow
    Progressively serious, and soon state its case succinctly
    And dangerously, and we sit down to the table again
    Noting the grain of the wood this time and how it pushes through
    The pad we are writing on and becomes part of what is written.
    Not until it starts to stink does the inevitable happen.
    Moving on we approached the top
    Of the thing, only it was dark and no one could see,
    Only somebody said it was a miracle we had gotten past the
    Previous phase, now faced with each other’s conflicting
    Wishes and the hope for a certain peace, so this would be
    Our box and we would stay in it for as long
    As we found it comfortable, for the broken desires
    Inside were as nothing to the steeply shelving terrain outside,
    And morning would arrange everything. So my first impulse
    Came, stayed awhile, and left, leaving behind
    Nothing of itself, no whisper. The days now move
    From left to right and back across this stage and no one
    Notices anything unusual. Meanwhile I have turned back
    Into that dream of rubble that was the city of our starting out.
    No one advises me; the great tenuous clouds of the desert
    Sky visit it and they barely touch, so pleasing in the
    Immense solitude are the tracks of those who wander and continue
    On their route, certain that day will end soon and that night will then