Free Poems 1962-2012 by Louise Glück Page B

there, standing in our midst?

THE RED POPPY
    The great thing
    is not having
    a mind. Feelings:
    oh, I have those; they
    govern me. I have
    a lord in heaven
    called the sun, and open
    for him, showing him
    the fire of my own heart, fire
    like his presence.
    What could such glory be
    if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
    were you like me once, long ago,
    before you were human? Did you
    permit yourselves
    to open once, who would never
    open again? Because in truth
    I am speaking now
    the way you do. I speak
    because I am shattered.

CLOVER
    What is dispersed
    among us, which you call
    the sign of blessedness
    although it is, like us,
    a weed, a thing
    to be rooted out—
    by what logic
    do you hoard
    a single tendril
    of something you want
    dead?
    If there is any presence among us
    so powerful, should it not
    multiply, in service
    of the adored garden?
    You should be asking
    these questions yourself,
    not leaving them
    to your victims. You should know
    that when you swagger among us
    I hear two voices speaking,
    one your spirit, one
    the acts of your hands.

MATINS
    Not the sun merely but the earth
    itself shines, white fire
    leaping from the showy mountains
    and the flat road
    shimmering in early morning: is this
    for us only, to induce
    response, or are you
    stirred also, helpless
    to control yourself
    in earth’s presence—I am ashamed
    at what I thought you were,
    distant from us, regarding us
    as an experiment: it is
    a bitter thing to be
    the disposable animal,
    a bitter thing. Dear friend,
    dear trembling partner, what
    surprises you most in what you feel,
    earth’s radiance or your own delight?
    For me, always
    the delight is the surprise.

HEAVEN AND EARTH
    Where one finishes, the other begins.
    On top, a band of blue; underneath,
    a band of green and gold, green and deep rose.
    John stands at the horizon: he wants
    both at once, he wants
    everything at once.
    The extremes are easy. Only
    the middle is a puzzle. Midsummer—
    everything is possible.
    Meaning: never again will life end.
    How can I leave my husband
    standing in the garden
    dreaming this sort of thing, holding
    his rake, triumphantly
    preparing to announce this discovery
    as the fire of the summer sun
    truly does stall
    being entirely contained by
    the burning maples
    at the garden’s border.

THE DOORWAY
    I wanted to stay as I was,
    still as the world is never still,
    not in midsummer but the moment before
    the first flower forms, the moment
    nothing is as yet past—
    not midsummer, the intoxicant,
    but late spring, the grass not yet
    high at the edge of the garden, the early tulips
    beginning to open—
    like a child hovering in a doorway, watching the others,
    the ones who go first,
    a tense cluster of limbs, alert to
    the failures of others, the public falterings
    with a child’s fierce confidence of imminent power
    preparing to defeat
    these weaknesses, to succumb
    to nothing, the time directly
    prior to flowering, the epoch of mastery
    before the appearance of the gift,
    before possession.

MIDSUMMER
    How can I help you when you all want
    different things—sunlight and shadow,
    moist darkness, dry heat—
    Listen to yourselves, vying with one another—
    And you wonder
    why I despair of you,
    you think something could fuse you into a whole—
    the still air of high summer
    tangled with a thousand voices
    each calling out
    some need, some absolute
    and in that name continually
    strangling each other
    in the open field—
    For what? For space and air?
    The privilege of being
    single in the eyes of heaven?
    You were not intended
    to be unique. You were
    my embodiment, all diversity
    not what you think you see
    searching the bright sky over the field,
    your incidental souls
    fixed like telescopes on some
    enlargement of yourselves—
    Why would I make you if I meant
    to limit myself
    to the ascendant sign,
    the star, the fire, the fury?

VESPERS
    Once I believed in you; I planted a fig