Free Some Other Garden by Jane Urquhart Page B

gondolas.
        He demands and receives a large cascade where each of his mistresses is represented in stone as either a goddess or a water nymph. More forests appear where once there was only mud and toads. These he sees from his bedrooms, though they are five miles away!
        He has broken the intimacy of rock and swamp wide open.
        Now he feels much better.
        Sleep.

TURNING BACK AT DUSK
    These are deceptive spaces
    windows bronze
a cold stone warms
    I’m trying to connect
the break in the horizon
moving distance after distance
    there are canals
thin as gold leaf
and dreams of fountains
collapsing at the edge
    trees that tremble
just beyond my hand
are miles and miles away
the oval mirror of the lake
impossible to reach
    I am trying to move
distance after distance
    turning back at dusk
my declaration of withdrawal
    I see the garden
as near to me
and as far away

 
     
     

    The Poisoned Shirt

     
     
     
    A third chamber, as it were the anteroom of the above, is correctly named the decaying chamber … the walls are enormously thick
.
    – Saint-Simon

SOME OTHER GARDEN
    The doctors come blindfolded
into the palace
    they deliver babies
borne by masked women
    anonymous screaming flesh
    children
pulled from the womb
torn from the arms
    the anonymous
flesh of the palace
taken to grow in
some other garden
    next evening
the women perform at the ball
prepare their cards for the table
    tiny fists
close up in their brains

THE PORCELAIN TRIANON
    The only thing I ever asked
was porcelain
a playhouse here
among the trees
    you gave me faience
pretending to be porcelain
    see the pools outside the door
blue and white
blue and white
convince me that is porcelain
    porcelain and privacy
you gave me a forest of spyglasses
focusing on faience
    blue and white
convince me this is porcelain
    and permanence
unfolding here without
your strict approval
I want to keep
my small false castle
built within the time
frame of a miracle
    the tiny garden with its urns
blue and white
    you tear it down
because you cannot change it
improve it or expand it
    the little structure
worked upon a lie
    blue and white
blue and white
imaginary porcelain
    shards sing
all around your feet

THE ANONYMOUS JOURNAL
    Today I walked as far as the Trianons – an incredible distance. The garden around moves from one point to another. You do not pass it by like any other landscape. It crawls by you and the weather changes before it moves.
    I walk away from the palace in a light drizzle, arriving at the Trianons with the sun full in the sky. It is broken into splinters on the west arm of the canal.
    I arrive, realizing that there is very little of him left there. All that remains is one intimate allée, designed by Le Notre for a porcelain playhouse.
    The whole geography has moved smoothly into another time.
    And there is not a sign of me. The Trianon de Porcelaine is broken. I remain in a neutral room on the north side of the palace, fading into crowds of courtiers.
    Walking back towards the palace I have to face the wind. It is almost dark.

EVIDENCE
    There were traces
there was evidence
    the room moved in to
hold it
like a dark gold frame
    we staggered round like saints
tiny ships sailed at our heels
lilies came to light
    all evidence
the letter on the table
the ashes in the grate
    until the day the dove
emerged
    silent from your mouth

LE ROI S’AMUSE
    The man who touches you
without love
arrives in a golden coach
drawn by a purebred horse
    he carries his hands to you
like old sorrows
    he is the death
of the child in you
the beginning of dark
there are no more songs
from the rooms
he moves through
    the mouth he puts to yours
contains a brutal statement
your limbs become machinery
to the limits he enforces
    he doesn’t lure you into
altered landscapes
keeps his time in
artificial daylight
speaking solid words
    and the last glimpse of
his sail on the horizon
never finishes
    the stones that felt his step
the sea    the bed that you return to
all