Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems, 1964-2001

For how hard it is

to understand the landscape

as you pass in a train

from here to there

and mutely it

watches you vanish.

A colony of allotments

uphill into the fall.

Dead leaves swept

into heaps.

Soon — on Saturday—

a man will

set them alight.

Smoke will stir

no more, no more

the trees, now

evening closes

on the colors of the village.

An end is come

to the workings of shadow.

The response of the landscape

expects no answer.

The intention is sealed

of preserved signs.

Come through rain

the address has smudged.

Suppose the “return”

at the end of the letter!

Sometimes, held to the light,

it reads: “of the soul.”

Hedges have grown

over palace and court.

A forgotten era

of fountains and chandeliers

behind façades,

serenades and strings,

the colors of the mauves.

The guides mutter

through sandalwood halls

of the Wishing Table

in the libraries

of princes past.

On duty

on a stretch in the Alpine foothills

the railway clerk considers the essence

of the tear-off calendar.

With bowed back

Rosary Hour

waits outside

for admittance to the house

The clerk knows:

he must take home

this interval

without delay

The signs are gathered

settled at dusk’s edge

carved in wood

bled and blackened

printed on the mountain

Hawthorn in the hedgerow

along a length of path

black against winter’s papyrus

the Rosetta stone

In the house of shadows

where the legend rises

the deciphering begins

Things are different

from the way they seem

Confusion

among fellow travelers

was ever the norm

Hang up your hat

in the halfway house

White over the vineyard by Sankt Georgen

white falls the snow across the courtyard and on

the label of an orange-crate from Palestine.

White over black is the blossom of the trees

near Meran in Ezra’s hanging garden.

Autumn in mind April waits

in the memory painted on walnut

like the life of Francis of Assisi.

At the end of September on the

battlefield at Waterloo fallow grass grows

over the blood of the lost Marie-Louises

of Empereur Bonaparte

you can get there by bus

at the Petite-Espinette stop

change for Huizingen

a stately home, sheltered by ivy, transformed

into the Belgian Royal Ornithological

Research and Observation Unit

of the University of Brussels.

On the steps I met Monsieur Serge Creuve,

painter, and his wife Dunja—

he does portraits in red chalk on rough paper

of rich people’s children

from Genesius-Rhode. — Lures them into the house

with the unique WC, well-known

to neighbors. — One does like to visit an artist.

“Shall we buy the ferme in Genappe?”

In the evening at Rhode-St. Genèse

a timid vegetable man carries his wares

up garden paths past savage dogs

to the gate, for instance, of the Marquise of O.’s villa.

A woman’s mouth is always killed

by roses.

As a lodger on the third floor—

the red sisal only goes up to the second—

of Mme. Müller’s Cafeteria

five minutes’ walk from the Bois de la Cambre

I’m the successor to Robert Stehmer

student from Marshall Missouri.

Gold-rimmed jug-and-bowl on the dresser

a hunting scene over the Vertiko cabinet

door to an east-facing balcony. — At night

noises on the road to Charleroi.

Chestnuts fell from their husks

in the rain.

I saw them in the morning

glossy on the sand of the patio.

I saw them in the morning—

taking tea and Cook Swiss

to be eaten with a knife and fork.

I saw them in the morning

waiting behind the curtain

for a trip to town

in quest of Brueghel

at the Musée Royal.

Départ quai huit minuit seize

le train pour Milan via St. Gotthard

I recognized Luxemburg by the leaves on its trees

then came industrie chimique near Thionville,

light above the heavenly vaults

Bahnhof von Metz, Strasbourg Cathedral

bien éclairée. — Between thresholds

lines from Gregorius, the guote sündaere,

from Au near Freiburg, rechtsrheinisch,

not visible from Colmar — Haut Rhin.

Early morning in Basel, printed on

hand-made Rhine-washed lumpy paper

under the supervision of Erasmus of Rotterdam

by Froben & Company, fifteen hundred and six.

Men on military service bound for Balsthal in the Jura

shaved and cropped, several smoking,

outside all changed.

Route of all images

light gray river-sand

ruddy hair minding

swollen shadows

lances and willows

White leaf, you

Green leaf, me

Rafael, Yoknapatawpha,

Light in August

between leaves

anxious mellowing

before birth

as a shadow

over the sunny road

Go to the Aegean

to Santorini

Land of basalt

phosphorescence on the rudder

Hold the water

in your hand:

it glows — at night—

aubergines in front of the house

shadowy in the dark

against the whitewashed wall

bright green in daytime purple

raffia-threaded

in the sun.

Days when

At the crack of dawn

The early bird

Squats in my kitchen.

It shows me the worm

Which sooner than later

Will lead me up the garden path.

I’ve already bought

My pig in a poke

It’s all Tom or dick

Kids or caboodle

In the home and castle.

My day is truly

Wrecked.

There he stood

In the early morn

And wanted in.

It’s warm

In front of the fire.

Lug a-cock

The man waited

For some response

To his knock.

Came a bawl from within:

Jesus Mary

A pain in the neck

In the early morn.

Where no kitchen

There no cook.

We don’t need no

King.

The man has heard

As much before.

He has heard enough.

Right then: all or nothing.

The valley resounds

With the sound of the stars

With the vast stillness

Over snow and forest.

The cows are in their byre.

God is in his heaven.

Child Jesus in Flanders.

Believe and be saved.

The Three Wise Men

Are walking the earth.

Quick as a wink, a star

Falls from heaven

Like nothing

That grows on trees.

Now make a wish

But don’t tell a soul

Or it won’t come true

Ready or not

Here I come!

Sunday was fed

Up to the teeth

With church bells

Summer hats

Gardening

Birds were squabbling

Over Lord knows what

Among the withered

Chestnut blossom

The presbyter went

To his May devotions

And it took

A long time

To get dark

Before it did

The birds made

A din

In the trees

The French windows

Are open still

As if in the theatre

People wait

On the colors of the carpet

In the cadence of dusk

Irony it is said

Is a form of humility

Glass in hand

They come and go

Stop still and expect

The metamorphosis of hawthorn

In the garden outside

Time measures

Nothing but itself

In the courtyard of a monastery in Holland

My name escaped me

Early in life according to Scott

Swift had acquired the habit

Of celebrating his birthday

In dejection

One leaves behind one’s portrait

Without intent

His eyes

Home in

On the real

There is

Skulduggery

Afoot

A raven alights

At God’s ear

Tidings he brings

Of the battlefield

Father has gone to war

The monk from Melk

Sleeps in his quiet grave

The snow

Falls on his house

If no one asks him

He knows

But if someone asks him

He knows not

When the Weisers

Will meet

Something not a soul

Has ever seen

Fieldwards goes the day

Mildew grows in the garden

Measles cover the man

Like a thousand butterflies

Fieldwards goes the day

Long long ago

Studded with stars was the sky

A thousand butterflies

Come from the fields is a day

A coachman stands at the bone-house

Holding in his hands

The thousand butterflies