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Ivan Shishkin, "Wind-Fallen Trees," 1888
Museum of Russian Art, Kiev, Ukraine
Courtesy Tanais Gallery
Listen
to Pavel read "The Roots of Art" (MP3 format)
THE ROOTS OF ART
Like stumps in the forest
Black in November,
Those who drew power
From sunlight are lost
Yet we can see them
The waste of the woodland,
Faces that come
At our free command
The ground is deep,
Beneath the soil,
They stretch and coil
In winter sleep
Around my heart,
The roots of art
A
FOUR POINT BUCK
A four point buck ran down a city street
Looking for his does
And stopped the cars
The asphalt underneath his cloven feet
Distracted, wild and organized for war
Hormonal obligation
Forcing him to see
Only that which he was looking for
As if he were a honey-seeking drone
Superfluous
Yet somehow indispensable
Part of every cadre, yet alone
Much like all the money-seekers we
Produce to serve a function for a fee
THE
EARTH WAS SNAPPING AT HIS HEELS…
The earth was snapping at his heels
As he ran heaving toward the light,
To where the sun descending kneels
And prays to enter graceful night
“I will follow you,” he called,
“Wait for me and we will go
Together to where daylight falls
Into forever—sun be slow”
“I
will wait for you,” it said,
“But
hurry, quickly, take your leave
From earth and daylight, milk and bread,
And all the moments daylight weaves
“Hurry,
for the hungry earth
Devours every afterbirth”
HE DID NOT DROWN
Like to see the South
Pole base?
Down the Polewards ramp
we race,
He ahead and then I go
Beneath the white and
deep plateaus
There is no base, instead
a ship,
Great and glassed to make
the trip,
Tall the windows on the
sea,
Storm and wave to eternity
Waves of the end of the
world were there,
O God my God how steep
they were,
Racing, spilling hills
they rolled
High above and mountain
cold
Through the windows’
height and vast
I saw the dark waves as
they passed,
But my old comrade, where
was he?
Beyond the windows in the
sea
He perched above it, was
untouched
By waves that rolled but
could not clutch,
This friend of mine who
did not drown—
Storm waves did not pull
him down
HOUSE OF LOVE
Whose autumn house is
this with yellow-green
Parquetry of poplar,
scarlet screen,
Carpets of vermilion and
red-gold
Moved by windy weavers,
fold by fold?
Ceilings of the bluest
lapis made
Ivory the sashes and the
shades
Hall receding hall by
open ways
Distances foreshortened
by the days
Those who wander in must
know that here
Is majesty but nothing to
be feared—
Prodigious are ceilings
and the beams
But no more than the
pillars of our dreams
Lordly is the autumn
house of love,
And Love Himself about
the mansion moves
FACES WAKING
The book of verse slips
out of hand, I read
No more of Wessex and the
waking dead,
The straddled centuries
of Hardy find,
In sleep unsleeping,
burial in his mind
Of my own dead drowse I,
uncle gone,
Who force-marched through
New Guinea, fighting on,
And of another uncle from
Berlin
Who fought his battles
Unter den Linden
Then from a street in
Spandau changed address
Because of visits made by
the SS,
And landed in New Orleans
from a freighter,
Returned to see his
family much later
Find me now the men who
were so full
Of blood to live when we
were children still,
Adventures had they, now
we are too old
To be as they were young,
who sleep-in cold
And of their women too I
see the touch
That memory paints in
with dilute brush,
Some outlasted husbands,
some did not—
Left to be a thought of
fond regret
I see them now together,
their New Year
Their cards and gossip
snowbound and their beer,
And how my uncle and my
father went
For more to drink and
found a cop instead
And more, God bring them
light out of the shade,
That tunnel-swallowed
by-road where they fade,
And let their faces
spring to life from sleep
As now I wake their
memories
TALL TREES CUT
DOWN
No one will tell you the
future, no one.
There is a path into the
mist,
Something opens, there
are forms which move and shift,
Lean forward, squint, and
try to listen
Try to listen, try to
see—
Why do those people look
like trees?
What is that sound?
It is the ring of steel
biting
When tall trees are cut
down
The sound of steel like
bells without a tongue
The long hard-dying sound
when trees are stung
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