EYESIGHT

1.

I do not like this new way of seeing,
As if through rents in the tissue of things,

The world as an ancient Chinese screen,
When the silks give,
And the boats sink,
And the clouds part
And the flower drifts both ways

Down the stream
And the small man holding his pole

Stands on an earthen thread,
Going into what seems, at first,

A new light and a new scene
(The light, grey but bright,

As on a sunny day, when the sun
Is covered by its chill fogs)

This all too familiar world,
All to alive behind the lathing,

Now seen as the plaster crumbles
To expose the ribs at last.

2.

What is there to heal the eyes,
For life will continue on it daily way,

As if you and I had never gone,
As if you and I had not returned again,

In gentler and more ferocious guise.
Whatever hope lying in what we make,

And is that ever balm enough,
The woman with red hair

Chased by the man in the sedate black hat,
Turning to a flaming tree,

While all the rest marvel as they ignite,
Lifting their tree limbs in their chinese robes of flame,

Speaking new languages as they burn,
Which no green thing shall ever learn,

Lifting their tragic and flaming arms
In gestures both tragic and complete.

3.

And the ancient question, what hope lies in art?
The hope of permanence in a temporary mood,

As in thsi unknown picture of strange swans,
The day darkens even the glorious diving bird,

Darkens the reeds to iron bars,
And the water to field of storming grass.

The swans are caught here for good and all,
Their faces angry, their faces the muzzles

Of chained and surly dogs,
Before the trainer comes to break their will.

Or perhaps they do not like the song
The bird has come to sing, that this is one day

Among so many more, and the light as always
Will free them once again,

Until the dark, which lies in wait,
Catches them once more.

4.

I see you have given up gazing deep inside
To find the past, whatever you thought it was,

Or perhaps it can be defined
By the way, later on, it enters in behind our eyes

When our eyes are closed:
When gazed at straight, a picture definite

As the thornprick of a rose,
But in an instant, sliding down the slope,

And out the corner or our eyes.

And the pictures, so carefully pressed and kept
Free of time, those locked and airless rooms

With their red-stained doors
Knuckles beat once too often upon,

And yet they will not shatter,
And when they seem to open,

Open for days to come beyond our own,
Readying for a new season like good maids ready

Rooms for guests in an enormous summer town
At the edge of a deceptively pleasant but buttomless sea.

There is always
One pack which gives away the game,

(Always the most beautiful pictures of them all)

The small girls
Afloat in their white gowns,

Their loose hair afloat on the warm air,
The warm air rustling the leaves

Of the green wisteria vine (which makes the trellis
Behind them seem impenetrable, a fluttering

But still immoveable wall)
And nothing makes their eyes move now,

They stare at what they are fixed upon,
At the time, believeing in the smooth movement of time;

But now they do not move:
Their looks are grave.

5.

They occur and occur again,
In so many scenes it seems the scenes alone are changed,

Their eyes always the same,
Tragic, listening to the dreaded words,

In the background, a faint rumble of guns,
A tremor in the scene,

As if a deception caused by the oppressive heat;
Their eyes looking back, along that peculiar slant,

Hands holding the vine
As if it were something pulsed with blood;

The next scene:
(Is it out of place, or has it skipped ahead?)

The girls the same, their poses too,
Their fixed eyes,

And their daughters, small replicas who stare
At the naked child, who sleeping flies easily

On his velvety black bed, while in another frame,
One of them stares (Younger? Older?)

From ageless eyes;
They fight against the inevitable rise

Of sockets which lie just beneath the dry bed of flesh;
It is from the deep sockets

That those eyes stare.
The sockets have begun their reign.

6.

It is a brilliant day, and the snow swirls.
It is a frosted sky, and the snow swirls.

The eye, looking up, patterns the flying flakes:
Orb within orb, or slant line after line.

It is a warm day
And the wind rises. The wind drops.

The branches rise and fall.
There is a promise of leaves on the air.

There is a promise of snow in the air.
Through the bare branches, the rain falls lightly.

The eye swirls the twigs into rings.
It is a sunny dya, and the light rain falls.

Will the rain ever stop?
Inside, the shadow of lives cross and recross

Under the thinly curtained panes.
Everything glistens and shines, and is not seen.

Snow in the sun, sun on the grass,
Rain on the dry, outstretched hands,

Wind in the hair,
And the days lift, rise up, like a fog.

7.

They leaned on the moon;
They entered the desert;

They cooled by the sea
Under a purple sky,

Under a blue,
Under a rose.

One spoke to the dawn,
But the cock, undeceived, crowed too

And the day began to tick.
After that, there was not stopping it.

In the garden,
She came to the end of a path

And found no gate, but a vine
Grown to the shape of an arch.

Her back to us,
Her eyes turned away from us,

Lost in a flower,
Holding it as a sweet cloth

To staunch her bitter eyes.
And her dress was white,

Her hat black, and basket for her flowers
Black,

And she never turned back from the door
Between two lives,

This one and the other
In which everything that happened here

Was happening again,
But there, the clock in the sun

Chimed a different time,
And, when they closed on that sight,

The eyes were healed,
And they learned to close themselves

Before the dark blue fingers of the night
Pressed closed their lids,

And sealed them
With two unblinking, silver moons.