AUTUMN REFRAIN
—Wallace Stevens
The skreak and skritter of evening gone
And grackles gone and sorrows of the sun,
The sorrows of sun, too, gone... the moon and moon,
The yellow moon of words about the nightingale
In measureless measures, not a bird for me
But the name of a bird and the name of a nameless air
I have never—shall never hear. And yet beneath
The stillness of everything gone, and being still,
Being and sitting still, something resides,
Some skreaking and skrittering residuum,
And grates these evasions of the nightingale
Though I have never—shall never hear that bird.
And the stillness is in the key, all of it is,
The stillness is all in the key of that desolate sound.
_________________________
The equinox is upon us. Spend it at Luna's (1414 16th St., Sac, 8pm) with the poetry of Gene Avery, or see if there are still tickets at the Crest Theatre to hear Critic, Commentator and Cultural Historian Garry Wills. OR—Poetic Light Open Mic, 8-10 pm at the Personal Style Salon (2540 Cottage Way, Sac); info: John Hughes, 470-2317. OR—Evening of Poetry at Gwen's Caribbean Cuisine, 2355 Arden Way, Sac, 7pm. Info: 284-7831. That outta hold ya, poetry-wise, at least. Best to be with friends, not get too caught up in this autumn thing...
THE READER
—Wallace Stevens
All night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as if in a book
Of sombre pages.
It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shrivelled forms
Crouched in the moonlight.
No lamp was burning as I read,
A voice was mumbling, "Everything
Falls back to coldness,
Even the musky muscadines,
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden."
The sombre pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven.
____________________
A POSTCARD FROM THE VOLCANO
—Wallace Stevens
Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;
And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;
And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt
At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion-house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky
Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion's look
And what we said of it became
A part of what it is... Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,
Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,
A dirty house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.
___________________________
Good reading last night, Elsie Feliz. On my way home, I headed straight for the moon, a golden globe hanging just two inches off the horizon. Autumn, indeed.
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.