Blue Skies, White Breasts, Green Trees

I took one course in Poetry in (1978) by the then, NJ poet Laureate

Gerald Stern; one of my favourite poems was this:

Blue Skies, White Breasts, Green Trees (from " Lucky Life " 1977 Lamont

Poetry Selection)

What I took to be a man in a white beard

turned out to be a woman in a silk babushka

weeping in the front seat of her car;

and what I took to be a seven-branched candelabrum

with the wax dripping over the edges

turned out to be a horse's skull

with its teeth sticking out of the sockets.

It was my brain fooling me,

sending me false images,

turning crows into leaves

and corpses into bottles,

and it was my brain that betrayed me completely

sending me entirely uncoded material,

for what I thought was a soggy newspaper

turned out to be the first Book of Concealment, written in English,

and what I thought was a grasshopper on the windshield

turned out to be the Faithful Shepherd chewing blood,

and what I thought was, finally, the real hand of God

turned out to be only a guy wire and a

pair of broken sunglasses.

I used to believe the brain did its work

through faithful charges and I lived in sweet surroundings for the brain,

I thought it needed blue skies, white breasts, green trees,

to excite and absorb it,

and I wandered through the golf courses dreaming of pleasure

and struggled through the pool dreaming of happiness.

Now if I close my eyes I can see the uncontrolled waves

closing and opening of their own accord

and I can see the pins sticking out in unbelievable places,

and I can see the two lobes floating like two old barrels on the Hudson,

I am ready to reverse everything now

for the sake of the brain.

I am ready to take the woman with the white scarf

in my arms and stop her moaning,

and I am ready to light the horse's teeth,

and I am ready to stroke the dry leaves.

For it was kisses and only kisses,

and not a stone knife in the neck that ruined me,

and it was my right arm, full of power and judgment,

and not my left arm twisted backwards to express vagrancy,

and it was the separation that I made

and not the rain on the window,

or the pubic hairs sticking out of my mouth,

and it was not really New York falling into the sea,

and it was not Nietzsche choking on an ice cream cone,

and it was not the president lying dead again on the floor,

and it was not the sand covering me up to my chin,

and it was not my thick arms ripping apart and old floor,

and it was not my charm, breaking up an entire room.

It was my delicacy, my stupid delicacy,

and my sorrow.

It was my ghost, my old exhausted ghost,

that I dressed in white, and sent across the river,

weeping and weeping and weeping

inside his torn sheet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being

We're all ghosts here,

wondering what to wear

wandering about

burying the living

and raising the dead,

with nothing to do

with nothing to do

with nothing to do.

Metta,

~Anna