The Summer Belvedere
I
Such icy wounds the city people bear
beneath brown coats enveloping withered members!
I don't want to know of mutilations
nor witness the long-drawn evening debarkation
of warm and liquid cargoes in torn wrappings
the ships of mercy carry back from war.
We live on cliffs above such moaning waters!
Our eyeballs are starred by the vision of burning cities,
our eardrums shattered by cannon.
A blast of the dying,
a thunder of people who cannot catch their breath
is caught in the mortar and molded into the walls.
And I, obsessed with a dread of things corroded,
of rasping faucets, of channels that labor to flow
have no desire to know of morbid tissues,
of cells that begin prodigiously to flower.
There is an hour in which disease will be known
as more than occasion for some dim relative's sorrow.
But still the watcher within my soundless country
assures the pendulum duties of the heart
and asks no reason but keeps a faithful watch
as I keep mine from the height of the belvedere!
And though no eyrie is sacred to wind entirely,
a wall of twigs can build a kind of summer.
II
I asked my kindest friend to guard my sleep.
I said to him, Give me the motionless thicket of summer,
the velvety cul-de-sac, and quiet the drummer.
I said to him, Brush my forehead with a feather,
not with an eagle's feather, nor with a sparrow's,
but with the shadowy feather of an owl.
I said to him, Come to me dressed in a cloak and a cowl,
and bearing a candle whose flame is very still.
Our belvedere looks over a bramble hill.
I said to him, Give me the cool white kernel of summer,
the windless terminal of it, and calm the drummer!
I said to him, Tell the drummer
the rebels have crossed the river and no one is here
but John with the broken drumstick and half-wit Peg
who shot spitballs at the moon from the belvedere.
Tell the feverish drummer no man is here.
But what if he doesn't believe me?
Give him proof!
For there is no lie that contains no part of truth.
And then, with the sort of courage that comes with fever,
the body becoming sticks that blossom with flame,
the flame for a while obscuring what it consumes,
I twisted and craned to peer in the loftier room--
I saw the visitor there, and him I knew
as my waiting ghost.
The belvedere was blue.
III
I said to my kindest friend, The time has come
to hold what is agitated and make it still.
I said to him, Fold your hands upon the drum.
Permit no kind of sudden or sharp disturbance
but move about you constantly, keeping the guard
with fingers whose touch is narcotic, brushing the walls
to quiet the shuddering in them,
drawing your sleeves across the hostile mirrors
and cupping your palms to breathe upon the glass.
After a while anxiety will pass.
The time has come, I said, for purification.
Rub out the lewd inscriptions on the walls,
remove the prisoners' names and maledictions,
for lack of faith has left impurities here,
and whisper faith to the summer belvedere.
Draw back the kites of hysteria from the sky,
those struggling fish draw back from their breathless pool,
and whisper assurances cool
to the watchful corners, and whisper sleep and sleep
along the treads of the stairs, and up the stairwell,
clear to the belvedere, yes, clear up there, where giggling John
stood up in his onionskin of adolescence
to shoot spitballs at the moon from the captain's walk.
And then, at the last, he said, What shall I do?
The sweetest of treasons, I told him. Lean toward my listening ear
and whisper the long word to me,
the longest of all words to me,
the word that divides the sky from the belvedere.
by Tennessee Williams (1911 - 1983)
American Playwright
Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Twice awarded the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award
"It seemed to be impossible to make the Sergeant take cognisance of anything in the world except bicycles. (62)
"Would it astonish you to hear that he is nearly half bicycle?
It would surprise me unconditionally, I said. (83)
"The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles." (85)
Black Cat by Rainer Maria Rilke
A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:
just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.
She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once
as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.
Ask your British husband what kind of birthday cake he wants,
and he might just answer: Christmas Cake! Thinking maybe chocolate bundt cake or black currant crumble, I called out, "Do you want frosting or fruit?" But upon hearing those words, Gerry immediately envisioned candied cherries, marzipan, and royal icing, and answered, "I want frosting and fruit!"
You know, Christmas Cake! Well, what the heck! We decided that 2020 is the year for mixing up the holidays and seasonal celebrations however we feel like! So for the next few days, it was Christmas Cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
In Boldness
In boldness, look to God for help,
like women folk who dared:
To ask that Jesus heal a child,
that crumbs of grace be shared,
that outcast ones be welcomed
to the feast that God has prepared.
In boldness, lean on God for strength,
and healing from disease,
of mind and body, hard and ill
whose bondage Jesus frees.
Reach out and touch the hem of Christ,
and gather spirit's ease.
In boldness, learn of God the truth
of Mary's better part:
by fear and censure undeterred,
determined in her heart
to kneel at Jesus' feet and learn
the wisdom he imparts.
In boldness, love, nor count the cost.
Confront the world's harsh stare:
like one who washed the feet of Christ,
and wiped them with her hair,
poured perfume to anoint her Lord,
and left love's fragrance there.
by Mary Louise Bringle
from Joy and Wonder, Love and Longing
Don't Think Twice It's All Right
Well, it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If'n you don't know by now
And it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter anyhow
When the rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window, and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm a-traveling on
But don't think twice, it's all right
Well it ain't no use in turning on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
No it ain't no use in turning on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin' you could do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talking anyway
don't think twice, it's all right
It ain't no use in calling out my name, gal
Like you never did before
And it ain't no use in calling out my name, gal
I can't hear you any more
I'm a-thinking and a-wonderin' walking down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I am told
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul
don't think twice, it's all right
So long honey, baby
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But Goodbye is too good a word, babe
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't a-saying you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just sorted wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right
Music & lyrics by Bob Dylan
Below the pattern, the great sweeping pages, the wars drummed out and fought, are the questions: What if? What happened? How? Beware the vast magisterial history unrolling a carpet across time: this followed by this, leading inevitably to that. The march of history, the teleology. Nothing is inevitable; everything is tangential, particular -- human.
. . . History is in us. Our history lives in us. Lean low and listen, that's your job. Not that they had lived . . . But how. . . .
History is sometimes made by heroes, but is also always made by us. We, the people, who stumble around, who block or help the hero out of loyalty, stubbornness, faith, or fear. . . . The people at the edge of the photographs. The people watching. The crowd. You. . . .
So know yourselves first . . . Then look back and account. (44)
. . . What the study of history had taught her, clearly, after years and years, was that she might pull up the single moments from the darkness where they lay centuries old, she might point to a spot in time, a line in a diary, the particular shredding of a blue ribbon used to tie a shoe, she might string these together and say, Here is what happened.
And history would sit back on her heels and laugh and laugh. 46)
