I
Language lifted
out of the ordinary
into the illumination
of poetry.
Objects: sticks & stones
coming together
you place before our eyes
exposed bare to the weather
rained on and
crackt dry in the sun
A stick a stone
a river cutting thru clay
a white barn in a field
a cat coiled
on a box
Words
coming together
moving at one another
traction for the tongue
Look at that! American
language shouting
across the Potomac
ring coins over the river
open out western states
—anywhere a man can
hear his voice
In the machines of Paterson
rattling ten million words a day
a voice moves
physical — not understood
as lit-er-ary, but moving
as a machine, with traction
fitting itself against resistance
—Song understood by
the banging ear
II
A sparrow
balances in the wind
voicing song
into the shifting air
It is a small thing
but as big as all creation
to its mate beside it
on a wire, balancing
The wind blows
the wire snaps underfoot
the feet hold
the feathers have no time
to compose themselves
It is
as it should be or
as it is
III
I heard he askt the excavators
for a boulder
dumpt in his
front yard
They must have thought
he was some old nut
I mean you dig a boulder
out of the ground you don’t
leave it in your front yard
I mean what good is a big rock?
all you can do
is look at it
or lean on it
I mean if youve got a lawn
youve got to mow around
the damn thing
and clip the bloody grass
I mean I hear he used to be
a doctor what’d he do
with the gallstones he cut out
put them on the bloody mantle?
IV
The descent beckons
as the ascent beckoned
I understand that
till the point of
What now?
He is dead gone forever
and to where?
Into that black which is
blacker than the memory
of black?
It is as it should be
or as it is.
He is a part of the history
he brought poems together
clucht out of chaos
he will be the reason
behind a language where
epics can be clucht
he will be sticks & stones
hewer of wood
drawer of water
William
Carlos
Williams