Constance Read online

  Constance

  (1993)

  poems

  by

  JANE KENYON

  Constance

  (1993)

  Perkins, ever for Perkins

  From Psalm 139

  “O Lord, thou hast searched me...”

  Whither shall I go from thy spirit?

  or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:

  if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

  If I take the wings of the morning,

  and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

  Even there shall thy hand lead me,​

  and thy right hand shall hold me.

  If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;​

  even the night shall be light about me.

  Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;​

  but the night shineth as the day:​

  the darkness and the light are both alike to thee . . .

  I

  The Progress of the Beating Heart

  August Rain, after Haying

  Through sere trees and beheaded​

  grasses the slow rain falls.

  Hay fills the barn; only the rake​

  and one empty wagon are left​

  in the field. In the ditches​

  goldenrod bends to the ground.

  Even at noon the house is dark.​

  In my room under the eaves​

  I hear the steady benevolence​

  of water washing dust​

  raised by the haying​

  from porch and car and garden​

  chair. We are shorn​

  and purified, as if tonsured.

  The grass resolves to grow again,​

  receiving the rain to that end,​

  but my disordered soul thirsts​

  after something it cannot name.

  The Stroller

  1949

  It was copen blue, strong and bright,​

  and the metal back looked like caning​

  on a chair. The peanut-shaped tray​

  had a bar with sliding beads:​

  red, yellow, blue, green, white.

  It was hard for Mother to push the stroller​

  on the sandy shoulders of the road.

  Sitting in the stroller

  in the driveway of the new house

  on a morning in early spring, trees

  leafing out, I could hear cows

  lowing in their stalls across the road,

  and see geese hissing and flapping

  at a sheep that wandered too close

  to the goslings. From the stroller I surveyed

  my new domain like a dowager queen.

  When something pleased me I kicked

  my feet and spun the bright beads.

  Spittle dropped from my lower lip​

  like a spider plunging on its filament.

  1991

  Mother is moving; we’re sorting​

  through fifty years’ accumulations—​

  a portfolio of Father’s drawings​

  from his brief career in Architecture​

  School, exercises in light and shadow,​

  vanishing point; renderings of acanthus

  cornices, gargoyles... .Then I come upon​

  a drawing of my stroller, precisely to scale,​

  just as I remember it.

  And here is a self-portrait, looser,​

  where he wears the T-shirt whose stripes​

  I know were red and white​

  although the drawing is pencil.

  Beside Father, who sits in a blue chair

  that I remember, by a bookcase I remember,

  under a lamp I remember, is the empty stroller.

  1951

  He was forty-seven, a musician

  who took other jobs to get by,

  a dreamer, a reader, a would-be farmer

  with weak lungs from many pneumonias

  and from playing cocktail piano

  late in smoky bars. On weekend mornings

  we crept around so he could sleep until ten.

  When he came home from his day-job​

  at the bookstore, I untied his shoes.

  I waited all day to untie them,​

  wanting no other happiness. I was four.

  Fie never went to town without a suit​

  and tie, a linen handkerchief​

  in his pocket, and his shoes​

  were good leather, the laces themselves​

  leather. I loved the rich pungency​

  of his brown, well-shined, warm shoes.

  1959

  Mother took in sewing.

  One by one Ann Arbor’s bridge club​

  ladies found her. They pulled into our drive​

  in their Thunderbirds and Cadillacs​

  as I peered down between muslin curtains​

  from my room. I lay back on the bed, thinking​

  of nothing in particular, until they went​

  away. When I came downstairs the scent​

  of cigarettes and perfume persisted in the air.

  One of them I liked. She took

  her two dachshunds everywhere

  on a bifurcated leash; they hopped comically

  up the porch steps and into our house.

  She was Italian, from Modena, displaced,​

  living in Ann Arbor as the wife​

  of a Chrysler executive. She never wore​

  anything but beige or gray knits.

  She was six feet tall and not ashamed of it,​

  with long, loose red hair held back​

  by tortoiseshell combs. She left cigarette​

  butts in the ashtray with bright red​

  striated crescents on them.

  She was different from the others,​

  attached to my mother in the way​

  European women are attached​

  to their dressmakers and hairdressers.

  When she traveled abroad

  she brought back classical recordings​

  and perfume. I thought I would not mind​

  being like Marcella, though I recognized​

  that she was lonely. Her husband traveled​

  frequently, and she had a son​

  living in Florence who never came “home.”

  His enterprises were obscure....

  Marcella had her dogs, her solitude,​

  her elegance—at once sedate and slightly​

  wild—and, it seemed, a new car every time​

  the old one got dirty, a luxury​

  to which she seemed oblivious.

  1991

  Disturbed but full of purpose, we push​

  Father’s indifferent drawings into the trash.​

  Mother saves the self-portrait and the acanthus​

  cornice. I save only the rendering​

  of the stroller, done on tracing paper, diaphanous.

  Looking at it

  is like looking into a mirror

  and seeing your own eyes and someone else’s

  eyes as well, strange to you

  but benign, curious, come

  to interrogate your wounds, the progress

  of your beating heart.

  The Argument

  On the way to the village store​

  I drive through a downdraft​

  from the neighbor’s chimney.

  Woodsmoke tumbles from the eaves​

  backlit by sun, reminding me​

  of the fire and sulfur of Grandmother’s​

  vengeful God, the one who disapproves​

  of jeans and shorts for girls,​

  dancing, strong w
aters, and adultery.

  A moment later the smoke enters

  the car, although the windows are tight,

  insinuating that I might, like Judas,

  and the foolish virgins, and the rich

  young man, have been made for unquenchable

  fire. God will need something to burn

  if the fire is to be unquenchable.

  “All things work together for the good​

  for those who love God,” she said​

  to comfort me at Uncle Hazen’s funeral,​

  where Father held me up to see​

  the maroon gladiolus that trembled​

  as we approached the bier, the elaborate​

  shirred satin, brass fittings, anything,

  oh, anything but Uncle’s squelched​

  and made-up face.

  “No! NO! How is it good to be dead?”

  I cried afterward, wild-eyed and flushed.

  “God’s ways are not our ways,”

  she said then out of pity

  and the wish to forestall the argument.

  Biscuit

  The dog has cleaned his bowl​

  and his reward is a biscuit,​

  which I put in his mouth​

  like a priest offering the host.

  I can’t bear that trusting face!​

  He asks for bread, expects​

  bread, and I in my power​

  might have given him a stone.

  Not Writing

  A wasp rises to its papery​

  nest under the eaves​

  where it daubs

  at the gray shape,​

  but seems unable​

  to enter its own house.

  Windfalls

  The storm is moving on, and as the wind​

  rises, the oaks and pines let go​

  of all the snow on their branches,​

  an abrupt change of heart,​

  and the air turns utterly white.

  Woooh, says the wind, and I stop​

  where I am, put out my arms​

  and look upward, allowing​

  myself to disappear. It is good​

  to be here, and not here. . . .

  I see fresh cloven prints​

  under the apple tree, where deer come​

  nosing for windfalls. They must be

  near me now, and having stopped

  when I stopped, begin to move again.​

  II

  Tell me how to bear myself . . .

  Adrienne Rich

  Having It Out with Melancholy

  If many remedies are prescribed for an illness,

  you may be certain that the illness has no cure.

  A. P. Chekhov

  The Cherry Orchard

  1 From the Nursery

  When I was born, you waited​

  behind a pile of linen in the nursery,​

  and when we were alone, you lay down​

  on top of me, pressing​

  the bile of desolation into every pore.

  And from that day on​

  everything under the sun and moon​

  made me sad—even the yellow​

  wooden beads that slid and spun​

  along a spindle on my crib.

  You taught me to exist without gratitude.​

  You ruined my manners toward God:

  “We’re here simply to wait for death;​

  the pleasures of earth are overrated.”

  I only appeared to belong to my mother,​

  to live among blocks and cotton undershirts​

  with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes​

  and report cards in ugly brown slipcases.

  I was already yours—the anti-urge,​

  the mutilator of souls.

  2 Bottles

  Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,

  Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,​

  Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.

  The coated ones smell sweet or have​

  no smell; the powdery ones smell​

  like the chemistry lab at school​

  that made me hold my breath.

  3 Suggestion from a Friend

  You wouldn’t be so depressed​

  if you really believed in God.

  4 Often

  Often I go to bed as soon after dinner​

  as seems adult

  (I mean I try to wait for dark)​

  in order to push away​

  from the massive pain in sleep’s​

  frail wicker coracle.

  5 Once There Was Light

  Once, in my early thirties, I saw​

  that I was a speck of light in the great​

  river of light that undulates through time.

  I was floating with the whole​

  human family. We were all colors—those​

  who are living now, those who have died,​

  those who are not yet born. For a few

  moments I floated, completely calm,​

  and I no longer hated having to exist.

  Like a crow who smells hot blood​

  you came flying to pull me out​

  of the glowing stream.

  “I’ll hold you up. I never let my dear​

  ones drown!” After that, I wept for days.

  6 In and Out

  The dog searches until he finds me​

  upstairs, lies down with a clatter​

  of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

  Sometimes the sound of his breathing​

  saves my life—in and out, in​

  and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . .

  7 Pardon

  A piece of burned meat​

  wears my clothes, speaks​

  in my voice, dispatches obligations​

  haltingly, or not at all.

  It is tired of trying

  to be stouthearted, tired​

  beyond measure.

  We move on to the monoamine​

  oxidase inhibitors. Day and night​

  I feel as if I had drunk six cups​

  of coffee, but the pain stops​

  abruptly. With the wonder​

  and bitterness of someone pardoned​

  for a crime she did not commit​

  I come back to marriage and friends,​

  to pink-fringed hollyhocks; come back​

  to my desk, books, and chair.

  8 Credo

  Pharmaceutical wonders are at work​

  but I believe only in this moment​

  of well-being. Unholy ghost,​

  you are certain to come again.

  Coarse, mean, you’ll put your feet​

  on the coffee table, lean back,​

  and turn me into someone who can’t​

  take the trouble to speak; someone​

  who can’t sleep, or who does nothing​

  but sleep; can’t read, or call​

  for an appointment for help.

  There is nothing I can do​

  against your coming.

  When I awake, I am still with thee.

  9 Wood Thrush

  High on Nardil and June light

  I wake at four,

  waiting greedily for the first

  notes of the wood thrush. Easeful air

  presses through the screen

  with the wild, complex song

  of the bird, and I am overcome

  by ordinary contentment.

  What hurt me so terribly​

  all my life until this moment?

  How I love the small, swiftly​

  beating heart of the bird​

  singing in the great maples;​

  its bright, unequivocal eye.

  Litter

  I poured the unused coffee grounds​

  from the paper filter back​

  into the can. I was too rattled​

  to spoon the dry Cre
am of Wheat​

  back into the packet, so I threw it away.

  The neighbor who rushed over​

  had straightened the bedcovers.

  The violets were dry; I watered them.

  I picked up the blue plastic syringe​

  tips, strips of white tape,​

  and the backing from bandages​

  that the EMTs had dropped in haste.

  Now curtains lift and fall

  in windows I’ve never before seen open.

  Chrysanthemums

  The doctor averted his eyes​

  while the diagnosis fell on us,​

  as though the picture of the girl​

  hiding from her dog​

  had suddenly fallen off the wall.

  We were speechless all the way home.

  The light seemed strange.

  A weekend of fear and purging....​

  Determined to work, he packed his​

  Dictaphone, a stack of letters,​

  and a roll of stamps. At last the day​

  of scalpels, blood, and gauze arrived.

  Eyes closed, I lay on his tightly made​

  bed, waiting. From the hallway I heard​

  an old man, whose nurse was helping him​

  to walk: “That Howard Johnson’s. It’s​

  nothing but the same thing over and over​

  again.”

  “That’s right. It’s nothing special.”

  Late in the afternoon, when slanting​

  sun betrayed a wad of dust under the bed-​

  side stand, I heard the sound of casters​

  and footsteps slowing down.

  The attendants asked me to leave the room​

  while they moved him onto the bed,​

  and the door remained closed a long time.