Part One
1
O rue rue LaRue among the ginkgoes cloven leaves
all fallen yellow whose burnished berries banish
late melon sweetness of Autumn days
O rue rue LaRue among the boxwoods
evergreen for no good flox.
Blooded leaves bleed upon golden flax of weeds
seeding the chilling ground receiving soundless
lips of grain enduring ice and ice again
O rue rue LaRue amidst the sortilege
Coo of pigeons in the distant spired village
low of legion cattle turning toward evening millet
mow of fringing grain chafing toward winter silos
O rue rue LaRue
Blue waters at a distance
blue the tails of otters
blue the eyelids of sleeping beasts
nested beneath the earth
Distant crows sound the morning field beyond pasture
Dew murmurs names upon passing grasses
Echoing wood gold where below the stream's gash
furthers along slowly murdering dimensions of
width and depth
Remembered gait of young ponies toward
the spring's sweet water
Remembered laughter of the frail daughter there
beside the fields sweet grasses
The daughter, as the water, passes into silence
Laughter remembered beside the old well of the woods
2
Unearthing the old dwelling
found old glass bottles
rusted ancient tins of talcum
utensils grimed which once fed mouths
an old comb sadly saving some long
un-caressed and beloved white hair
a rusty chain for what purpose used
then discarded
Overturning old stones
reveals a child's gum machine trinket ring
O the lovely hand of the long grown daughter
remembered in the plastic ring hole full of dirt
caked jewel of childhood, innocent, cool
in this finder's keeping
Rest o daughter
slumber in the dark palm of the grave
We are slave to suffering
but the little ring you lost
or bitterly tossed away
when its small circle's promise
outgrew you
is here
in the sunlight again
in a stranger's hand
standing where the old gate allowed
entrance to the once beautiful yard
Brief the rediscovered
for all of us are soon
gone under the hill
The ring dear lost dead thing
once human and frail will endure
beyond our bones.
It's promise is safe
I wish I knew your name, dear one
O rue rue LaRue...
3
Spittle on the chin
stubble upon the cheek
she met her love beside the creek
Turned in her sleep
the calling heat gathered
the steep bank in the wood
then fell
as water will
forgetting the blood's
first stain on the long discarded sheet
A woman now she fled toward love
and fed there but
famished still
died there...
4
...there that little greensward swath of green grass
and leaf and limb and tree in that little crook nook
of vale dark there and sky gimleted on each blade
and leaf hover myriad in air...
Part Two
'Her death discordant...'
'Birds must sing to keep from asphixiating.' - Mircea Eliade
1
Then died there the rose beside the house of tin.
The track bore no train for years.
Weeds traveled tendriled and
yellow rooted between trestles.
Wind blew. Broken vessels whistled
through shattered teeth of glass.
Only wind and no rusty train passed.
Though the scene bears dislocation,
though the brain remembers station and motion
of steam engine and iron wheel rotation
the places of old gone passing
bear no malice toward stillness.
All around mute remains remind the
occasional passer of former days -
an old snuff tin crumbled in a reverent hand
longs for the woman grasping then,
holds sweet dust under her tongue
as the land must hold her now where is
no whisper but sleep beyond sleep.
Weeds to the eye are sad between rails
but listening to their green and yellow belles
the rightness of their swaying displaces all sorrow.
Their distance is a distance one cannot know
but only borrow in imagination by extension
of miles, their reach is ours then, translated
green and longing, their leaves throng the
evening air, in silent clamor fling down seed
to endure summer's blundering prayer.
2
Discovering a small print of Degas' painting,
'The Singer In Green', on the day of her death,
sending it to her best friend, saying:
This reminds me of her,
her features, the beauty, brief, of
the singer, a sweetness and sadness, head
tilted back in order to lift her voice,
crooked hand above breasts gesturing
in physical song, green light bathing
the mortal scene.
Was this not her,
green with life,
woman in her prime,
taken into the vast green
of the earth during Spring?
She sings still.
In memory we hear the literal voice,
see her gesture, catch her fading laughter.
2
Go out into some silent space
of green world then. Sit. Listen.
Muted voices and motion are greater there
than any little pocket of earth that our
body or grave can hold.
She dies into the world which
is always alive
and Mystery.
So the singer has become the green light
which bathes her, her life signaling toward it,
her death become it which is greater music still.
Be sad, as we will, but know
she is now where the Green is -
in woods,
in the world,
in the eternal green
of hearts and minds
we but borrow it while alive and return
to the Green source with our passing.
3
O rue rue LaRue it's here
this space between the gate and the lovely garden
is here everywhere in the ring in the hand in the dirt
within the hole of the ring in the breath flung in
and out the grave house underneath
the dirt's coolth and dank breath
thank the air and pass the leaves
the hand of the digger becomes the tree
becomes the sign upon which all breathing things
shall hang language surpasses itself breaks
upon its own weight like the empty shell of the beetle
little is the frame we live within the tiny world
the walk upon Vast the space it partakes of making
the wave of the wind ripple in the mind and Mind
turns to the dropp of rain the flaked paint of the
barn side the vague window pane opening upon
the eternal scene of stones breathing becoming bread
the living the dead artifacts
All
4
That green has grown.
Leaves have darkened
deepening shadow and hue of green
and so, imagining, walking through,
has her death.
I walk through that, too,
wonder how she fares,
silent lady of dirt
having lost at last
the hurting care of the world,
and we, green and growing,
curl above her dark place,
sure sometime of our grave
as sure as we are now of hers.
5
Scattering wind over bending blades,
I grieve still her leaving,
feel its weight as I see scattered ones
on benches in the park, asleep,
one wretched man huddling where
a band of young musicians tune
their instruments for song.
Disparate images entwine -
gone man,
gone band,
and her death discordant -
the living die
the dead somehow live
singing in the sometime green.
As green returns
so she will in silent memory,
in waves of wind
which is only wind.
We will change but not as she
so changed to every possibility of song.
6
It appears to be ended
but as grass shows there is
a forming wisdom and the same,
Desire.
The fire in our house of living rages
and we cannot come out of our own accord.
The event of her going is a beckoning
to see the flame leaping so let's creep
toward the Green and be silent
but if we cannot be then let us be as she,
frail and tender, lifting voices up
in the greening shadow
7.
Dear one.
Dear one.
They've mown the hill.
The grass remains.
Modern scyth and sickel
felled the frailer blades but
stained their metals
green with your name.
The sun shines,
burns that hewn spot where I first
learned to love your passing,
where I watched your leaving
grow wild and lovely,
untamed beside the street,
learned to hear the quiet there
where now a cycle is begun.
A new season of your death
is running rampant again to know
the blades of time and men.
8
Among oaks the fallen do not speak.
The dirt upon which they lay is hard.
Hard earth.
Cold earth.
Need us here
spoken for nothing.
We scratch our mouths
across the scar of land,
wait in the black sun,
pray to break apart.
A bird with injured wing
sits among the yellow leaves.
It's wild hurt flays the sky.
