A GREAT RECKONING IN A LITTLE ROOM

It could have been a little room like this—
four walls, a window, table, chair—tales
tell us he was stabbed and cursing when he died
a much regretted master of blank verse…

but that was long ago and this is now
in this little room, at this window
looking out upon the ruddy repetitions
of a blank brick wall across the way…

I count poetic feet by heart, bemoan
the calling of them, just as that Touchstone
who held a plumb line for The Bard:
“When a man’s verses cannot be read
nor a man’s good wit seconded…
it strikes a man more dead than
a great reckoning in a little room,” he said.

Even the graffitist, wily, undercover,
come by night to paint his colors on the wall
might lurk in shadowy corners come the dawn
to overhear effects of his calligraphies

or the forest with the falling tree and no one
there to hear—does it find the earthy thump
insisted by an inner ear dwelling in thought?

It all comes down to one small room
and looking out the window wondering why
why embark upon an expedition or ambition
surely doomed to disappointment or despair?

Wisdom has said: because it’s there.
Then, too, there is that falling tree…anything
to get out from under it, sound or no sound,
purely by dead reckoning, no guarantee.
.
.
A GREAT RECKONING IN A LITTLE ROOM

A GREAT RECKONING IN A LITTLE ROOM

It could have been a little room like this—
four walls, a window, table, chair—tales
tell us he was stabbed and cursing when he died
a much regretted master of blank verse…

but that was long ago and this is now
in this little room, at this window
looking out upon the ruddy repetitions
of a blank brick wall across the way…

I count poetic feet by heart, bemoan
the calling of them, just as that Touchstone
who held a plumb line for The Bard:
“When a man’s verses cannot be read
nor a man’s good wit seconded…
it strikes a man more dead than
a great reckoning in a little room,” he said.

Even the graffitist, wily, undercover,
come by night to paint his colors on the wall
might lurk in shadowy corners come the dawn
to overhear effects of his calligraphies

or the forest with the falling tree and no one
there to hear—does it find the earthy thump
insisted by an inner ear dwelling in thought?

It all comes down to one small room
and looking out the window wondering why
why embark upon an expedition or ambition
surely doomed to disappointment or despair?

Wisdom has said: because it’s there.
Then, too, there is that falling tree…anything
to get out from under it, sound or no sound,
purely by dead reckoning, no guarantee.
.
.

SONNET IX

(Translated from the French of Louise Labé)

As soon as I begin to drift anew
In my bed’s feathery soft cave,
Toward the restfulness I crave,
Sadness wanders off, dissolves in you.

Then I realize the good that I pursue
And sigh so loudly for, I hold engraved
In my own heart, and I am laved
With such fierce sobbing I could break in two.

O happy night all mine! O gentle drowse,
Sweet rest so filled with peace—
Carry on my dream as nights go by.

And if my loving soul is not supposed
Ever to have good things in truth, at least
Then, let me have them in a lie.

…………………………………….© Cynthia Jobin, 2014
………………….
SONNET IX (English)

Tout aussi tôt que je commence à prendre
Dens le mol lit le repos désiré,
Mon triste esprit hors de moy retiré
S’en va vers toy incontinent se rendre.

Lors m’est avis que dedens mon sein tendre
Je tiens le bien, où j’ay tant aspiré,
Et pour lequel j’ay si haut souspiré,
Que de sanglots ay souvent cuidé fendre.

O dous sommeil, o nuit à moy heureuse!
Plaisant repos, plein de tranquilité,
Continuez toutes les nuiz mon songe:

Et si jamais ma povre âme amoureuse
Ne doit avoir de bien en vérité,
Faites au moins qu’elle en ait en mensonge.

SONNET IX (French)

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As noted before (see SONNET II and SONNET VIII in archives) many translations of Louise Labé’s poetry already exist–some almost transliterations, others keeping close to lexical meaning but with little attention to the petrarchan poetic form she employed. Because French poetry is primarily syllabic and English poetry more accentual, I have observed the sonnet rhyme scheme and meter, but not the syllabic counts. What I have attempted is to make a poem from a poem.
Source: 1556 text in Renaissance French, from François Rigolot’s
Louise Labé: Oeuvres Complètes.

WILD GOOSE CHASE

It’s a child-mind
not yet inked with idiom
that dances undiscouraged—
squeals, flails, flaps and honks
the wild goose chase—

she runs at pond’s edge,
arms wide, grasping toward
the fast escaping geese.
What does she think to do with one
if caught? They’re almost bigger than
herself in her exuberant red cap.

I watch, leaning on my stick,
knowing the lost cause.
The few souls passing my park bench
smile and nod. Perhaps they’ve also known
the feeling once, of chasing God.

Her grownups call the child
to supper, sleep, away.
The light of day is lessening;
the geese have gone
wherever geese must go at night

but there’s still time
to gather those wing feathers
the goose-chase left behind.

I could do that
if I had a mind.

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WILD GOOSE CHASE

SAME OLD, SAME OLD

Once upon a time
in a house on dry land…

after the fierce flood
folded into the lips of mud,
the door flung open to
the sunburned yard
where a woman of salt
crouched over her lost arm

long after sand
shifted the weight of time,
drifting over the litter
of the sandman’s bones
and a bird flew in
with a get-well card

when the overtures
were over
and the happy harm of
war, and two-by-two
were not enough to rhyme
with an immaculate
conception’s dovely tones,
branch bringing only
echoes of
the olive’s flesh singing

after all this and
the nerve-wracking babble
of lesser birds messing
the eaves of the unfinished
tower, the monument
standing broken-fingered
halfway to its heaven
when the hammer left
the hand, and below,
the dumb, nose-thumbing
rabble

even after
the black widow’s power
was washed from each
room where it lingered,
dead rainbows
clung to the windows and

….there lived a whale
in the belly of a man.

RIDING THE MOUNTAIN

From the top
you cannot go
straight down
or you’ll be killed.
You have to learn
to turn, traverse
the hill.  Much
depends on whether
it is nordic or alpine,
on how you bend,
or lift your heel,
or know the parallel.
Also figure on
the quality of snow–
pudding, powder, ice–
and just how well you
carry your own weight
at ten or twenty mph
or twice as much
if you desire to race.
You’ll need a taste
for cold high altitudes
and visions far
above the timberline.
Also a yen
to jump the moguls,
dip into the glens
as you go round
and down
and down around
the hush of sound
to where the end
comes into view
and schuss, schuss,
lean hard and whoosh
to a dead stop.
Then go back up again.