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TOWARD an ORGANIC PHILOSOPHY

SPRING, COAST RANGE

The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless,   

The circle of white ash widens around it.

I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time   

I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller.   

Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw;   

The moon has come before them, the light   

Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees.   

It is April; the shad, the hot headed fish,

Climbs the rivers; there is trillium in the damp canyons;   

The foetid adder’s tongue lolls by the waterfall.

There was a farm at this campsite once, it is almost gone now.   

There were sheep here after the farm, and fire   

Long ago burned the redwoods out of the gulch,   

The Douglas fir off the ridge; today the soil   

Is stony and incoherent, the small stones lie flat   

And plate the surface like scales.

Twenty years ago the spreading gully

Toppled the big oak over onto the house.   

Now there is nothing left but the foundations   

Hidden in poison oak, and above on the ridge,   

Six lonely, ominous fenceposts;

The redwood beams of the barn make a footbridge   

Over the deep waterless creek bed;

The hills are covered with wild oats

Dry and white by midsummer.

I walk in the random survivals of the orchard.   

In a patch of moonlight a mole

Shakes his tunnel like an angry vein;

Orion walks waist deep in the fog coming in from the ocean;   

Leo crouches under the zenith.

There are tiny hard fruits already on the plum trees.   

The purity of the apple blossoms is incredible.   

As the wind dies down their fragrance

Clusters around them like thick smoke.

All the day they roared with bees, in the moonlight   

They are silent and immaculate.

SPRING, SIERRA NEVADA

Once more golden Scorpio glows over the col   

Above Deadman Canyon, orderly and brilliant,   

Like an inspiration in the brain of Archimedes.   

I have seen its light over the warm sea,

Over the coconut beaches, phosphorescent and pulsing;   

And the living light in the water

Shivering away from the swimming hand,

Creeping against the lips, filling the floating hair.

Here where the glaciers have been and the snow stays late,   

The stone is clean as light, the light steady as stone.

The relationship of stone, ice and stars is systematic and enduring:   

Novelty emerges after centuries, a rock spalls from the cliffs,   

The glacier contracts and turns grayer,

The stream cuts new sinuosities in the meadow,   

The sun moves through space and the earth with it,   

The stars change places.

                                    The snow has lasted longer this year,   

Than anyone can remember. The lowest meadow is a lake,   

The next two are snowfields, the pass is covered with snow,   

Only the steepest rocks are bare. Between the pass   

And the last meadow the snowfield gapes for a hundred feet,   

In a narrow blue chasm through which a waterfall drops,   

Spangled with sunset at the top, black and muscular   

Where it disappears again in the snow.

The world is filled with hidden running water   

That pounds in the ears like ether;

The granite needles rise from the snow, pale as steel;   

Above the copper mine the cliff is blood red,   

The white snow breaks at the edge of it;

The sky comes close to my eyes like the blue eyes   

Of someone kissed in sleep.

                                        I descend to camp,

To the young, sticky, wrinkled aspen leaves,

To the first violets and wild cyclamen,

And cook supper in the blue twilight.

All night deer pass over the snow on sharp hooves,   

In the darkness their cold muzzles find the new grass   

At the edge of the snow.

FALL, SIERRA NEVADA

This morning the hermit thrush was absent at breakfast,   

His place was taken by a family of chickadees;   

At noon a flock of humming birds passed south,   

Whirling in the wind up over the saddle between   

Ritter and Banner, following the migration lane   

Of the Sierra crest southward to Guatemala.

All day cloud shadows have moved over the face of the mountain,   

The shadow of a golden eagle weaving between them   

Over the face of the glacier.

At sunset the half-moon rides on the bent back of the Scorpion,   

The Great Bear kneels on the mountain.

Ten degrees below the moon

Venus sets in the haze arising from the Great Valley.

Jupiter, in opposition to the sun, rises in the alpenglow   

Between the burnt peaks. The ventriloquial belling   

Of an owl mingles with the bells of the waterfall.   

Now there is distant thunder on the east wind.   

The east face of the mountain above me

Is lit with far off lightnings and the sky

Above the pass blazes momentarily like an aurora.   

It is storming in the White Mountains,

On the arid fourteen-thousand-foot peaks;

Rain is falling on the narrow gray ranges

And dark sedge meadows and white salt flats of Nevada.   

Just before moonset a small dense cumulus cloud,   

Gleaming like a grape cluster of metal,

Moves over the Sierra crest and grows down the westward slope.

Frost, the color and quality of the cloud,

Lies over all the marsh below my campsite.

The wiry clumps of dwarfed whitebark pines   

Are smoky and indistinct in the moonlight,   

Only their shadows are really visible.

The lake is immobile and holds the stars

And the peaks deep in itself without a quiver.   

In the shallows the geometrical tendrils of ice   

Spread their wonderful mathematics in silence.   

All night the eyes of deer shine for an instant

As they cross the radius of my firelight.

In the morning the trail will look like a sheep driveway,   

All the tracks will point down to the lower canyon.   

“Thus,” says Tyndall, “the concerns of this little place   

Are changed and fashioned by the obliquity of the earth’s axis,

The chain of dependence which runs through creation,   

And links the roll of a planet alike with the interests   

Of marmots and of men.”

Kenneth Rexroth

Hidden.

The mature man lives quietly, does good privately, takes responsibility for his actions, treats others with friendliness and courtesy, finds mischief boring and avoids it. Without the hidden conspiracy of goodwill, society would not endure an hour.

Kenneth Rexroth

Silent.

Grossmann, Silent Winter Forest, 2014

FALLING LEAVES and EARLY SNOW

In the years to come they will say,

“They fell like the leaves

In the autumn of nineteen thirty-nine.”

November has come to the forest,

To the meadows where we picked the cyclamen.

The year fades with the white frost

On the brown sedge in the hazy meadows,

Where the deer tracks were black in the morning.

Ice forms in the shadows;

Disheveled maples hang over the water;

Deep gold sunlight glistens on the shrunken stream.

Somnolent trout move through pillars of brown and gold.

The yellow maple leaves eddy above them,

The glittering leaves of the cottonwood,

The olive, velvety alder leaves,

The scarlet dogwood leaves,

Most poignant of all.

 

In the afternoon thin blades of cloud

Move over the mountains;

The storm clouds follow them;

Fine rain falls without wind.

The forest is filled with wet resonant silence.

When the rain pauses the clouds

Cling to the cliffs and the waterfalls.

In the evening the wind changes;

Snow falls in the sunset.

We stand in the snowy twilight

And watch the moon rise in a breach of cloud.

Between the black pines lie narrow bands of moonlight,

Glimmering with floating snow.

An owl cries in the sifting darkness.

The moon has a sheen like a glacier.

Kenneth Rexroth

Purity.

Shishkin, Pine Forest, 1872

The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless,
The circle of white ash widens around it.
I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time
I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller.
Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw;
The moon has come before them, the light
Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees.
It is April; the shad, the hot headed fish,
Climbs the rivers; there is trillium in the damp canyons;
The foetid adder’s tongue lolls by the waterfall.
There was a farm at this campsite once, it is almost gone now.
There were sheep here after the farm, and fire
Long ago burned the redwoods out of the gulch,
The Douglas fir off the ridge; today the soil
Is stony and incoherent, the small stones lie flat
And plate the surface like scales.
Twenty years ago the spreading gully
Toppled the big oak over onto the house.
Now there is nothing left but the foundations
Hidden in poison oak, and above on the ridge,
Six lonely, ominous fenceposts;
The redwood beams of the barn make a footbridge
Over the deep waterless creek bed;
The hills are covered with wild oats
Dry and white by midsummer.
I walk in the random survivals of the orchard.
In a patch of moonlight a mole
Shakes his tunnel like an angry vein;
Orion walks waist deep in the fog coming in from the ocean;
Leo crouches under the zenith.
There are tiny hard fruits already on the plum trees.
The purity of the apple blossoms is incredible.
As the wind dies down their fragrance
Clusters around them like thick smoke.
All the day they roared with bees, in the moonlight
They are silent and immaculate.

Kenneth Rexroth

Timeless.

FLOATING

Our canoe idles in the idling current

Of the tree and vine and rush enclosed

Backwater of a torpid midwestern stream;

Revolves slowly, and lodges in the glutted

Waterlilies. We are tired of paddling.

All afternoon we have climbed the weak current,

Up dim meanders, through woods and pastures,

Past muddy fords where the strong smell of cattle

Lay thick across the water; singing the songs

Of perfect, habitual motion; ski songs,

Nightherding songs, songs of the capstan walk,

The levee, and the roll of the voyageurs.

Tired of motion, of the rhythms of motion,

Tired of the sweet play of our interwoven strength,

We lie in each other's arms and let the palps

Of waterlily leaf and petal hold back

All motion in the heat thickened, drowsing air.

Sing to me softly, Westron Wynde, Ah the Syghes,

Mon coeur se recommend à vous, Phoebi Claro;

Sing the wandering erotic melodies

Of men and women gone seven hundred years,

Softly, your mouth close to my cheek.

Let our thighs lie entangled on the cushions,

Let your breasts in their thin cover

Hang pendant against my naked arms and throat;

Let your odorous hair fall across our eyes;

Kiss me with those subtle, melodic lips.

As I undress you, your pupils are black, wet,

Immense, and your skin ivory and humid.

Move softly, move hardly at all, part your thighs,

Take me slowly while our gnawing lips

Fumble against the humming blood in our throats.

Move softly, do not move at all, but hold me,

Deep, still, deep within you, while time slides away,

As the river slides beyond this lily bed,

And the thieving moments fuse and disappear

In our mortal, timeless flesh.

Kenneth Rexroth

Across.

It is the dark of the moon.

Late at night, the end of summer,

The autumn constellations

Glow in the arid heaven.

The air smells of cattle, hay,

And dust. In the old orchard

The pears are ripe. The trees

Have sprouted from old rootstocks

And the fruit is inedible.

As I pass them I hear something

Rustling and grunting and turn

My light into the branches.

Two raccoons with acrid pear

Juice and saliva drooling

From their mouths stare back at me,

Their eyes deep sponges of light.

They know me and do not run

Away. Coming up the road

Through the black oak shadows, I

See ahead of me, glinting

Everywhere from the dusty

Gravel, tiny points of cold

Blue light, like the sparkle of

Iron snow. I suspect what it is,

And kneel to see. Under each

Pebble and oak leaf is a

Spider, her eyes shining at

Me with my reflected light

Across immeasurable distance.

Kenneth Rexroth

Interlocked.

Grossman, Red at Sundown Sketch, 2013

QUIETLY

Lying here quietly beside you,

My cheek against your firm, quiet thighs,
The calm music of Boccherini
Washing over us in the quiet,
As the sun leaves the housetops and goes
Out over the Pacific, quiet—
So quiet the sun moves beyond us,
So quiet as the sun always goes,
So quiet, our bodies, worn with the
Times and penances of love, our
Brains curled, quiet in their shells, dormant,
Our hearts slow, quiet, reliable
In their interlocked rhythms, the pulse
In your thigh caressing my cheek. Quiet.

Kenneth Rexroth

Alive.

Homer, Old Settlers, 1892

CONFUSION of the SENSES

Moonlight fills the laurels
Like music. The moonlit
Air does not move. Your white
Face moves towards my face.
Voluptuous sorrow
Holds us like a cobweb
Like a song, a perfume, the moonlight.
Your hair falls and holds our faces.
Your lips curl into mine.
Your tongue enters my mouth.
A bat flies through the moonlight.
The moonlight fills your eyes
They have neither iris nor pupil
They are only globes of cold fire
Like the deer’s eyes that go by us
Through the empty forest.
Your slender body quivers
And smells of seaweed.
We lie together listening
To each other breathing in the moonlight.
Do you hear? We are breathing. We are alive.

Kenneth Rexroth