Enslin - Weather Within
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THE WEATHER WITHIN
by Theodore Enslin
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In Memory In Homage
George Oppen
1908-1984
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out of scale the consciousness
brave instance of its life
flickers constant inconstant
make and brake the engine
evident by degrees
announces clearing
seasonal.
[]
The given,
which has concerned us,
no longer strikes so deep.
Age is more adventurous:
That is its gift
to us, and from us.
We might almost wish
that it were not so.
Old age is poised --
rarely takes that last flight
above the peaks
that youth tried to scale
in vain.
[]
That one
within me
within you
asks a question
of weathers
those that cut
those that heal
nights for rest
before the dawning.
[]
A picture from within a
very simple picture --
not that simplicity
is always the answer.
It is necessary that some things
grow complicated and various,
although the roots are simple.
Beginnings are within us.
There, they had best be simple
figures in quick sure strokes.
[]
What I recall
is not instant --
not the instant.
It was many years ago,
and I may not remember
all of it --
but parts
that superimpose
between myself,
and this, which is a mirror
-not the self-the same.
Merely what I recognize
one face to another.
[]
The air how light it is
wind among trees a gentle
sussurus a word exact
as leaves but air so light
the voices of men and women
are like that a sussurus
within a remembrance
of weather the light of winter
flaring abruptly out
the heart beats on in darkness.
[]
Whenever and sometimes
the few limits bounding
imagination which is only
free enough to mark
the design of its consciousness
a will. I hear the voices.
What I hear grows to
clearing what is not there
not understood.
[]
Not disengaged exactly
there are always connections
which keep me in touch
with others they are tenuous
as those filament threads
that spiders send out
one clear still day in summer
shimmering and catching
flnally anchored each one to its
proper web.
[]
It is not that by talk
we have said more
or less than was intended.
We have said.
From what we have
said other things have been possible
or have happened where possibility
has flourished. There is no good
or evil involved as consciousness
what is within the talk
that sounded indication
is amoral and aloof
always to be treated with care
with respect for what may
may not be beyond us.
[]
There is no story worth
the telling of a story
no thing we can know
more than the weight of water
that passes by its depth
either a river or the rain
driving in on a storm
all wind that carries.
It is myself that rages
out of a fury just and unjust.
[]
How fortunate the man
who is just I have never
met him mixed with
degrees of shade I will
allow the good to bring him closer.
Let me see him!
[]
If the air grows stale
there is change in it.
I do not know how or when
but as I breathe I sense
the turn as surely as
the tide that freshness
which opens chance
that change already present.
[]
A small
reverberation
the word
a ghost
that will not conform
easily
to what we mean
it as
an example
the axe will cut
the word will too
not on the page but
lifted
up
to fall where it may
[]
The twist of the voice
as if it would
twine the whole way
around these long bones
an ivy which might
flower and
from the seed within --
protected by humus of the mind
from inner storms --
a twist quick and light
I know I know
[]
A fire of small things
opens in the wind
there are spaces hot
but without color or substance.
They point the way
within to where small things
were greater
-early-
before the fire swept them up.
[]
To have arrived in mere number
hardly enough from which to make
or take heart to have arrived
something known within --
more than that
not way or place
in saying.
Bare of sunlight or barely sun
this light which surrounds
what is not dark in itself
barely the glow which it took
from the sun a borrowing
prisoned in the vital parts
bare yet shrouded
not echo not reflection.
[]
A place swept smooth a place
where sand and wind have agreed
to keep no record each time
a mark appears wind or water
tide or storm will erase it.
The mind is like that for all its memories
it has agreed to none of ours
individual conditions what it keeps
lies deep an animism
collected from all of us
in all conditions our sands swept smooth.
[]
The need to see past is of our making
finally yet we have seen into
less often a heedless passing
swallows what is to be found
spews it out again unfounded.
Needs. So many things needed
as many harmful often the same
without looking inward we do not know
the choices how to choose.
[]
There is rightness
a standing up
rectitude
the integer of the life
integer vitae
we will not claim
all of it
that is settled
outside us
yet a conduct
a weather within.
[]
New word new world
each time a board is shaped
not what its growth intended
I grant you possible
only a possibility one held
between something made
and something not.
An old man looking at his artifacts
this one made this other not made.
[]
It will never be the mere
translucent sound that allows
us to move through what we
have never and cannot.
Spaces within the mind
are more open than we think
them. The sound will gather
space more than space
sound leftover the light.
[]
Emotions engaged a consciousness
that all has aged around us
we alone remain young
that is the only way of looking out
what we find there
only on the surface.
What is within does not age.
We know only our own part
of it.
[]
What may be sung well sung
may well be sung it is
that pitiless singing changes
as the bells insist their tones
again the ringing in stages
many stages one after another
ways in or out down corridors
long stopped with dust the
velvet of neglect done
well done may well be done.
[]
Voyage loneliness unfinished
therefore lonely? no way to
put it other than the chance
words of loneliness voyage
whatever the voyage may be
or wherever we looked
any of us
tending fires in the galleys
where we'd cook whatever food
would sustain us
through that loneliness.
A fire even to cook at sea
is hazardous business but
necessary and loneliness
yes.
[]
The smoke would remain long
enough to blot out the sun to
lay ash on the living freeze
flesh to marrow all
that rejoiced or sorrowed life
taken as a simple commodity
snuffed out in that instant reduced
to the point of our thinking thought
which is usual no longer
a horror that we starve out
the loves and remembrances as if
they were no longer needed.
[]
Wind rises as a gift to spread
the tedious the untidy
in patterns so intricate far
dispersed that there is no longer
a need to dwell on these
incongruities which stalk us.
We are cleansed a moment
ready to move on and away
from the wind which is momentary
unsteady and gone before us.
[]
Let it be small enough to be evident
that infinite lesson of all the world
surely its type merely that
we can't take in this boundlessness
enthusiasm carries over but
will not enter the mind
in any way equal to these small designs
of blood and of water
such that we see them clear
impounded.
[]
Like a shadow but not
there is too much not enough
a substance not a substance
that the mind a conscious will
should presume so much
so little possible like
but not like not but
so the world surrounds us.
[]
Not the symbol we are in need
deep need of scene not what stands
for it. We are fed the importance
of metaphor yet when it's exact
it is the scene itself exact
no substitution.
It applies
to that day we need to bring
an axe against the root of the tree.
We need not reach for synonyms.
The blade's the blade.
Sharpen it.
[]
Lest any shadow touch the heart
the heart be troubled we would be wet
our feet in moonlight
where the hill and mist joined forces
seamed a valley seemed there
and a lake and memories
old stories told by campfires
in the smallest watches of the night.
We knew that much we tried
to listen and be still yet
shadows frighten and the large concerns
which blot out memory
moonlight the pleasures of the dark.
[]
An outlaw wind against our canon
set up to move ancient dust
what is never what is always
done those definitions of our
littleness sometimes fear
a wind far out come in
that does not know or love a given law.
[]
I know of no reason other
than my own an explanation
reasonable will not answer me.
It is the true limit. I have reached it
from a part of myself and I
return for little to what another
tells me.
Opening the weather.
It was here I made a law
of measure wholly of my own.
My reason does require me.
My answer and my full degree.
[]
It is a lake its
promontories deserted stations
along indented shores the
hidden coves lie silent
except for chance waves
rising from a breeze headon.
Rippling and marbling a few black
cones left over from the winter's
drop a silent forest
above. It is not unlike the nature
held within us all is natural.
We cannot in the end deny
our nature create a thing
which is not natural.
[]
Our substance flowing in ruined country
that part of the land that will not
hold a grave. Ah the dead imply rebirth
and the reborn rejouissance.
It will inform it will come from death that
that
dead there is the chance to breathe.
[]
The brand of learning that it be lit
is enough it will be passed on
though few will reach for it
recognize its fire among many flames
only one more faggot burning.
No there is much to be said
searing deep as one
hand passes to another
that nothing stands in the way of it.
[]
How did I know that water?
I assumed its presence not
that I'd been touched or wet.
How? did? I?
All such words which account for
things until they need no saying.
That does/can happen.
Snapped shut the tiny lens
that will not turn loose
the prisoner never losing scale
a seizure.
[]
The words themselves older
it does not seem so possible
that words which we rearrange
with no difficulty should be that old
without an ability to deflect
our uses yet in the largest sense
they do resist and elude us.
They make it difficult just at the moment
when they seem defenseless.
In measure attempted
they will assume nobility
growing from the rubbish
of our thoughtless assault.
Oh the words.
Words live lives of their own.
[]
There is an age a cover of sands
which preserves it and within
it does not grow old. Alas we
attempt to enter it. We cannot.
Only to observe to mourn our loss
which may not be loss at all.
We must live as we live
in our own which is no time.
So fleet. So fleeting.
[]
"Arrival Point"
Unsure untenable points of entry
more reliable in the time of Bach.
Not simply the music although
all is music how do we separate
what carries peradventure all
we are from what it carries?
We do not for all attempts to avoid
the true things nuggets we are joined
to them by this music.
Sure. Tenable.
[]
Sounds and waters wither
elements cross and contain each other
as they age and carry over
each to each less difference
they will diffuse again salts
spread and scattered.
[]
The land may seem dead behind us
out of scale out of color
where the light has left it
because we are not there to see
the angle of light still left
to shine on the land no
it is not dead it is sleeping
alone We do not understand it
thinking we have left that
the only land is the one we inhabit
to which we came immigrants
thinking the life was before us.
[]
These small distances that open song
a plain chant rendering
our vanities a single line
explored unto its close which
with an added voice would strengthen
into cadence but a single line
we must allow it all to end
without conviction that there was
an ending this/these small
distances the opening of song
we try to guess them and
to share our pride
this little trickling melody is all we have.
[]
We explain ourselves not others
although we may think to hide
through attention drawn away.
It is a lesson learned not easily
as most others not only by the time
we will have no further need.
[]
One island to another yet
there is more than passage islands
set so similarly worlds
apart stone teeth among
curling lips of wave they
are the artifacts distant and
distinct one from another it is
a voyage of discovery each
unique so distant from the mainland
they recede and crumble still
their shapes and characters will last.
Among bones teeth are like that last
the longest.
[]
The harvest good they must be
speaking of death that is the most
reliable. Only a few stones
mark the most recent but that
harvest enriches all that follows
and the stones themselves within us
scatter and flake in the soft
dark earth our roots fresh
nurtured in our constant death.
[]
To summon the power shadow
will appear before the fact we
must watch for it aware
that not all shadows prepare for
anything not memorable
they do no more than brush
the passing of the light yet
power does appear and in
some instance that same power
welling up alone to summon shadow
long after the fact has vanished.
[]
The mind in age ascends
hovers cannot come down.
There is 'nowhere to return.'
The turns are silent wheeling shadows
high above the landscape all that
bewildered us in scale
but so far off it does no good
to know that. I suppose
it is the human condition that its parts
come together only at that place
where the fit is powerless a
design perfect in its just repose.
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First publication of THE WEATHER WITHIN was a cooperative effort
between Landlocked Press, Woodland Pattern Arts Center, and Membrane
Press (Light and Dust). Walter Tisdale produced an exquisitely printed
limited edition letterpress, making a set of prints on hard stock from
which Karl Young printed an offset trade edition. Some copies were sold
through Membrane Press, and some were distributed by Karl Gartung and
Anne Kingsbery through Woodland Pattern as a memorial to George Oppen.
The John D. & Cathrine T. MacArthur Foundation funded the project.
The book is presented here in its entirety.
Copyright © 1985 by Theodore Enslin.
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