Northern April PART ONE

I

Why the intent Connecticut forgets this shallow water 1 do not know, but, long ago, year after year The Indian boys came back in spring with pine-knot torches, Their spear points tipped for flight, while gleaming bodies Bent to the reach and to the soundless stroke; Their paddles that impinged upon the surface Of that lagoon seemed less the instruments Compelling forward motion, than wings of birds, So effortless they were, and a salmon rose From the shadowed depth to receive flint, was hauled Inboard over the gunwale dripping silver, Its body a flail of light, and the spasmed weight of it Beat like subdued thunder upon the birch-bark, Quivered the thin braces, until the descending Blow of an axe between protruding eyes Gave the implacable answer to living muscle, And with a last snapping of armored jaws The great fish lay still in the slime of its belly. Many salmon arose to the sputtering brilliance, Their fins had known the cool touch of the pond-weed, And not without a struggle would they relinquish Their swift and various world. On long spring nights The canoes heavy with fish would return homeward, And after a space of time the laughter would ring out, The calls from homing craft to the still encampment.

II

Yesterday is today in this well of silence, This estuary where deer come down to drink And leave in the sand their delicate signatures; Frogs love this place, about the hour of nightfall They swell their throats and make a spider-web Of ringing sound to which the tree-toads answer. Years have no purpose but to provide seasons For nesting birds, and here time has no meaning, Is less than rain upon the leaves of larches, Or like a clock to which one grows accustomed. March on, meticulous clocks, I spurn your warning; While there is sun I drink the warmth of it, When darkness throws a cloak about the world, My eyes glow green as are the eyes of bob-cats Padding beneath the stars. So variable And wise with change am I, to outwit time Becomes natural, and no better way I know Than difficult work, no wiser way than love.

III

Each year when gradual spring unlocks the rivers, When sap ascends the lichened maple bole, And the ice breaks in the white Connecticut, My blood keeps pace, and from the desolate heart Leaps out in spate along the unused channels. Yawning I rise and stretch unshackled limbs, Take polished helve in hand, invading chip By fragrant chip the resinous wood with steel, Balance on bare toes, swinging from the shoulders Long supple arms like any ape, bound free To the ice shock of water. Recurrent April So fires my hands with toil, my heart with longing For your shy ways, my slim inscrutable one; Spring vaults cold barricades, the wild white pear First of fruit trees spikes all its limbs with blossom, Then peach bloom storms the orchards behind Norwich, A wave from coral seas, then apple branches Unload upon warm nights such heady fragrance As to amaze and draw the fumbling bees. Do you remember, dearest, how strange it was, At the full of the moon to hear the oven-bird Sing out upon the incongruous hour of midnight, And how you slipped your timorous hand in mine, Leading me silent over tethered hills? O where is now the pattern which the pines made Against a luminous sky, the cold barred brilliance Of moonlight splashed on rocks? It was your presence That laid a magic wand upon the place; You could draw mushrooms up in eerie circles Out of the mold, chipmunks would talk with you, And supernatural beings in damp wood Lit phosphorescent lamps for us to see by Before we made our bed on boughs of hemlock.

IV

That was another April; I had forgotten Almost, the strangeness that has come between us, Insidious and slow, but no less real Because its kind is such as can be measured, Perceived and recognized, but thwarted never. Like two young trees we were, grown side by side, Since childhood with locked limbs, and the same passions Played through us both; we shared inclement weather Breathing a single hope, until some power, Above ourselves, high and unknowable, Made necessary a parting of the branches. And for a time there was a side of each Naked and shivering, that had been warm, But time and sunlight made us whole again. I know there is a destiny for lovers,' Equating measure of joy with painful measure; He must have lost all watchfulness in sleep As the hours turned to days, and days to fortnights, And when he woke revenge was sweet to him. The god of love is a most treacherous god, Throned upon whirring skulls, to exact tribute In sleepless nights of longing, in agonized hours When jealousy transmutes mentality To mobile madness, a pretence of disdain Curving the tremulous lips in hollow laughter; Each skull contains a diabolic clock, And I will leave them to their petty cycles, And love will be the fragment of a dream To treasure against death, the last awaking.

V

Pine log seeks mortised log, both cling together As lovers clasp to avoid the slow decay Their separate selves would nourish. Stone with stone For winter fires my cunning hands laid true; To prove its worth I set a great blaze roaring On the new hearth, then went outdoors and saw The sparks fling up a challenge toward the stars. 0 wandering Indian tribes with burning eyes Hooded to probe horizons beyond distance, Your loneliness is no more vast than mine, Your sight is not more keen, your bronzed fore-arms Are no such flails and reaping-hooks of light As paddle and axe have taught mine how to be. With milk-white thunder clasped between your knees You laugh like gods and gallop from dune to dune; My steed is white like yours, but not so heavy, For I can fit it over head and shoulders And walk with it along some narrow portage Over thick brush and rocks, then set it down Impatient in a back-wash of the rapids, Crouch between braces, approach swirling foam; Spray stings my eyes, black rocks jut out of nowhere, And down I shoot along green glistening coils To dim white caves of tumult. O blinding joy Of speed accelerated into song! 1 know why meteors are so hard and heavy, Being essential ore, yet even they Burst into plumes of light; I hear them singing Most frequently in August, when our orbit Guides the revolving earth across their path. While Indian horsemen ride the year around, My speed, no less than meteors in the night, Is seasonal, awaits the requisite month, For ice comes early on the Connecticut, Impedes and bridges pools along White River, And the first snow-flakes do not melt from it, But higher build their edifice, and higher, With fast accretion of transparent crystals, And ice grows down to bear the gathering weight. The first thin film holds such a pure white wonder For my tired eyes long cloyed with summer green, Parched by the autumn color, it seems a gem Among cold ashes in the crucible Of the dying year. Egyptians even so Camped out beneath the heavens around a fire, And woke at dawn to find smooth drops of glass Still warm from the charred embers in the sand. Osirus, god of the sun, what means this omen? They cried aloud and tore their hair and prayed.

VI

Now the sharp nights bring down the frost, and snow Will be acquainted with my cabin roof One of these days, swirl high about the doorstep; I shall not care, for there is wood within, Stored tins of vegetables, well-oiled guns Each in its place. My snow-shoes on the wall Long to be used, stretched skis groan in the corner Until a foot of snow hides rocks and stumps, Providing bed enough for the waxed runners, And I am off along the winding trail. This world of white is mine alone to blemish With parallel tracks, this air is mine to breathe, Makes visible my panting like a smoke,

And I am free, and hills are lovely now, All smoothed to what they might have wished to be Had they the power; they surge with joy to feel The amorous way my skis fly over them. Green hemlocks hide close to the trunks of pine; How volatile must be their soft apparel To ride webbed branches as a ballet dancer Mercurial treads chaos, toes the abyss, Eyes laughing, and mouth pursed in mock dismay Which turns to anger as my form whips by, Swerving beneath boughs to avoid disaster! Then peril is sweet and fires what blood in me Has not been beaten from my uncovered face At the keen impact of the knife-edged air; And my taut body upon skis crouching, Winged with their speed, emboldened by the sure Imagination of the seasoned ash, Knows rugged earth, whose sudden shelving contours Give me foretaste of what is beyond death, And make me a brief inhabitant of the sky.

VII

There is a mountain I love, Chocorua, Named for an Indian chief, a fugitive Who fled like mist along the wooded valleys To the bald summit, then stood meditating Perched on a jutting crag, until the hounds Bayed at his feet. On the same rock I reeled To see the empty acres there below me, Cloud-filled and beckoning, knowing well that I Would never have dared attempt what he had done Of my own will. His case was different; Sure death on pitiless paws came close behind. Hills lie before me under the blue sky Drowsing in sunlight, the plains marked with silver, A thread for every stream, thin coins for lakes; A bell in the far-distant spire of Tamworth village, Tolls out the languid hour, identical note To that which long ago shattered the stillness When the new bronze was hoisted to its cradle. New Hampshire then was more a wilderness Than it is now, and less a haunted place. The trees were felled to clear a plot for building, Cut into lengths of log and shaped with adzes, The beams secured by pegs, while hand-wrought nails Skewered the boards; small panes made up a window, The house was floored with two-foot planks of pine

Which smell today as sweet as ever they did, When they are planed and paint is scraped from them. The smith toiled at his forge and smelted copper For kettles and pans, pewter for polished ware; Nails and rough hinges, bands to enclose barrels, Took the white heat and were immersed and tempered The potter mined his clay from the rocky soil, Fired heavy jars to cool the clotted cream; And the deep-chested glass-blower worked such magic On sand and potash, that they become fused Marvellously, and transformed to coloured flasks Having the hall-mark of the hand-blown bottle Where the glass navel-cord had stiffened and broken. No ornament not necessary to line Impeded the true purpose of this beauty,— To be of use, to be the outer shell Masking a firm resolve in iron men, Square-jawed and kneed like any Hercules, For whom chance phrases sired sage arguments.

VIII

New England never again will know such wisdom As ruled the lives of that hill-dwelling people, Such unified strength and clarity of mind; Many are left, but the great mass of them Have gone quietly, leaving their farms in order, Leaving the orchards of young sweet-apple trees For porcupines, the beds for mice to nest in, Meadows bequeathed to moles and burrowing foxes. But there is always a lilac by the door; Grown strong, while the house burns or falls in ruin, Its perfume hot and heavy assails the air, Its colour blends to the brown of weathered doorways, Narrates how vanished arches in the sun, When chimneys drew thin smoke along the valleys, And the dog howled, and night came down, enfolded Stacked cords of wood, how clapboard walls were painted Each spring a dazzling white, how barns stood here That now are gone but for foundation stones Removed from equilibrium by time And thrusting roots, deprived of symmetry By such an edge as wind and rain can muster, And the sharp tooth of frost. Time has no meaning For lilac shrubs, except diameter With every season; how the ploughed lands prosper Does not concern them more than casual storms From somewhere north, when spring is in their blood.