Sonnets 61 - 90 - Don YortyDon Yorty

Things are often more beautiful at a
distance, but not you. The closer the more
inevitable you become. Before
I thought beauty was what I saw, that the
superficial awed but I was wrong. Your
skin is really you as fragrant as the
rose whose tenderness exudes its soul. A
truth is always true. I am no longer
young and though I know you would like to kiss
you must think of the future and begin.
Love though sinless would be completely sin
if from your lovely limbs more loveliness
doesn’t spring. This spring is my sacrifice
and joins me with you in begetting life.

Bird in the tree you are singing to me
as if you know and care that I am here
each note intended to put in my ear
a song. What is alone can be pretty
sharing itself, staccato before the
profound pause and silence still near and far.
Unseen the melody is all you are
bird off on some limb that is budding a
leaf as I write listening and the winds
and other choruses, even the car
screeching its brakes do not startle, just are.
The cat licks the hair on my leg and winds
around a thigh, it too meaning one thing
this sonnet is taking shape while you sing.

I was up late and woke late too, sleepy
with a dull brain to figure out the day.
Right from the start Cachito’s in the way
biting on my ankles so carefully
he doesn’t make them bleed holding his paws
around one foot hanging on from study
to living room. Pay attention to me
is what he is saying, dragged as he bawlsa
a plea common to all. There’s lots to do
and it’s soon time to go, but in the hall
Cachito wants to play. What if I stall
surrendering just a moment or two
and let go of the day, throw him to catch
his tattered toy mouse and bring it back?

Where is the snow that only yesterday
clung to the four corners of the sidewalk
and in the rectangular playground stalked
freezing the toddlers thawed out now who play
under the spiraling buds grown so thick
on every sprouted limb they poke green
as the grass between the cracked macadam seen
already in the sun? The warm wind licks
the daffodils and hyacinths awake.
Me too. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted
to. Me, I want to go walking with contented
old friends through Central Park, going this way
or that following a path. Just thinking
and talking of nothing will be something.

Cachito brought me a mouse while I slept
waking to find the gift dead at my hand
when all at once the mouse jumped up and ran
for the surrounding shadows. The cat leapt
after, out of the dark batting the mouse
into the air. It stood its ground when it
came down squeaking a futile defense, its
final reprimand ended in the pounce
that caught it in its sharp and gentle jaws
alive like a delivered baby, raw
fetus with its fur torn off, a red ball
licked well beyond recall, what I just saw
on silent haunches bravely cowering
nothing now—Ah! but nothing was something.

My Spanish-speaking students ask me where
the English language comes from and I tell
them the Anglo-Saxons. But the conquest
of England by France made their native tongue
lower class, so crude and illiterate
that even to this day fuck, shit and piss
aren’t said in polite society. We’re
ashamed and self-hating hearing our dame
English is partly French. I ask, “Is there
any French in Spanish like rapprochement
or double entendre?” They all adamantly
shake their heads no, no, no, till one student
looks at the rest and says, “There’s déjà vu.”
They have to agree: “Déjà vu, that’s true.”

I used to clean cat vomit up but now
I don’t unless it’s in the path I walk
Otherwise it can stay unlike broken
glass or garbage with day old fish in it.
In less than an hour or less than that
the cat comes back to lick and eat it up.
You have to have the patience to leave it
forgotten as you should an argument
on politics. To change your mind you must
change yourself and some people are afraid
to be someone else. Have you ever met
a racist who’s not stupid? I haven’t.
Sad but true, you can’t make a rock into
a diamond no matter how you want to.

Had I left sooner or later it would
all have been different, but I didn’t
and got into two arguments, one in
a store and one on the sidewalk about
the neighborhood with two freeloaders who
do nothing, yet want something for nothing.
Today is Good Friday. You know something?
The world’s violent. I stop at a stoop
to scribble this on the only piece of
paper that I have, using the back of
a pack of batteries on the flat of
the cardboard, what space I can make use of.
A young man leaving looks at me askance
as if I’m someone crazy here by chance.

Happy children hunted for eggs and went
bursting through the bushes. I hurriedly
made love before that unexpectedly
standing up expecting any moment
students who didn’t come. Morning’s over.
The afternoon has found a warm bright sun.
Today was many people, now they’re none.
It is only you and me, dear reader
the shadow of the pencil on the page.
Don’t think I’m writing of the tomb. I’m not
We hid the eggs and kids turned over rocks
or climbed a branch, things we did at their age.
“I’ll see you next year,” one smiling boy said
biting off a yellow marshmallow head.

As the Pope is dying it is raining
in New York. I’m remembering the last
time this has happened—Time goes so fast!
I was in Philadelphia cooking
in an Irish pub. One of the cooks was
upset that the new Pope had suddenly
died. At the Vatican the Papal See
was having to choose again. The month was
October and it was also raining
pouring. Thunder shook the cook with holy
terror as he worked over the flames, God’s
judgment somehow on him and frightening.
Although the Pope had died in far off Rome
here there was lightning in Philly his home.

“If you can tell me, ‘I can’t,’ then you can.
If you spell cat, you can spell anything.”
This is what I tell fearful students when
they falter stammering and stuttering.
“Go talk among yourselves, participate.
Write. Don’t erase. Cross out mistakes. Go on.
Neatness gets no points. Why? Because it’s fake.”
A teacher mustn’t stop anyone from
being spontaneous. What of crazy
people, you ask, or those anarchists who
do wrong things and think they’re right? We can teach.
When you see enemies and hate them too
wanting to kill or maim at least causing
some pain, say, “Good morning,” and keep walking.

Gay guy walks by in extremely tight pants
nothing left to the imagination.
Crazy man sings who is a Jamaican
by the accent he relentlessly chants
not scaring off anyone in the park.
Other than that it’s quiet on this first
day of spring. Winter’s dead. Smile. Painful birth
is over. Warmth is in the breeze, in dark
there’s light. The sun is finally shining.
Maybe he can walk, the man who’s about
to approach in the wheelchair, his hand out
asking for money. He could be faking
but I grab at my change and hold it out
giving him the benefit of a doubt.

Loose pencils make everything dirty
rubbing against them. If you don’t contain
them in a box in your bag don’t complain
because you have to expect that really
and can’t begrudge the smudge. Gladly I sit
write with this uncontained pencil of mine
trying to measure the mile I’ve just climbed
which is not the same mile as I walk it
in the city from schoolhouse to flat park.
I love New York, don’t get me wrong, but way
up the mountain on a rock I can take
off my clothes for a little while and start
to rest until the rain and cold make me
dress again. There’s nothing like nudity.

I saw the bluebird first, its beating soft
red breast. Young water snake, I looked for it
next settled near the dock but it hadn’t
risen yet or already’d slithered off.
The pond’s cold. I won’t dive in. It is flogged
by nasty winds abstractly shattering
the sky on its surface like leaves fluttering
while real fallen ones near by jump like frogs.
I’m so happy I can’t believe my eyes.
The barn swallows have returned from the south
coming like a promised kiss on the mouth.
Friends are welcome even when a surprise.
Pleasant remembered all but forgotten
thoughts bring the warm sun with them when they come.

After a windy night the ground is full
Of wilting blossoms on broken branches
That are scattered all around. Their chances
Looked good to grow and bear fruit unmindful
Of summer’s lightning and the autumn’s fire.
Oak leaves so young their color’s not yet green
Linger yellow and there is still a gleam
On the red edges of acorn buds. Dire
Fate has placed all of them here on this dark
Unbending branch that refused to give way
And snapped where their heavy bearded stem stayed
Attached to pliant bark becoming hard.
Poor things that have to end before they start.
What did God have in mind? It breaks my heart.

It is cold enough that my urine steams
the dark dead leaves spattering them even
more darkly. My own constant smoky breath
vanishes in the branches overhead
where the new unfurling leaves themselves could
be soft hazy flames burning off the wood.
Right now there is no end to what I hear
which is the quiet. No human sound’s here
but the loose pencil on the page forming
the words you read. As I write I’m seeing
faces form in the bark of trees around
us watching. Now an insect’s voice whirs round
kind of like a distant singing woman’s.
Even alone humans come to humans.

Frog eggs or clouds reflected in the pond?
Frog eggs. Everything has its opposite.
If you have happy thoughts you’ll have sad ones.
Just thought is what I try to meditate.
Startled the mallard hen bursts from the breast
and flies low over the water leaving
a dozen eggs there in her grassy nest.
Anything sudden might be death coming.
That’s why we jump at sound. That’s why we jump
at sights abruptly perceived, fast awake
when the sudden snake uncoils, not a stump
out of sight. Not that we’re afraid of snakes.
The black fly caught on the frog’s sticky tongue
Was comfortably here then poof it’s gone.

I’ve just spilled some coffee on Bernadette’s
new book leaving the aromatic stain
drying on the pages that will remain
as long as her words are there. Those sonnets
of hers smell so good you can taste them. She
does put a lot of food in a poem.
There might as well be coffee on them. Mmmm
reading Bernadette will make you hungry.
Baudelaire says poets and cooks really
must appeal to all the senses and keep
us present. Bernie could cook, but not sleep
In the East Village where the night’s noisy
so she left us for the distant quiet
Mountains. That doesn’t mean she won’t riot.

A squirrel just walked across my shoulder
like I wasn’t there and didn’t matter
part of the bench, a kind of nothingness
who thought for a moment that a hand pressed
on him like an old friend’s familiar
enough to touch, but that was peculiar
and much more likely a panhandler strange
and intruding about to ask for change
or could it be suddenly a crazy
man was about to grab and strangle me?
Calmly getting ready for a fight I
saw the bushy tail right between my eyes
not a friend’s or beggar’s fingers uncurled
no murderer’s. Death shrank into a squirrel.

Right now I am sitting in the best spot
in the park. Here the sun’s still coming down.
Some terrible happy little boys are
tearing up a bush in a game of war.
In a slower less violent race a
cripple walks by dragging his left leg that
I hardly notice looking at his face.
He’s handsome but also keeps his own pace
which gives to him, more than his beauty, grace.
A man shakes his cane as if to give chase
to the boys who do take off running past.
The ravaged bush is almost as it was.
Off the old man goes himself with his cane
tap tap tap tap tapping taps all the same.

Old childhood friend, how are you doing on
this day the politicians have chosen
to remember you and those like you who
go off and die in war? I know for you
it wasn’t patriotic duty. As
I you were mad at yourself perhaps
fallen out of love and the girl knocked up
You went to Vietnam. Your son’s grown up
has children of his own. Your folks and mine
are still alive and lunch together. I
looked for your name on the black marble wall
so many names I couldn’t read them all
sobbing and wondering why it is right
I am still here and you were sacrificed.

I’m cooking while I write this sonnet
poaching asparagus sprinkling them all
with some chili powder shaking the stalks
squeezing on a lemon. These tastes will set
and mix as the vegetables lose steam
and begin to chill. Heat, boil chicken broth
an onion and garlic. Spoon off the froth.
Dice tomatoes and dump that in. Then clean
chop parsley and water cress together.
Wait letting the soup reduce simmering.
Kill the fire as you drop the herbs in
to enhance their color and their flavor.
Overcooked food fades on the tongue. Food’s heard.
Say bread. You see and smell and taste the word.

My mouth is as slimy as a warm snail.
Walking down the mountain navigating
Sharp rocks and the loose snapping sticks lying
In wait to strike at my legs on the trail
All that is wet is oozing out of me.
My forehead drips, drips soak my shirt, armpits
And chest. Drops add up close as notes birds sit
To sing turn into song. I kneel to be
Nearer the cold spring, reach dipping my hand
Bringing up a palm of it to my mouth
Gulp and dip and gulp till I’ve had enough
Splashing all of my face as the deer and
Green flies settled to drink my drying sweat
Fly off again. The end of thirst is rest.

My only brother with his bulldozer
Pushed the brush away from the day lilies
Uprooting thorns and sumac completely
Around the bed revealing for Mother
Those common flowers in all their glory.
Now if only she’ll come to look at them
Making her way to the lower yard and
Sitting on the old swing near the swamp see
How the hard green stalk shooting up becomes
Petals sharp as comets like the fireworks
Are going to explode on July the Fourth.
Look, here she comes to watch the explosions
As the night with a swallow swoops above.
There’s nothing animates us more than love.

It rained all around us but here last night
the valley was soaked but not the mountain.
We saw the lightning and hoped uncertain.
The heat and biting flies are gone. My sight
is like I took off my glasses, subtle
haze, loss of definition in a mist.
The luxurious gusts of wind I’ve wished
for have come across the water, ripple
and bathe me with the promise of a storm.
How calm the world is waiting, the brown field
the dried up grass. More and more I can feel
drops of rain on my arm begin to form
in wind growing heavier with the wet
like notes of a bird’s song not finished yet.

As I put my nose in milkweed blossoms
their resemblance to lilacs reminding
me now of the cold early spring sniffing
up the heavy fragrance happily some
bees move around me in such a good mood
none of them try to sting and keep humming
along my skin and the flower grazing
and finding there what will be honey food.
Fluttering butterfly startling my eyes
sticks its slender black thin proboscis in
the abundant overflowing. Walking
home patchouli’s in the air, a surprise
that’s wonderful because I like the smell
but if you don’t, it must be living hell.

She completely sparkles, the girl talking
to her father in a conversation
that must be a little funny because
she starts to laugh as well as talk, talking
of her final destination perhaps
leaving this very morning on a trip
from Lancaster on the platform going
east to Philadelphia, New York and
every other point. Then her mother
who’s been watching men working on the tracks
finally joins in and starts to point this
way and that—Which way is the train coming?
each wears a shirt a shade of blue, the girl’s
with stars. Above the sky is blue. Clouds swirl.

At the wedding not only the living
but also the dead are here and all those
who aren’t born yet here I suppose because
there are more of them than us not living
on every side from the right to the left
ghost relatives and babies yet to bloom.
Life is a garden seeded by the groom.
At Pat and Grace’s wedding I was Best
Man. There I gave a toast about the love
that had brought all of us together
a love that’s still bringing us together.
I see old friends Tony and Sylvia
sit, the past present. Here comes the bride. Wow!
It’s all the same and yet it’s not somehow.

We would be as comfortable naked
but put on swimming suits anyway just
in case some hikers should come and find us
sunning by the stream. The unexpected
commonly happens watching what’s all around.
You point out the bright cardinal flower
and I the heron that looms before our
eyes gone in the lumbering air unbound.
We talk of favorite authors, Catullus
Whitman, Hawthorne, intimate as lovers.
I wish that I brought some Willa Cather.
If only you’d come to read her I trust
you’ll find her as I do, the violet
clinging to the cliff. There! Do you see it?

The poet slides on her bottom stubborn
as a turtle over slippery stones
sitting inching picking up the large ones
that hinder her path dropping them to form
an island in the current that’s rushing
at us. I’m on the stream’s descending slope
walking as best I can, wavering and grope
ready to fall and hurt myself getting
safely up to my waist and then my neck.
“What do you call that flower?” “Jewel Weed.”
“It’s beautiful. I think we’re in Eden.”
“We are. I can see a snake,” Bernadette
says—It is peeking from the rocks—and glides
spreading out her arms swimming by my side.