Rivers and Mountains Read online

  Rivers and Mountains

  Poems

  John Ashbery

  Contents

  Publisher’s Note

  These Lacustrine Cities

  Rivers and Mountains,

  Last Month

  Civilization and Its Discontents

  If the Birds Knew

  Into the Dusk-Charged Air

  The Ecclesiast

  The Recent Past

  The Thousand Islands

  A Blessing in Disguise

  Clepsydra

  The Skaters

  About the Author

  Publisher’s Note

  Long before they were ever written down, poems were organized in lines. Since the invention of the printing press, readers have become increasingly conscious of looking at poems, rather than hearing them, but the function of the poetic line remains primarily sonic. Whether a poem is written in meter or in free verse, the lines introduce some kind of pattern into the ongoing syntax of the poem’s sentences; the lines make us experience those sentences differently. Reading a prose poem, we feel the strategic absence of line.

  But precisely because we’ve become so used to looking at poems, the function of line can be hard to describe. As James Longenbach writes in The Art of the Poetic Line, “Line has no identity except in relation to other elements in the poem, especially the syntax of the poem’s sentences. It is not an abstract concept, and its qualities cannot be described generally or schematically. It cannot be associated reliably with the way we speak or breathe. Nor can its function be understood merely from its visual appearance on the page.” Printed books altered our relationship to poetry by allowing us to see the lines more readily. What new challenges do electronic reading devices pose?

  In a printed book, the width of the page and the size of the type are fixed. Usually, because the page is wide enough and the type small enough, a line of poetry fits comfortably on the page: What you see is what you’re supposed to hear as a unit of sound. Sometimes, however, a long line may exceed the width of the page; the line continues, indented just below the beginning of the line. Readers of printed books have become accustomed to this convention, even if it may on some occasions seem ambiguous—particularly when some of the lines of a poem are already indented from the left-hand margin of the page.

  But unlike a printed book, which is stable, an ebook is a shape-shifter. Electronic type may be reflowed across a galaxy of applications and interfaces, across a variety of screens, from phone to tablet to computer. And because the reader of an ebook is empowered to change the size of the type, a poem’s original lineation may seem to be altered in many different ways. As the size of the type increases, the likelihood of any given line running over increases.

  Our typesetting standard for poetry is designed to register that when a line of poetry exceeds the width of the screen, the resulting run-over line should be indented, as it might be in a printed book. Take a look at John Ashbery’s “Disclaimer” as it appears in two different type sizes.

  Each of these versions of the poem has the same number of lines: the number that Ashbery intended. But if you look at the second, third, and fifth lines of the second stanza in the right-hand version of “Disclaimer,” you’ll see the automatic indent; in the fifth line, for instance, the word ahead drops down and is indented. The automatic indent not only makes poems easier to read electronically; it also helps to retain the rhythmic shape of the line—the unit of sound—as the poet intended it. And to preserve the integrity of the line, words are never broken or hyphenated when the line must run over. Reading “Disclaimer” on the screen, you can be sure that the phrase “you pause before the little bridge, sigh, and turn ahead” is a complete line, while the phrase “you pause before the little bridge, sigh, and turn” is not.

  Open Road has adopted an electronic typesetting standard for poetry that ensures the clearest possible marking of both line breaks and stanza breaks, while at the same time handling the built-in function for resizing and reflowing text that all ereading devices possess. The first step is the appropriate semantic markup of the text, in which the formal elements distinguishing a poem, including lines, stanzas, and degrees of indentation, are tagged. Next, a style sheet that reads these tags must be designed, so that the formal elements of the poems are always displayed consistently. For instance, the style sheet reads the tags marking lines that the author himself has indented; should that indented line exceed the character capacity of a screen, the run-over part of the line will be indented further, and all such runovers will look the same. This combination of appropriate coding choices and style sheets makes it easy to display poems with complex indentations, no matter if the lines are metered or free, end-stopped or enjambed.

  Ultimately, there may be no way to account for every single variation in the way in which the lines of a poem are disposed visually on an electronic reading device, just as rare variations may challenge the conventions of the printed page, but with rigorous quality assessment and scrupulous proofreading, nearly every poem can be set electronically in accordance with its author’s intention. And in some regards, electronic typesetting increases our capacity to transcribe a poem accurately: In a printed book, there may be no way to distinguish a stanza break from a page break, but with an ereader, one has only to resize the text in question to discover if a break at the bottom of a page is intentional or accidental.

  Our goal in bringing out poetry in fully reflowable digital editions is to honor the sanctity of line and stanza as meticulously as possible—to allow readers to feel assured that the way the lines appear on the screen is an accurate embodiment of the way the author wants the lines to sound. Ever since poems began to be written down, the manner in which they ought to be written down has seemed equivocal; ambiguities have always resulted. By taking advantage of the technologies available in our time, our goal is to deliver the most satisfying reading experience possible.

  These Lacustrine Cities

  These lacustrine cities grew out of loathing

  Into something forgetful, although angry with history.

  They are the product of an idea: that man is horrible, for instance,

  Though this is only one example.

  They emerged until a tower

  Controlled the sky, and with artifice dipped back

  Into the past for swans and tapering branches,

  Burning, until all that hate was transformed into useless love.

  Then you are left with an idea of yourself

  And the feeling of ascending emptiness of the afternoon

  Which must be charged to the embarrassment of others

  Who fly by you like beacons.

  The night is a sentinel.

  Much of your time has been occupied by creative games

  Until now, but we have all-inclusive plans for you.

  We had thought, for instance, of sending you to the middle of the desert,

  To a violent sea, or of having the closeness of the others be air

  To you, pressing you back into a startled dream

  As sea-breezes greet a child’s face.

  But the past is already here, and you are nursing some private project.

  The worst is not over, yet I know

  You will be happy here. Because of the logic

  Of your situation, which is something no climate can outsmart.

  Tender and insouciant by turns, you see

  You have built a mountain of something,

  Thoughtfully pouring all your energy into this single monument,

  Whose wind is desire starching a petal,

  Whose disappointment broke into a rainbow of tears.

  Rivers and Mountains

  On the secret map the assassins
/>   Cloistered, the Moon River was marked

  Near the eighteen peaks and the city

  Of humiliation and defeat—wan ending

  Of the trail among dry, papery leaves,

  Gray-brown quills like thoughts

  In the melodious but vast mass of today’s

  Writing through fields and swamps

  Marked, on the map, with little bunches of weeds.

  Certainly squirrels lived in the woods

  But devastation and dull sleep still

  Hung over the land, quelled

  The rioters turned out of sleep in the peace of prisons

  Singing on marble factory walls

  Deaf consolation of minor tunes that pack

  The air with heavy invisible rods

  Pent in some sand valley from

  Which only quiet walking ever instructs.

  The bird flew over and

  Sat—there was nothing else to do.

  Do not mistake its silence for pride or strength

  Or the waterfall for a harbor

  Full of light boats that is there

  Performing for thousands of people

  In clothes some with places to go

  Or games. Sometimes over the pillar

  Of square stones its impact

  Makes a light print.

  So going around cities

  To get to other places you found

  It all on paper but the land

  Was made of paper processed

  To look like ferns, mud or other

  Whose sea unrolled its magic

  Distances and then rolled them up

  Its secret was only a pocket

  After all but some corners are darker

  Than these moonless nights spent as on a raft

  In the seclusion of a melody heard

  As though through trees

  And you can never ignite their touch

  Long but there were homes

  Flung far out near the asperities

  Of a sharp, rocky pinnacle

  And other collective places

  Shadows of vineyards whose wine

  Tasted of the forest floor

  Fisheries and oyster beds

  Tides under the pole

  Seminaries of instruction, public

  Places for electric light

  And the major tax assessment area

  Wrinkled on the plan

  Of election to public office

  Sixty-two years old bath and breakfast

  The formal traffic, shadows

  To make it not worth joining

  After the ox had pulled away the cart.

  Your plan was to separate the enemy into two groups

  With the razor-edged mountains between.

  It worked well on paper

  But their camp had grown

  To be the mountains and the map

  Carefully peeled away and not torn

  Was the light, a tender but tough bark

  On everything. Fortunately the war was solved

  In another way by isolating the two sections

  Of the enemy’s navy so that the mainland

  Warded away the big floating ships.

  Light bounced off the ends

  Of the small gray waves to tell

  Them in the observatory

  About the great drama that was being won

  To turn off the machinery

  And quietly move among the rustic landscape

  Scooping snow off the mountains rinsing

  The coarser ones that love had

  Slowly risen in the night to overflow

  Wetting pillow and petal

  Determined to place the letter

  On the unassassinated president’s desk

  So that a stamp could reproduce all this

  In detail, down to the last autumn leaf

  And the affliction of June ride

  Slowly out into the sun-blackened landscape.

  Last Month

  No changes of support—only

  Patches of gray, here where sunlight fell.

  The house seems heavier

  Now that they have gone away.

  In fact it emptied in record time.

  When the flat table used to result

  A match recedes, slowly, into the night.

  The academy of the future is

  Opening its doors and willing

  The fruitless sunlight streams into domes,

  The chairs piled high with books and papers.

  The sedate one is this month’s skittish one

  Confirming the property that,

  A timeless value, has changed hands.

  And you could have a new automobile

  Ping pong set and garage, but the thief

  Stole everything like a miracle.

  In his book there was a picture of treason only

  And in the garden, cries and colors.

  Civilization and Its Discontents

  A people chained to aurora

  I alone disarming you

  Millions of facts of distributed light

  Helping myself with some big boxes

  Up the steps, then turning to no neighborhood;

  The child’s psalm, slightly sung

  In the hall rushing into the small room.

  Such fire! leading away from destruction.

  Somewhere in outer ether I glimpsed you

  Coming at me, the solo barrier did it this time,

  Guessing us staying, true to be at the blue mark

  Of the threshold. Tired of planning it again and again,

  The cool boy distant, and the soaked-up

  Afterthought, like so much rain, or roof.

  The miracle took you in beside him.

  Leaves rushed the window, there was clear water and the sound of a lock.

  Now I never see you much any more.

  The summers are much colder than they used to be

  In that other time, when you and I were young.

  I miss the human truth of your smile,

  The halfhearted gaze of your palms,

  And all things together, but there is no comic reign

  Only the facts you put to me. You must not, then,

  Be very surprised if I am alone: it is all for you,

  The night, and the stars, and the way we used to be.

  There is no longer any use in harping on

  The incredible principle of daylong silence, the dark sunlight

  As only the grass is beginning to know it,

  The wreath of the north pole,

  Festoons for the late return, the shy pensioners

  Agasp on the lamplit air. What is agreeable

  Is to hold your hand. The gravel

  Underfoot. The time is for coming close. Useless

  Verbs shooting the other words far away.

  I had already swallowed the poison

  And could only gaze into the distance at my life

  Like a saint’s with each day distinct.

  No heaviness in the upland pastures. Nothing

  In the forest. Only life under the huge trees

  Like a coat that has grown too big, moving far away,

  Cutting swamps for men like lapdogs, holding its own,

  Performing once again, for you and for me.

  If the Birds Knew

  It is better this year.

  And the clothes they wear

  In the gray unweeded sky of our earth

  There is no possibility of change

  Because all of the true fragments are here.

  So I was glad of the fog’s

  Taking me to you

  Undetermined summer thing eaten

  Of grief and passage—where you stay.

  The wheel is ready to turn again.

  When you have gone it will light up,

  The shadow of the spokes to drown

  Your departure where the summer knells

  Speak to grown dawn.

&
nbsp; There is after all a kind of promise

  To the affair of the waiting weather.

  We have learned not to be tired

  Among the lanterns of this year of sleep

  But someone pays—no transparency

  Has ever hardened us before

  To long piers of silence, and hedges

  Of understanding, difficult passing

  From one lesson to the next and the coldness

  Of the consistency of our lives’

  Devotion to immaculate danger.

  A leaf would have settled the disturbance

  Of the atmosphere, but at that high

  Valley’s point disbanded

  Clouds that rocks smote newly

  The person or persons involved

  Parading slowly through the sunlit fields

  Not only as though the danger did not exist

  But as though the birds were in on the secret.

  Into the Dusk-Charged Air

  Far from the Rappahannock, the silent

  Danube moves along toward the sea.

  The brown and green Nile rolls slowly

  Like the Niagara’s welling descent.

  Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire

  Near where it joined the Cher.

  The St. Lawrence prods among black stones

  And mud. But the Arno is all stones.

  Wind ruffles the Hudson’s

  Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing.

  But the yellowish, gray Tiber

  Is contained within steep banks. The Isar

  Flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan’s water

  Courses over the flat land. The Allegheny and its boats

  Were dark blue. The Moskowa is

  Gray boats. The Amstel flows slowly.

  Leaves fall into the Connecticut as it passes

  Underneath. The Liffey is full of sewage,

  Like the Seine, but unlike

  The brownish-yellow Dordogne.

  Mountains hem in the Colorado

  And the Oder is very deep, almost

  As deep as the Congo is wide.

  The plain banks of the Neva are

  Gray. The dark Saône flows silently.

  And the Volga is long and wide

  As it flows across the brownish land. The Ebro

  Is blue, and slow. The Shannon flows

  Swiftly between its banks. The Mississippi