{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} {} {} {} from {} {} {} {} THE UNEXPECTED {} {} {} {} by {} {} {} {} CAROL BERGE {} {} {} {} {} {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} SONG FOR BEGINNING yes you are permitted you are allowed yes you are hallowed are given grace are valid as you are as you stand as you walk yes you are forgiven you are loved are embraced yes you are called excellent as you stand and as you simply sit yes you start thus a small step this step a hesitant a wondering as frond of fern in wind then milkweed or another step until moss and then yes you are running there is rain the air of light the leaves all the faces the finally friends o yes yes you are so beautiful as you walk as you run fly not moving in wind leaves are hallowed the sun and your face o listen all the yes finally {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} WITH WATER each of them says 'I have loved you because you have never told me i am ugly' soap sets blood: cool water removes it. there they go, down the oldest streets in each of the cities, wearing the tall hat of self-abnegation, their worn fingernails adorned with commemorative postage-stamps bearing their youthful faces. last year's rumors made cabbages sources of nutrition and potatoes were valueless: this was reversed ten years ago, and the housewives cooked them in every phase. but when the house became quiet, the night drowning in denigration, 'i have loved you well, mark this, mark what i have done, notice,' with water, with kettles full of hot water, to set the blood, and the next morning there they go, toward the village fountain, toward the white mistakes of soap to set it. {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} TOMCAT DOING NOTHING _for Frank Murphy_ It sits it is being an animal a male animal alive on earth it is alive. It is alive apparently motionless the atoms within are moving back toward earth it is a cat sitting apparently doing nothing. The ribcage moves the diaphragm moves slightly the lungs the digestive tract. Eyes stare straight ahead into infinity. As he sits immobile he is moving moving moving {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} UNFINISHED POEM i. to go out to the world this time dressed as a japanese printmaker, not the eyes or epicanthus, but yes, perspective as that of an island: out, out into a world, to find it earth! and more simple, complex than it seemed: reducible to a few lines with shadings, the wood to its grain rather than to the external form. what part of earth are you! and after that, to go out, perhaps dressed as a haida shaman, finding it all ocean! and strewn with cowry: lines across sand. once. the land bridged. ii. let it be an earth color; orange or hematite or dark as vital loam where rivers are, or blue of roots from the parched mesas, saved distillate of rain toward one hand. but always as this rug woven of wool from a real sheep, alive, shorn with shears and dyed perhaps with berries until brilliant, or left so: the soft natural. but always fashioned with eyes, with hands, as friends' faces, worn or young: with the nature of it evident, brought out. {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} OF ROOTS AND SOURCES (_for d. levertov_) as when the person's bones and thoughts show like branches, through the skin, through the years, overlaid in muted or fern tracery. or the voice remembered when the page is read. it is the sense of the thing to come, when discovering this face that is not new, after all: the idea opposite you which agrees with these definitions you have become. under spruce, the needles fall and fall, the new in patterns resembling letters, the past forming their base or the way through which the fine sheets climb. it is those moving near you, to remind of roots and sources, of your own leaf. {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} THE SMALL TOWN What each of us does is so interesting. Especially to each other. Interesting to each other. What we do to and with each other. This is the most interesting place on earth at the most interesting possible time. Here. Right now. We are right, now; we are right here. We are all right. Yes, we are all here. Here we are, and it is all we are. All of it is so interesting, to each other, what a place to be placed in, in history, at this time on earth! Doing what we do, the way we do it, to and with each other. And always so interested in each other. If you move here, you will automatically be here too, and you will be part of what we do a moving part of it all and therefore interesting while you are doing and being done to. Meantime, we are all here in this place and it is the best place to be more now than ever. {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} {} {} {} THE UNEXPECTED was published by Membrane {} {} Press, Milwaukee. It is now available {} {} from Light and Dust through the Grist {} {} On-Line Bookstore. Copyright (C) 1976 by {} {} Carol Berge. {} {} {} {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}