NOTES FROM THE CASTLE OF SOLITUDE

1.

The hush of the forest turned us back

from the footpath.

As mid-day’s darkness deepened,

a silent rider passed the mouth of the garden.

Though a prisoner of time

it was time you escaped.

German bread in the morning,

Chinese noodles at noon;

dreams each night take you back to Beijing,

where the rider disappears,

where you come to a country

you suddenly no longer know,

the language too dark, too deep.

2.

How does a poet

deal with rhetoric?

The perfumed breeze from outdoor bars,

the clinks of fork and glass

bear no rhythmic notes.

You were born to sing

autumn’s elegies

unfurling again above the ancient castle

for love that must be lost,

for the bus, its windows softly lit, 

pulling in at dusk,

and for its heading off.

For once more wandering through your memory.

3.

stirs my superstitions.

Thrice a day, the Hero pen

drinks its black milk.

“Chinese,” I say to myself,

“I must nourish it,

my poor dummy

who eats but says nothing.”

This ink refracts a history

more precious than gold,

a well of Chinese ink

deep with black time, black blood,

driving even the dead to raise the pen. 

Soon it will contrive your homesickness 

as lines of words

staring back at you.

4.

The empire’s map shrank daily

like a coat dropped from heaven,

still too big to wear.

To praise, you must learn irony.

For a skyful of snow,

one stable must be black.

To be Du Fu, you must also be Kafka.

Close the book, or shred

the pale words you wrote,

as if a child

setting out on a journey

beneath a threatening crag, 

while winter follows 

straight for you.

5.

Windy days, I think of you,

Du Fu, gazing north,

a thousand miles from home,

sad autumns on high mountains,

or drifting alone

beneath the black canopy

of a bobbing skiff.

The wind rises.

The old mare in your body,

did she whimper? 

Your Li Bai and Cen Shen, where were they?

When your shack fell apart, you flung yourself

toward the infinitude of the universe.

You brought Chinese to an undying ripeness.

No matter where you go, every poet is your heir.

Come—here’s wine and lit candles,

we’ll speak neither of the headsman’s axe

nor of laurels. We won’t argue.

You’ve wandered all these centuries,

come with me now—

your dreams of mountains and rivers 

and your old wife

have found rest 

in brittle weeds.

6.

Soon the man gazing at the stars

from the marble steps

will no longer be recognized

as one who lurked in the cellars

of the ancient castle. 

Face east or west,

he who has seen driving snow and sunset

already knows how to turn panic into peace. 

The Dark Ages retained their immortal weapons.

Aphrodite, face and breasts sliced off,

still worshipped, 

proof of man’s despair.

Only after your romance with the blond girl

did you see she stepped from a painting.

Day by day, summer leads

to another country, and oaks 

gone black against the snow.

7.

When I finish the poem,

winter will advance

down the forest path,

and jagged frost arise

from summer’s garden.

People leave one after another

before snow seals the mountain.

But that stone statue stays,

occasional evenings

flaring on the last window

of the ancient castle.

If you could, you’d dream of a horse

floundering in deep snow 

halfway up the mountain.

If you sent a letter,

it would never arrive.

If you cried out in human solitude,

snow would fall heavier, darker.

8.

Walking among the marble busts,

it seems one step

could erase two thousand years.

Greek warriors, wise men or sophists,

gaze at me, but never ask 

where I’m from.

From a land they’d never imagine,

where philosophers sprang from earth

and returned to earth.

Where one empress left her own monument 

completely uninscribed.

Can bronze or marble statues vanquish time?

I’d like to know. When I ask,

I see the gulf of time pour light

onto their silent foreheads.

Like a child late for class,

I hear “Shh…”

9.

One winter among many—

winter of winters.

When you write about snow, 

snow falls;

whatever you invite arrives.

Such is the song soon to be sung

of someone left behind.

These are its lyrics, steeped in the dark before snowfall.

This the buzz of the maid’s vacuum mounting the stairs, 

soon to enter your dim room,

and then to enter a poem:

the woodcutter wakes 

after death. There stands the stable, 

dim shadow on the castle grounds, 

these the innocent beasts, wintering

in the heart’s sudden gloom,

leaning close.

Solitude Castle, Stuttgart, February 1998