WOMAN IN NET: There was a house, there were clothes—
DUKE: I played with horses, cavaliers—
TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE: And you, sir, who are you?
TOWN CHRONICLER: Me? I don’t … Excuse me, ma’am, I don’t know me.
WALKING MAN: Who am I?
WOMAN ATOP THE BELFRY (singing softly):
When I tell you yes,
you will embrace
the no,
embrace
the empty
space of him,
his hollow
fullness—
(pause)
There you are no longer
alone,
no longer
alone,
and you are not
just one there, and
never will be
only
one—
(silence)
WALKING MAN:
There
I touch him?
His inner self?
His gulf?
WOMAN ATOP THE BELFRY:
And he,
he also
touches you
from there,
and his touch—
WALKING MAN:
No one
has ever touched me
in that way?
WOMAN IN NET:
Two human specks
a mother
and
her child—
WALKING MAN:
What more must I do? My legs
can hardly carry me, my life thread
becomes thinner, a moment more
and I’ll be gone. And you were right,
my wife, righter than me—
there is no there, there is
no there,
and even if I walk
for all of time
I will not get there, not
alive. So many days
have passed
since I left home,
and all in vain, no purpose, but
the passion still remains inside me
like a curse,
walk onward,
walk—
WOMAN ATOP THE BELFRY:
How miserable to be
so right,
while you were wiser
and far bolder.
Get up,
go and be
like him as much as
one alive can be
like the dead—without dying.
Conceive him,
yet be your death, too,
almost.
Like him
be now, but only till
the shadow of his end
falls
on the shadow
of your being.
And there, my love,
among the shadows,
in the netherworld
of father-son,
there will come
peace—for him,
for you.
DUKE:
Listen to her, sir
(my subject,
though subjected now
to no one), listen:
faithful are the wounds
of she who loves. Do it, and if not—
then you have sealed my fate,
our fate,
and we are nothing—
all of us who walk—
but a ripple over death,
a feeble sign, unreadable,
in the dense rock, from which
a wise but uncourageous sculptor
carved the merest hint of us, courageous
but not genius, or genius but surely
not merciful.
Go,
upend time,
conceive him and then die
with him, and be reborn
out of his death.
WALKING MAN:
Only the passion remains
in me, like a curse,
a disease—
walk, walk more, and
more.
Perhaps at some last border
where my wisdom cannot reach,
I will set down
this heavy load and then
take one small step backward,
no more, one pace
across the world,
a concession,
a confession:
I am here,
he is
there,
stands between us.
Thus to stand,
and then, slowly,
to know,
to fill with knowledge
as a wound fills up
with blood:
this is
to be
man.
WALKERS:
And at that moment,
with those words,
the world grew
dark: a shadow
struck us all.
A wall.
A wall stood in our way. A massive
wall of rock bisected,
cut the world
right through.
A wall. It wasn’t here before,
it simply wasn’t!
A thousand times we’ve circled
round the town,
up and down these hills
until we know each stone and crevice, and
suddenly—a wall.
Perhaps we did not notice?
Perhaps we passed it
in our sleep? It was not here,
it wasn’t! Then how? Then what?
From the sky? Or sprouted
from the ground?
Now it’s here, it’s here,
and maybe—
Could it be? Possible? But no,
my friends, no, science won’t allow
such an assumption! But perhaps
our longings will? Perhaps
despair allows it?
Coldness
suddenly spreads
through our limbs. A cool shadow
cast upon us, slashing our world
like an ax,
like then, yes,
like the moment
of disaster—
And he,
the one,
the walking one,
the lonely,
nears the wall.
One step and then another. Fearful,
feet defeated, walking yet recoiling,
a grasshopper
beside it.
WOMAN IN NET: Enough! I’m going back.
DUKE: But we’re not there yet. And what if there is right here, now, my lady, just behind the wall?
WOMAN IN NET: You listen to me, m’lord: farther than this we won’t make it alive.
DUKE: Please, don’t go.
WOMAN IN NET: Just so I understand, m’lord—you asking me to stay?
DUKE: When you are here, I am not afraid.
WOMAN IN NET: Give me your hand, m’lord.
WALKERS:
And he, facing the wall,
head cocked, listening,
awaits an answer. Where,
where will he go, where will we go:
along the wall? Or just stand here
and wait?
For whom? For what?
And for how long?
And as it always is with him, we know,
the feet. A tremble rises
from the shins, the body
tenses, head slowly lifts up
and straightens, and he walks. He walks.
It’s good. This way is good. And everything
comes back to life along with him, one foot
lifts up, then steps back down, a step
and one more step,
one more, he walks,
walks and steps, steps
and strikes, he walks
in place—
in place? Yes, treading
in one place, a step,
another, one more step,
his eyes upon the wall, walking
with
out walking, walking,
dreaming, walking
with himself, from himself
to himself—
WALKING MAN:
Here I will fall
now I will fall—
I do not fall.
Now, here,
the heart will stop—
it does not stop—
TOWN CHRONICLER:
Here is shadow
and fog,
frost
rising
from a dark pit.
Now,
now I will fall—
WALKERS:
He does
not fall
and does not
fail, he walks, before the wall
he walks, a step,
another, one more step,
an hour goes by, another hour, sun sets
sun rises, weakened limbs. The shadows
of our bodies swallowed up
into the darkness as we walk,
we all walk
there—
And sometimes it does seem
that there is something moving in the wall.
It breathes. We do not say
a word. More than anything
we fear
the hope. Of what awaits beyond the wall
we do not dare to think. At dawn,
and twilight, too, our bodies elongate,
we grow into extremely slender
giants, silhouettes. And sometimes
deep inside there floats a golden speck,
fading from one, skipping to the other,
and this we do not speak of either. We walk in gloom.
Across the way, on gnarled rock,
a spider spins a web, spreads out his taut,
clear net. Then he creates a recess
and he burrows deep inside it—
Our faces
are sealed, our feet
strike, hit the earth,
the earth is also a wall.
The sky above as well, perhaps.
Walk, walk more, constantly
walk so as not to be crushed
between the walls. One step,
another, another step, our bleary eyes
see only humps of rocky stone,
scabs of brown and gray, and
a thin spiderweb waving
in the breeze—
Sunset pours its light upon the wall.
It almost draws attention for a moment. That light
of golden-red. Warm, appeasing
light. Since the day my daughter drowned, I gather up
each moment of beauty and grace, for her.
And I,
my friends,
ever since,
have looked
at things of beauty twice.
Oh, m’lord, I swear,
I’m just like you, except that
I don’t have the words you have
from education. But Lady of the Nets,
you move me so each time
you speak of your son. Well, m’lord,
that’s because poems suddenly
tumble out my mouth. It is the same
with me, my lady: poetry
is the language
of my grief.
Look—
there—
one green leaf.
Wondrous how it managed to sprout
here and survive in the naked,
arid rock. A fly lands on the leaf,
cleans its body,
scrubs and polishes
translucent wings—
We walk, alert, watching
the fly like a riddle—
vibrant, full of life, of lust;
it hovers and then
lands again, playful,
it should be more careful near the web.
But no—
the fool has touched the spiderweb,
brushed it with its wing,
now lost.
Disaster here, we know, instantly
now, disaster, its cold fingers
on our lips.
We walk fast, we walk
hard, threads bind.
The fly struggles, tries to take flight,
buzzes so loudly the sky might tear,
and its mouth opens wide:
What are you trying to say?
And what is it you know now,
that you did not know
when you were spawned?
A day or two later
at dusk, half asleep,
we notice that our stride
has changed. We walk, we step
so quickly, our skin bristles, what is it?
The earth, it seems, is softer?
Opening up to furrows
and dimples? Our feet understand
before we do, as they strike the earth,
deepening, dust rises,
backs straighten, eyes glimmer—
Each of us kneels down
upon the earth, digs into it with
hands and feet, with nails. Digs
quickly, like an animal,
and it trembles at our touch. Our hands
suddenly light, supple, fingers knead,
whole bodies dig in dirt and dust.
TOWN CHRONICLER:
My wife,
she, too.
Her lovely shoulders
moved, hovered.
An agile shape
danced in her
sorrow-heavy body,
slipped away, like moth
from dusty lamp …
She stopped. Wiped her forehead
with her hand.
I took my life
in my hands and smiled.
She smiled back! Up and down
I wiggled both my brows.
She smiled some more!
I went back to digging.
WALKERS:
The earth arches, curves itself
toward us, as if having waited
for a long time to be dug,
dug like this, for people such as us
to dig through it—we have a use now.
We sense how much it wanted
to be wallowed in, rejoiced in, laughed into—
tears and blood and sweat
are all we’ve piled into it always. When—
tell me—when has
someone laughed
into the earth?
The shadow
of the wall grows
longer over us, its blackness sharp
and cool. Teeth of iron
plow us with their umbra.
Vigorously, we fall
into earth’s lap, turn over
in her, inhale her warmth
and breath, and she—the mother
of all life, and so the mother
of all dead, she is bereaved-in-life,
warm and fluttering in our hands,
as though begging us to go on,
to dredge up from her womb
the sweet desires of youth entombed
in her, the sweetness
of childhood which, in her,
has turned
into dust.
CENTAUR:
Imprisoned
in my room,
on my cursed body-desk,
I finally have written. Like fingers
probing crumbled earth,
I wrote the story.
WALKERS:
As day fades,
we linger by the wall
among deep trenches:
scars that we inflicted on the earth.
From time to time
our trembling glances fall
into their depths,
but quickly
turn away.
And he, the walker, rises
from the dust and looks at us,
and now it seems, for the first time,
his eyes greet us with kind blue light.
He smiles warmly to us each, and also,
so it seems, to those
whom each of us carries inside.
Soundlessly, with lips alone,
he whispers: Thank you.
Then turns, removes his clothes,
and here now he is
naked. His body is
so white,
human.
And down he goes
into the pit
he dug, and lies
there on his back, and
puts his arms
along his sides, and shuts
his eyes.
We stand.
Time comes
and starts
to rush: the cobbler
and his midwife
help the teacher
to remove his shoes.
The woman in the nets
and her friend the duke,
hand in hand, fleet fingered—
she from within,
he from without—
untangle the shock
around her body.
The chronicler and his wife
quietly help each other
remove their torn clothes,
both excited,
agitated,
and suddenly
they look
so young.
Naked
we stand,
taking our leave
with a gaze. Each of us
alone again.
Each bent over
his crater,
each descending
to her grave.
Then,
like a predator,
fast and sharp,
the night
lunges.
CENTAUR:
Now at last I understand:
The father does not move
his child. I breathe life
not into my son.
It is myself whom I adjure,
with words,
with visions,
with the scarecrow figures
glued with straw
and mud, and with
a poor man’s wisdom,
lest I cease and turn to stone.
Lest I cease and turn
to stone.
In the cold white space
between the words,
it is my spirit
that is felled.
I alone flutter like prey
caught in the jaws
of finality.
For myself,
for my own soul, I fight
against that which diminishes,
which decimates
and dulls.
My whole life
now,
my whole life
on the tip
of a pen.
WALKING MAN:
It was
silent.
I lay
yoked
by loneliness:
the dolor
of a man
in earth.
The quiet voices
of the night