The Gulls
Here, where the gulls speak
of everything I am not,
the tall grasses not yet tall,
the tide out and in repose,
a hint of ocean floor offering
passage, seaweed torn
by time, drowned without
the sea, the briny grooves
of sand suggesting the end
of a day, ruins of rocks
accepting what is foreign
in their midst––the handle
of a kite the flight of a beer,
a dimming dusk brightened
by the red inks of autumn,
of change; of change. Here,
what falls in the distance
falls inside, a heart’s sinking
a gracing of all that’s been
floated––the walks not taken
and the walks not taken far
enough, night’s steady ascent
a quieting of the birds, a
turning down of the voices,
darkness finally holding
the mind; the mind. Here,
the world that keeps saying
No! No! No! is working
the planets into view, into
their ceremony of the infinite,
some space to orbit for
a while, for meteors and stars
to have their ancient utterances
collide and multiply; and
multiply. Here, a man
is neither a man nor a child,
only a body of the unspoken;
the unspoken.
****
The fluid rhythmic movement of this week’s poem creates an immediate sense of spaciousness, compounded by the seagull-like echoing of “Here, where…” That the gulls “speak / of everything I am not” intensifies the alienation of the human in this scene. As the seascape unfolds over the variously descriptive subordinate clauses, the reader is held in increasing suspense: we expect to reach a strong main clause telling us what, specifically, is happening “here”. Instead, all the descriptive material that seemed to be building towards a conclusion is in motion, like wheeling birds.
After glancing across at the detritus left behind by human interlopers with their kites and picnics, the descriptive flight unexpectedly pauses on a repetition that extends beyond metaphor: “… a dimming dusk brightened / by the red inks of autumn, / of change; of change.” This device, known as anaphora, is used often in the poem, and has the effect of turning a small phrase into a mantra-like point of concentration. The reiteration of “of change” also promises to keep things in motion, at least as an idea, although the sentence has ended.
The focus of the narrative moves into the speaker’s mind. “Here” is repeated, now at the end of the line, picking up a full rhyme with “beer”. As in the physical environment of the seascape, changes and uncertainties are quietly accommodated. Earlier, the poem noticed “seaweed… drowned without / the sea” and “ruins of rocks / accepting what is foreign / in their midst…”: it now yokes “a heart’s sinking / a gracing of all that’s been / floated…” This connection of opposite processes is itself wave-like. Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken echoes here: “the walks not taken / and the walks not taken far / enough…”
The speaker and his surroundings are in harmony as the scene darkens with “night’s steady ascent”. (It’s significant that night doesn’t, as per convention, “fall” in this poem – although the motion of falling, associated with sunset, the turning year and the speaker’s mood, has earlier been evoked in “…what falls in the distance/ falls inside…”) The nocturnal atmosphere intensifies, with the compelling repetition of “darkness holding the mind; the mind.” This mental “darkness” may be that of pre-sleep, the moment when our wheeling thoughts settle down, and there’s an inner relaxation and retreat of imagery comparable to “a quieting of the birds.”
Here, the world itself seems to utter a sound as raw and emphatic as the cry of the gull: “No! No! No!” At the same time, its continuing processes are irresistible. When the “ancient utterances” of “meteors and stars/ collide and multiply;/ and multiply” the collision seems generative through the doubling of the phrase, “and multiply.”
Grammatically, the poem reaches a settled place at “Here, a man…” The thought is paradoxical, though: “Here, a man / is neither a man nor a child, / only a body of the unspoken; / the unspoken.” The “body of the unspoken” might be the gull, perhaps: then this indeterminate organism becomes “the unspoken” itself, a thought which is powerful and strange, and resists theology with a wordless concept of creation. A poem that began with the human observer’s exclusion from the alien speech of the gulls seems to have travelled in a circle. By the end, the human being occupies a new space – “here” in the poem, but now freed from utterance.
- Howard Altmann’s As a Light Snow Keeps Falling, a collection of new and selected poems in English and Portuguese, is translated by the distinguished poet Eugénia de Vasconcellos, and is forthcoming from Guerra & Paz in January 2019). A previous Poem of the week by Altmann – Budapest 1944 – will be included in the collection, as will this week’s poem.